The fastest-growing firms in the design industry are relying on traditional methods to achieve marketing results, according to ZweigWhite's 2011-12 Successful Firm Survey of Architecture, Engineering, Planning & Environmental Consulting Firms.

In the survey, firms that were categorized as "fast-growth" and "very high-profit firms" said they rely on more traditional marketing, such as phone and mail, and reported less success with email marketing than all other firms in the industry. These successful firms also said they spend significantly fewer of their marketing dollars on email than all other firms in the industry.

For the purposes of this survey, a fast-growth firm was defined as a business that has had an average annual revenue and staff growth of 20 percent or more for the past three years.

A very high-profit firm is defined as a company that has had an average annual profitability of 15 percent or more for the past three years.

The survey found that 31 percent of fast-growth firms market by mail, 29 percent market by email, and 26 percent by phone. Very high-profit firms reported that they do 32 percent of their direct marketing by mail, 36 percent by email, and 20 percent by phone. That varied from the survey pool of all firms, which reported 24 percent by mail, 47 percent by email, and 21 percent by phone.

How, though, did each marketing strategy pay off? Fast-growth firms achieved greater success with phone than other firms.

The largest percentage of fast-growth firms—33 percent—reported phone as achieving the greatest results of all their direct marketing efforts. Seventeen percent of fast-growth firms reported mail, and another 17 percent reported email, while the remaining 33 percent didn't specify.

Half of all very high-profit firms were split equally between phone and email, while 13 percent reported mail and 38 percent didn't specify.

Only 10 percent of all firms reported mail, 32 percent reported phone, and 34 percent reported email as providing the best results. Twenty-four percent of all firms didn't specify what form of direct marketing achieved the best results.