Background

Prominent architectural firm MCA Architects sought to improve their digital footprint to attract premier talent, secure key tenders, and build a resilient brand for sustained growth and diversification. To navigate evolving market demands and achieve their ambitious objectives, MCA partnered with our team to create and implement a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.

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Challenges

• Talent Acquisition: Attracting and retaining the right talent in a competitive architectural landscape required a more proactive and engaging online presence.  
• Improving Tender Success: Consistently securing positions on tender lists for projects aligned with their strategic goals, and winning those bids without solely relying on being the lowest bidder, necessitated a stronger demonstration of expertise and value.  
• Leadership Development: Preparing senior leaders for succession and equipping them with the skills to be effective work-winners in a digital age was a strategic priority.  
• Strengthening Brand Resilience: Building a brand that remained resilient, relevant, and recognised, particularly amidst political and economic shifts, required a consistent and impactful digital voice.  
• Driving Sector Diversification: Successfully expanding into new and emerging sectors demanded targeted outreach and clear communication of MCA's capabilities in these areas.  
• Consistent Online Engagement: Translating their expertise into a consistent and engaging online narrative across key platforms like LinkedIn needed a more structured approach to drive awareness and lead generation.

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Our Strategy

With Tiffany as fractional CMO and Alex as Account Manager, embedding strategic marketing thinking into every initiative and working as an extension of MCA's leadership team. Our collaborative approach focused on creating and implementing an effective content calendar designed to generate awareness, drive business, and position MCA as thought leaders. The core components of our strategy included:

Fractional CMO Leadership: Providing ongoing strategic marketing guidance and oversight to align marketing activities with MCA's core business objectives.

Comprehensive Content Strategy & Creation:

• Content Calendar Development: Creating and implementing a structured content calendar to ensure consistent and impactful communication across digital platforms.
• Video Production: Executing video shoots and video editing to create engaging visual content showcasing MCA's projects, expertise, and culture. This included highlighting key personnel like Fergal White, Senior Associate and Sustainability Lead, and David Pearson, Associate Director and Head of Workplace Design.  
• LinkedIn Strategy: Developing and executing a targeted LinkedIn strategy focused on thought leadership, talent attraction, and client engagement. This involved creating and distributing LinkedIn newsletters, posts, and video content.  
• Proactive Opportunity Identification & Engagement: Actively identifying strategic opportunities for MCA at key industry events, leveraging important industry dates for timely content, and securing thought leadership platforms such as podcast interviews and speaking engagements. This included comprehensive preparation support to ensure the MCA team are primed for impactful participation.
• Website Strategy: Advising on website optimisation to improve user experience and drive conversions. Recommendations included tracking key pages like Sustainability, Data Centres, and Healthcare, and conversion tracking to measure the impact of social engagement on site performance.  

Targeted Goal Achievement: Aligning all marketing efforts to support MCA's primary strategic goals:

• Talent Attraction and Retention: Showcasing MCA's culture and expertise through video and thought leadership content to attract and retain the right talent.  
• WinningTenders: Positioning MCA to win work based on reputation and expertise, not solely on price, through consistent and compelling content.  
• Leadership Development: Supporting leadership visibility and development through targeted content that highlights their expertise and insights.  
• Brand Resilience and Relevance: Reinforcing MCA's brand resilience and appeal to new sectors and clients through consistent industry conversations and thought leadership via content.
• Sector Diversification: Utilising targeted content and newsletter insights to appeal to decision-makers and future leaders, thereby supporting diversification into new sectors.  

The strategic partnership with Generate Leads has yielded substantial improvements to MCA Architects' online presence and engagement, directly contributing to their overarching business objectives:

• Enhanced LinkedIn Presence and Follower Growth: MCA Architects experienced consistent positive growth in its LinkedIn follower base, significantly expanding its reach and professional network. While overall market fluctuations in impressions can occur, engagement on strategically important content, particularly video and newsletters, remained strong, indicating a highly receptive core audience.
• Strong Performance of Video Content: Video content emerged as a standout performer in MCA's content strategy. These visual narratives consistently achieved high engagement rates and commanded significant audience attention, proving to be an effective medium for showcasing MCA's expertise, culture, and project highlights.
• Successful LinkedIn Newsletter Strategy: The firm's LinkedIn newsletters demonstrated exceptional performance and broad appeal. Newsletter article views experienced a remarkable surge, growing by over 415% in a single quarter, underscoring strong audience appetite for MCA's insights. Furthermore, email open rates for these newsletters consistently surpassed industry averages, signifying high relevance and value to subscribers.
  
  

Driving Strategic Goals: The targeted content strategy played a key role in advancing MCA's key objectives:

• Engaging video content effectively showcased MCA's dynamic culture and deep expertise, significantly bolstering efforts in talent attraction and supporting the visibility of senior leadership.
• Impactful newsletters empowered MCA to lead and shape industry conversations, thereby reinforcing the firm’s brand resilience and enhancing its attractiveness to new sectors and prospective clients. Thought leadership pieces successfully communicated MCA's stability and forward-thinking approach, cultivating trust.
• A consistent approach to targeted storytelling across platforms effectively communicated the distinct value MCA brings to projects, supporting their goal of securing tender wins based on established reputation and expertise.

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Actionable Insights & Future Strategy

Continuous analysis of performance data highlighted opportunities to further strengthen MCA's LinkedIn visibility through enhanced posting consistency and encouraging broader internal team engagement. The audience's positive response to new content underscored the importance of timely and regular communication. The ongoing strategy will continue to prioritise high-performing content, build upon the significant success of the newsletter programme by exploring optimal frequency, and maintain a consistent content schedule to support MCA’s long-term strategic objectives and sustained market relevance.

By strategically leveraging content creation, video marketing, and a targeted LinkedIn strategy, Generate Leads has empowered MCA Architects to significantly enhance their online presence, effectively communicate their value, and make tangible progress towards their key business goals.