Marketing Material & Visibility
The Design Collective gallery provides us with the unique opportunity to demonstrate and promote our design styles and interests to prospective, current and past clients. It is a public space in which we can express our company’s ethos and attract like-minded clients. In addition it enables us to create strong relationships with other designers and Nottingham Trent University who we regularly invite to exhibit work in our gallery.
The Design Collective work hard to retain a strong relationship with current and past clients, extending invitations to events the company are involved in such as design shows and exhibitions as well as invitations to new exhibitions and opening nights at our gallery, enabling us to keep in contact with all of our clients and display our current design work.
Being a young practice we embrace Internet publicity, using Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to update followers on current projects, new additions to our gallery and events in our practice, a key marketing strategy to promote our inviting, friendly and flexibly approach. Keep up to date with The Design Collective by visit our pages now.
The founding of TDC arose through a RIBA-approved competition taken on by Miles and Anna whilst they were working together at B.I.G. Designing in their free time they soon realised they needed help, resulting in the birth of TDC.
See Route to the Design Collective
Following this competition and the attention our designers received TDC are keen to enter as many RIBA-approved competitions, that embrace our design ethos, as financially possible, raising public awareness and providing us with the opportunity to demonstrate our efficient and collective design skills.
Our practice collaborates with other small architectural practices that share our design interests and ethos. Instead of working in competition with one another we form a bond that allows us to work together when project numbers are high, providing each other with extra work instead of loosing potential clients to bigger companies who do not share our design interests.
The 7 P's of Marketing
SWOT Analysis
Marketing Management
Number of architectural practices in Nottingham:
Number of architectural design house practices in the UK and East Midlands:
Pestel Analysis
Political Factors:
- The Scottish left the United Kingdom, which in turn led to an increase in business in England due to companies leaving Scotland as a result of financial risk.
- Leniency in planning regulations and legislation has enabled an increased in architectural design freedom.
Economic Factors:
- The United Kingdom maintain their currency, The British Pound Sterling, therefore retaining their independent from changes in EU interest rates, which intern allows our construction industry to flourish when our economy is doing well.
- An improvement in the English economy has seen a rise in interest rates, which in turn increases the total payback of bank loans, effecting small companies.
- An increase in environmental strategies and legislation has led to a boom in sustainable and recycled building materials.
Social Factors:
- UK’s population has increased, especially in urban areas, meaning more facilities and housing is needed.
- An increase in the percentage of people over the age of 60 due to medical advances and improvements in lifestyle have resulted in housing design becoming more flexible and adaptable, whilst more facilities for the ageing population are also being built.
- In places communities have become more fragmented due to an increase in multi-cultural communities.
Technological Factors:
- An increase in the use of digital aided design to produce ‘flat pack’ housing, this is now seen as an easy and efficient way of building and may affect our client numbers.
- Advances in communication technology have allowed our practice to work more efficiently with consultants and clients as well as permitting us to work on a number of national projects at the same time. However we still believe face-to-face meetings are key in the design process.
- Improvements in 3D modelling enable our practice to provide 1:1 scale life-sized virtual models in the virtual studio, so clients can experience the buildings before they are built, decreasing the number of changes that are made further into the design process, decreasing unforeseen costs.
Environmental Factors:
- Oil is incredibly scarce therefore buildings that integrate sustainable power sources, such as solar and wind energy are becoming increasingly popular.
- Recycled materials are now used in 40% of new build projects.
- Many older building are being refurbished so they can be re-used and recycled to cater for different activities.
Legal Factors:
- An increase in site health and safety legislation prolongs project durations therefore increasing overall costs.
- The introduction of paternity leave legislation has affected the whole construction industry, as additional financial provisions have to be made by all companies.
Competition
The construction and design industries are highly competitive markets, however our company offers a collective group of specialists who aim to complete the whole process of an architectural project under one company name. These types of company are called a ‘Design Houses’ and are increasing in popularity. As it stands there are two other companies in the East Midlands who also operate under the design house ethos.
In Nottingham there are a large number of architectural practices that offer specialist services varying from material expertise to highly technologically advanced practices. On particular projects these companies may become our direct competition, however TDC offer a collective service in which all areas of the design process are taken care of. We use our broad spectrum of expertise and strong relationships with contractors to gain particular knowledge where needed, enabling our company to rise to the level of our competition. As a company our efficiency and communication between elements of the design process are a key factor to the design house ethos and our company success against other competitors.
Networking
As a practice we are keen to embrace our diverse networks, making a point to keep in contact and work with contactors who we have formed loyal and trustworthy relationships through our careers. We also think its is important to keep in close contact with the architecture department at Nottingham Trent University, the starting point of all our founding family team members, taking part in lecture series, employability evenings and final reviews. In addition we work in conjunction with The Hive at the university, an organisation that helps make student’s business ideas become reality. TDC offer to employ new design businesses that are formed through The Hive as contractors when needed during projects, also providing them with the opportunity to exhibit work in our gallery, a unique marketing opportunity for new companies.
