Why you need a marketing strategy in 2025
Marketing exists to achieve one thing: to make an impression on your target audience, generate new business and make you more money. The only way to achieve that with consistency is to have a strategy and a plan to implement it.
Whether your marketing budget is £5k or £500k, nowhere else would you invest that amount of money without considering what success looks like and planning carefully for that outcome. Your strategy is the starting point for making the most of your marketing investment. That means starting with a strategy, this is non-negotiable. Marketing is an investment not a cost, and strategy is the down-payment
It should be painfully obvious that if you want marketing outputs to be effective, you need to have a strategy in place to guide them. Nevertheless, we’re frequently asked to jump straight into work without a strategy, which NEVER WORKS.
In this short article, we’re going to look at the benefits and importance of a marketing strategy, what makes a good one and how you can commit to a more strategic approach to marketing in 2025.
A competitive industry
The built environment is more competitive than ever, and there’s increasing pressure on us all to stand out and be distinctive. Those with the ability to cut through the noise and stand out will reap benefits at their competitors' expense.
A solid marketing strategy isn’t just a ‘nice to have’—it’s a business necessity that can make or break success in 2025. Without a clear strategy, your business risks losing out on major opportunities, wasting time and money, and diluting your brand message.
The benefits of a strong marketing strategy
We get it; none of you went into business to be marketers. You’ve got the thing that you do, and you do it well. You want that to be what sets you apart from the crowd. In a perfect world, that would be all you need, and I’d be out of a job! But that’s not the way it works. Marketing is a vehicle that helps you tell your target audience how you’ll help change their life or business for the better. It simply can’t be an afterthought!
Solid, strategic marketing will help you and your business:
Take control of your reputation
Optimise resources
Maximise return on investment.
On top of that, it’ll give your team direction, ensuring that every decision supports a larger business goal rather than reacting impulsively to the latest industry trend or idea hatched over lunch.
Strategic importance
Great, so now we know the benefits of marketing. Nothing groundbreaking there. Why are you harping on about strategies, Lucy? Isn’t it all just “marketing”?
A marketing strategy is the early planning work you do to ensure your marketing hits the mark and brings in results. In no other context would you start work without some evidence-based thinking and decision-making. Every planning application starts with a planning strategy, every architectural brief begins with a design strategy, and every development project kicks off with a strategy meeting. Marketing is an investment like any other and should be treated as such.
A well-defined strategy starts with clear decision-making. By investing in thinking upfront, you’ll know:
Who your audience is
What messages will resonate
Which marketing channels will deliver the most impact.
Here are a couple of examples to demonstrate how that might work in practice. If you’re launching a new residential development, a strategy ensures that all elements - from PR and social media to sales plans and community engagement — are aligned rather than working in silos. Likewise, if you’re planning an event, you’re not scrambling to decide who to invite or whether it's worth the spend but instead making an informed decision about positioning and messaging that aligns with broader objectives.
Being visible and making the most of your resources
Another major benefit is visibility. Consistency is key when it comes to brand reputation, and a cohesive marketing strategy ensures that you’re communicating the right messages to the right people at the right time.
For example, a North West architecture practice that wants to attract clients looking for super homes and mansions won’t achieve this by sporadically posting on social media or running generic digital ads. Instead, they need a campaign that aligns with their brand values, engages potential clients through thought leadership, and positions their work as a prime opportunity for clients to achieve their dream homes. This will include targeting media outlets and publications where their ideal clients – and their influences - are likely to be. A good marketing strategy will push for investment into these opportunities, increasing the architect’s brand salience in those spaces where it’s likely to reach their ideal clients.
Resource efficiency is another significant advantage. Without a strategy, you and your business can fall into the trap of investing in scattered activities — spending on digital ads, sponsorships, and PR - without a clear understanding of what’s working. A strategy helps you direct funds and efforts to channels that actually deliver the results you’re after. This means deciding early on what success looks like, integrating data analytics to track performance and adjusting your approach accordingly. This will be a much more successful approach than sticking with underperforming activities simply because they’ve been done before.
