Sheet A-701 · Guides · Issued 2026-08-16
Marketing for architects, graded like a submittal.
Marketing for architects is the work of making sure the right clients can find your firm, judge your work fairly, and remember you when the shortlist is being written. This guide covers why it decides commissions, how to score your own firm in twenty questions, and what to build at your size, including the do-it-yourself path.
The case
Why does marketing matter for an architecture firm?
Because selection happens before the interview. By the time a developer, a board, or a homeowner talks to you, they have already looked you up, formed a judgment from your website, and compared your work to two other firms. Marketing is not what wins the interview. It is what gets you into the room and what quietly confirms the decision afterward.
Architects are referred more than searched, and that fact fools firms into thinking marketing is optional. Every referral gets verified. The person who heard your name at a dinner or on a jobsite goes to a screen next, and what they find either backs the referral up or undercuts it. A firm with excellent work and a neglected site loses commissions it never knew it was considered for.
The good news is that the bar is low. Few firms keep their portfolio current, photograph finished work properly, and stay findable, which is exactly why the ones that do stand out in their region.
Punch list
The self-audit: score your firm in twenty questions
Answer honestly, one point for each yes. No partial credit; a half yes is a no. It takes ten minutes, and the score tells you exactly where the leak is.
PL-1The website
Your site loads in under three seconds on a phone.
Every project page names the building type, location, size, and your scope.
A visitor can reach a project photo within two clicks of the homepage.
The contact page gives a direct email to a person, and it works.
Something on the site has changed in the last ninety days.
PL-2The portfolio
Your best project has professional photography, shot after occupancy.
Each project page says who the client type was and what problem the design solved.
The strongest work appears first, and the weak work is cut.
At least one project shows process: a sketch, a model, a detail, a site photo.
Projects are dated, and the last three years are represented.
PL-3Being findable
Searching your firm name brings up your site first, with correct contact information.
Your Google Business Profile is claimed, current, and shows your work.
Every page has a unique title that says what the page is in plain words.
Searching your city plus your building type surfaces your firm somewhere on page one.
PL-4Presence and proof
The firm posted publicly, anywhere, in the last thirty days.
Your people are findable: names, faces, and roles.
Awards, publications, and speaking are listed somewhere current.
PL-5Measurement
You know how many inquiries came through the website last quarter.
You know which project page gets the top visits.
You ask every new inquiry how they found you, and you write the answer down.
Review stamp
What your score means
- 17 to 20
Approved
- The machine works. Hold the cadence, keep photographing finished work, and put the spare energy into publishing and relationships.
- 12 to 16
Approved as noted
- The foundation holds but commissions are leaking through the gaps, usually in photography, findability, or measurement. Fix the noted items this quarter.
- 6 to 11
Revise and resubmit
- Prospects who hear your name are not finding proof that matches your reputation. Stop everything else and rebuild the portfolio site first.
- 0 to 5
Rejected
- The work may be excellent, but on paper the firm is invisible. Start with one page, eight projects, and a working email address. That alone changes the game.
Scope by firm size
What should you be doing at your size?
Solo practice
One excellent portfolio site, a claimed Google Business Profile, and the discipline to ask every inquiry where it came from. Build the site yourself if the budget is tight; the section below shows how. Skip paid advertising, skip the CRM, and put any spare money into photographing your best built project properly.
Two to nine people
Photography becomes a budget line, and a project writeup becomes a habit at every substantial completion. Pick one channel, almost always LinkedIn for commercial work or Instagram for residential, and post real projects on a schedule someone owns. Start a simple email list of past clients, contractors, and collaborators, and send something worth reading a few times a year.
Ten to forty-nine people
Marketing is now part of someone's actual job, in writing, with hours attached. The website grows sector pages that mirror how you pursue work: healthcare, education, multifamily, whatever the strategy says. Proposals and qualification packages pull from the same project library as the site, so nothing is written twice. Completed projects get pitched to local and trade press.
Fifty and up
At this size the question changes from whether to market to whether the marketing is coherent. One brand voice across offices, a thought-leadership program with named authors, business development and marketing planned together, and a recruiting story as polished as the client story, because at this size the site is hiring as much as it is selling.
Scope by goal
Match the work to the goal
Winning first commissions. Proof and reachability beat everything. Eight strong projects, honest photography, a direct email, fast replies.
Moving up in project size. Document your largest relevant work in depth, show process and delivery, and let the portfolio argue you can carry more than you have been given.
Entering a new sector. One flagship writeup in that sector, a dedicated page that speaks its language, and direct outreach to the people who award that work. Do not wait until you have five projects to talk about one.
Recruiting talent. Name your people, show the studio, and write project stories that include how the work actually happened. Candidates read the site harder than clients do.
Means and methods
Can you build the website yourself?
Yes, if you are a solo practice or a small firm with a clean body of work. Wix Studio has the most design-forward templates of the do-it-yourself platforms and will feel familiar to anyone comfortable learning a designer's tool; standard Wix is the simpler path if you have never touched a website builder. Either way, the built-in hosting and SEO settings, and a straightforward path to connecting your own domain, remove the parts that usually go wrong. Expect a focused weekend to stand it up and an evening a month to keep it honest.
- 01
Start from a portfolio template built for architecture or photography: minimal, grid-based, image-first. Resist the generic business templates with stock handshakes.
- 02
Cut the portfolio to your best eight projects or fewer. A short portfolio of strong work reads as confidence. A long one reads as inventory.
- 03
Prepare images before uploading: consistent proportions, largest edge around 2500 pixels, no phone screenshots. The template can only be as good as what you feed it.
- 04
Write every project page in plain words: building type, location, size, your scope, and one problem the design solved. Skip the poetry. Clients are checking facts.
- 05
Use the SEO settings on every page: a unique title in plain language, a one-sentence description, alt text on every image, and your own domain connected with HTTPS on.
- 06
Publish, then test the whole site on a phone before telling anyone. That is how nearly everyone will meet it.
Know where the template ends. A DIY site can be clean, current, and credible, and for many small firms that is enough. What a template cannot do is take the photographs, keep the publishing cadence when the studio gets busy, or position the firm against the other names on the shortlist. When the inquiries you get stop matching the inquiries you want, that is the signal the website is no longer the constraint, and the strategy is.
Questions and answers
What architects ask about marketing
- Q1
What is the most important marketing asset for an architecture firm?
The portfolio website, backed by professional photography of finished work. Every other channel points back to it, and every referral gets checked against it. A firm with one excellent site and nothing else beats a firm with five neglected channels.
- Q2
How much should an architecture firm spend on marketing?
Spend follows the goal, not a formula. A solo practice chasing its first commissions needs a good site, real photography, and time, which costs far less than people expect. A firm trying to enter a new sector needs sustained effort over quarters. The pattern that fails is spending nothing for years and then making one panic purchase before a slow winter.
- Q3
Do architects need social media?
Need is the wrong test. If your clients are developers, institutions, and building owners, a steady LinkedIn presence earns its place. If your work is residential, Instagram is where homeowners already look at architecture. One channel posted consistently beats four channels abandoned in March.
- Q4
How long does marketing take to work for an architecture firm?
Commissions have long cycles, so marketing works on the same clock. A better website and portfolio start working the day they launch, because they stop losing the prospects who already look you up. New demand builds over quarters as projects publish, search picks the site up, and the referral network sees the work.
Ref A-210
If the stamp came back Revise and resubmit.
Take the punch list and fix it yourselves; that is what it is for. And if you would rather hand it to people who study how architects get chosen, that is the work we do.
Reference sheets