Why you should be talking about heritage
As a sector, the built environment is obsessed with the future and with good reason.
What’s the next project on the horizon?
What’s the next design innovation?
What’s going to be the key to unlocking housing delivery?
How are we going to build carbon-neutral buildings?
But what about looking back? Our country has a rich history of building stock that tells a tale and enriches our built environment with buildings that can’t be replicated. In Manchester alone there are hundreds of listed structures.
With changing times sometimes comes the need to work with the existing building fabrics of these structures. It’s here that delicate skills and considered work win the day. It’s about retaining the history and repurposing it respectfully to serve changing needs in a changing society.
If your business works with heritage buildings, as an architect, engineer, contractor, surveyor or consultant, you’ve already got something worth shouting about.
The question is are you making the most of the opportunity?
What makes heritage worth talking about?
If you’ve got skills to pay the heritage bills, you need to be talking about it. From a marketing perspective, heritage work ticks every box:
It’s high-stakes. You're dealing with irreplaceable assets. That makes your role critical
It’s rich in storytelling. Every building has a past, a present and a future. That’s a narrative structure ready-made for content
It’s technically fascinating. Retrofitting Grade II structures to meet 21st-century energy standards? Threading new systems through buildings that pre-date plumbing? That’s not easy and it deserves recognition.
It’s visually compelling. Even the most reluctant marketing team can make magic with a crumbling brick arch or a timber-framed hall.
But more than anything, heritage work demonstrates depth. It shows care. It shows character. For clients looking for a very specific architect engineer or contractor who’s alive to intricacies and care needed when working with heritage structures, it’s the proverbial carrot on a stick.
What you should be doing with it
If you’ve got a bank of heritage experience and you’re not using it, you're missing a trick. Here’s how to turn that expertise into meaningful, visibility-boosting content:
Project stories
Go beyond the basics. Don’t just say what you did, explain how you approached it. What were the constraints? What was uncovered along the way? How did you navigate conflicting priorities? Turn challenges into a compelling story.
Behind-the-scenes content
People love process. Show the scaffolding. Talk about materials. Share snippets of how your team tackled a problem. That could be lime mortar debates, conservation officer negotiations, bespoke detail drawings. It all builds trust and authority.
Thought leadership
What should clients be thinking about when working on heritage buildings? What’s changing in the guidance or planning frameworks? Are we doing enough on retrofit and reuse? Position yourself as someone who not only delivers the work but shapes the conversation.
Site tours and walkthroughs
Film a walkthrough of a building pre- and post-intervention. Or do a team Q&A from a live site. Heritage lends itself to visual content. Use it.
Thematic campaigns
Focus on one aspect and run a content series around it. E.g. "Modern MEP in heritage settings," or "Structural intervention without compromise." Drip it out over weeks. Educate your audience while showing your skill.
Email series
Break your stories and guidance into a neat series. Heritage can be dense. A well-paced email campaign helps people digest your thinking one idea at a time.
Social media vignettes
Turn quirky site facts, before/after shots or architectural details into a scroll-stopping series. A corbel here. A keystone there. Show your eye for the small things that matter. Carousels are a great way to achieve this and offer you more licence to get into the details.
Some inspiration
Luma client, renaissance engineers have a well-earned reputation for their heritage nous and expertise. One of the grandest projects of the last ten years, the Viadux project, saw them deliver considered structural designs to build through the listed Castlefield viaduct.
Of course, they celebrated every facet of this achievement, talking with unashamed enthusiasm about the technicalities of building a skyscraper on top of (or rather through) this heritage structure. This was peppered through case studies, news pieces, social media posts and their email campaigns.
And once that project was in occupation and doing the rounds in awards season, they made sure to capture the wave, singing the project's praises and celebrating the wins with the rest of the businesses involved in its construction.
We’ve helped them shape, write and deliver this content across web, email, social and more, making sure their technical brilliance gets seen by the right people.
Final thought
If you’ve got a specialism in heritage, it shouldn’t just be something you do. It should be a core part of your marketing strategy and a quality that brings potential clients to your door. Like a shark to blood.
If you need help showcasing your heritage chops, give Luma marketing a call today and we’ll help you show that brilliance to the people that matter.