The high cost of an uninformed (or non-existent) strategy
It’s not just that lacking a strategy means you’re missing out on opportunities. The lack of strategy could be actively detrimental to your work.
Without a strategy, marketing becomes reactive, inconsistent, and expensive. You end up throwing money at tactics that don’t align with your goals, and instead of building a strong, recognisable brand, you struggle with mixed messaging and missed opportunities.
This is known as the scattergun approach.
Here’s a scattergun example. Some firms pour money into digital advertising without properly understanding their audience. They end up targeting the wrong people or pushing out generic messages that fail to resonate. Without strategic research and planning, marketing spend can quickly spiral with little to show for it.
At Luma, we keep the Tommy Gun locked in the cupboard and rely on sniper-like marketing informed by strategy. That’s the only way to get consistent results.
The danger of brand damage and missed opportunities
Brand damage is a real risk when your marketing is scattergun. Inconsistency in marketing can confuse clients and stakeholders. Take sustainability as an example. It’s a huge talking point in our industry and the driving force behind a tidal wave of change in the way we work. We’re all thinking about it and so are our clients. If a developer heavily markets their eco-friendly credentials but then fails to follow through with tangible actions, the backlash can be damaging. People remember when promises aren’t kept, and reputational missteps can be costly.
Then, there’s the issue of lost opportunities. In a market where competitors are actively positioning themselves as thought leaders and trusted partners, those without a strong strategy will struggle to stand out. A piece of thought leadership doesn’t exist in isolation; it’s simply one part of your marketing strategy. If your firm’s marketing fails to communicate its value effectively, you may miss out on securing major projects, key partnerships, or investment opportunities.
What makes a good strategy?
It’s pretty simple, really. A good marketing strategy will satisfy seven core criteria:
It’s specific
It’s data-driven
It’s aligned with business objectives
It establishes clear, measurable goals
It prioritises audience insights
It’s actionable
It evolves.
It’s specific in that it outlines specific activities to perform and audiences to target. For example, “Grow brand recognition with high-income clients (strategy) through targeting media outlets with a focus on luxury interiors (tactic)”.
It’s data-driven in that it doesn’t make its recommendations without reasoning and data to back it up. For example, by examining which types of content have historically driven the most meaningful interaction with your target market, you can tailor your strategy to prioritise the most effective.
It’s aligned with business objectives in that every piece of the strategy is tailored towards achieving the goals you’ve set for your business. For example, a business objective might be to work with four housing associations this year. Your marketing strategy might reflect this by targeting speaking opportunities at events where housing associations will have a vested interest.
Measurable goals just mean agreeing on concrete ways for you to measure whether your marketing efforts are having the impact you want them to. It’s through these measurable goals that you know whether your strategy is working. Have four housing associations signed a contract? Have you increased profitability? Have you grown your client base by a given number?
If it prioritises audience insights, it’s based on an understanding of what drives decision-making in the built environment. The strategy reflects buyer personas and the real concerns and motivations of the people and groups you’re targeting.
It’s an actionable plan. Your strategy isn’t just a high-level document that sits in a drawer. It’s a working roadmap that outlines which marketing channels will be used (these are your tactics), how success should be measured, and who’s responsible for delivery (this is your plan).
Finally, a good strategy isn’t static, it evolves based on data. Businesses that regularly review performance, adjust their messaging, and fine-tune their approach will always be ahead of those that stubbornly stick to an outdated plan.
Commit to strategic success in 2025
Remember, marketing should never be an afterthought — it’s a fundamental driver of your business’s success.
At the start of this article, we said you didn’t get into business to be a marketer. Nevertheless, marketing is absolutely crucial to success. That leaves you with two options. Either suck it up and do the work required to be your own marketer, or work with an expert whose business is marketing. In steering your marketing investment towards delivering your business goals, experience, qualifications and a robust evidence base are key.
Contact Luma Marketing today and we’ll help you put together a strategy that will take you and your business into a prosperous future.