Communication Pactice is Vital for Built Environment Firms by Lina Jamwa- Musibi

Communication Practice is Vital for Built Environment Firms

By Lina Jamwa - Musibi

It is vital for every business to attract clients. Advertising, sales, and marketing therefore play a vital role in achieving this. Professional firms are however barred by law from advertising their services competitively and hence must come up with innovative ways of reaching their target clientele. This is where communication practice comes in. Communication is the skill of perception creation and goes a long way in creating lasting, meaningful relationships with a firm’s clientele, both actual and potential. Firms in the built environment can embrace communication practice to enhance their businesses and get clientele.

Brand positioning

Every firm has a personality - a face that its clients (actual and potential) can identify with. This is the face that communicates trust, experience and knowl edge among other key elements that make the client trust your business. Communication professionals play a vital role in positioning brands. From carefully advising on the correct colouring to visual aspects of the brand, they position the brand online and offline. They give the brand a face that can be recognized by its target clientele.

Catching the client’s attention in an already noisy world

Today’s consumer is bombarded by all manner of messages from brands desperately trying to market their goods and services. It is very easy for a firm’s message to get lost amidst all the noise. Communication professionals know how to craft messages that hit the target market right where they need it. This often results in sales for the particular firm.

Perception creation

One may be selling a red apple that is slightly soft and appear a little unappealing to the customer. Communication professionals have a way of creating perception and positioning such an apple as the best thing that ever happened to a human being. They can bring out the salient benefits that the Apple has to general health and make the customer purchase it nonetheless. This is the art of perception creation. Communication practice is vital in the creation of the desired perception. This becomes an asset for any built environment firm looking to shape the perception of its clientele regarding their firm and business in general

Media relations

Most firms desire to grow to a point of getting media attention. Dealing with the media can

Communication professionals know how to craft messages that hit the target market right where they need it. This often results in sales for the particular firm.

sometimes be a tricky affair. This is because sometimes what is newsworthy and reported does not position the said business in the desired manner. Careful handling of the media therefore becomes something that every firm needs to incorporate into their business in order to avoid situations where what goes out to the media does not portray the firm in good light.

Crisis management

In every industry there are crisis situations that cannot be avoided. Some firms collapse after going through a crisis. In the built environment, firms can be faced with heavy legal suites emanating from disputes encountered at work. They can also be faced with stringent laws that might result in loss of business, or a situation like the pandemic may arise, as recently experienced globally. Whatever crisis a firm may face, their existence can be salvaged by careful, timely reaction and communication with its clientele. Communication professionals are skilled to craft ways in which a business can communicate and recover from a crisis.

Content development

Built environment firms play a key role in creating magnificent skylines throughout the world. A lot of work goes into this. However, if this is not documented creatively, the potential client might not know what has been achieved. Communication professionals can creatively craft content that can respond to particular interests of the potential client. These can propagate

AUTHOR BIO

Lina Jamwa – Musibi is the Membership and Communications Manager at the Architectural Association of Kenya. lina@aak.or.ke the firm’s image in the face of its potential client and get them business.

Strategy

Communication practice calls for careful listening and following of the potential client’s information consumption trends as well as areas of interest. Data harvesting plays a vital part in achieving this. Firms can listen in on their clients’ and potential clients’ interests and from there, craft strategies that specifically respond to their needs.

It is important that built environment firms incorporate communication practice in their day to day businesses as it plays a vital role in the overall propagation of business.