If you’ve noticed you’re getting more timely and informative emails from ACEC/A, and you’ve seen more social media posts about the association, and you’ve noticed that the website is easier to use, it’s because of Lindsay Young. Since March, Young’s company, nu marketing, has been helping ACEC/A with those communication tools, along with assisting Executive Director Angie W. Cooper with events like the ACEC/A Industry Update and the Emerging Leaders program. Young has been frequently updating the website, arkansasengineers.org, and finding ways to make it easier to navigate. She has updated the events registration process to make it more user friendly and easier for users to register and pay online. The online version of Building Arkansas magazine will be easier to access.
She said the ACEC/A has an opportunity to market itself to non-civil engineering firms, which are under-represented in the association. “We’re all building buildings or roads and bridges, infrastructure,” she said. “But I think there’s some opportunity for us to capitalize on other engineers beside civil engineers.”
Young helps engineering, architecture and construction firms develop marketing plans and strategies. She does market research for firms entering a new market. For example, if they are moving into health care, she’ll find out what trade shows or publications would be beneficial to the firm’s marketing efforts. She does presentation coaching, evaluates job proposals, and helps with recruiting efforts like job fairs. She recently made a presentation about on-call proposals at a conference in Tuscon, Arizona.
“Our industry, we’re just different,” she said. “It’s not like marketing a toaster at Walmart. It’s very, very different. The sales cycle is extremely long. Sometimes you’ll chase a project for 10 years. Well that’s different than, again, selling a toaster. So I will help coach and mentor people Young offers ACEC/A nu perspective Firm provides marketing, social media services to association, engineering firms in the industry and help them put those marketing plans and strategies together.”
Young said engineers in their marketing efforts should focus on relationships, communication and being responsive. “That’s a lot of what I hear of why clients come back is this engineer or this architect or this contractor responds,” she said. “When I need something, they call me back or they text me back or they email me back. … They meet my deadlines, or if they can’t meet my deadlines, they’re like, ‘Hey, we can’t get it to you by Monday at noon, but we’ll get it to you by Tuesday at noon.’ They are proactive in their communication.”
Young hadn’t planned on focusing on the engineering and design fields. She’s from southeast Kansas and earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees in management at Pittsburg State University. She was looking for a job while her husband, Aaron, was working for a general contractor, and that’s when she met a project manager at one of his firm’s events. They were hiring a marketing person, so she applied, got the job, and fell in love with the industry.
Over the years, she’s worked for several contractors. About eight years ago, she quit her job and started nu marketing. In addition to working for ACEC/A, she has clients in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and elsewhere. She has a client in Washington, D.C. and just landed one in Washington state, so she’s now working coast to coast. She’s involved with Associated Builders and Contractors, National Association of Women in Construction, and the Society for Marketing Professional Services, which is specific to engineers, architects and construction companies.
She and her husband moved to Arkansas four-and-a-half years ago for one reason: Beaver Lake, where they’d been vacationing for six or seven years. Before making the move, he found a job as a superintendent for Kinco Constructors, while she could work from anywhere.
“We just liked the lake, and we don’t have good lakes in Kansas, and we wanted a change and we were ready for something different,” she said. “And we thought, ‘Well, life’s too short to live in the same place,’ so we put our house on the market, and it sold in 10 days, and we moved to Arkansas.”
