I agree, 15 years ago in the days of 3d studio DOS I made a few renderings and toured both Architects and Advertising agencies in Lebanon, no one understood what benefit 3d could bring to their business. Now everyone wants 3d.
Also even now in many famous Architects websites, they have ugly renderings. I go door to door to Architects to give out fancy brochures, the secretary points to an ugly rendering on the wall and says we do that in house. they save $500 or $1000 (actually they don't save anything as their employees spend more time and money doing crap), and they do multi million $ projects, yet they have ugly renderigns they market with.
I read all the post and great ideas and great points everyone has valid points.
For me there are two issues, most of the work done in Architecture especially public work and in Lebanon and I think most countries is done unethically by government people who take tax money from the public, pay an Architecture firm 50 million dollars to do a building, then the architecture company hires people who are related to that politician to do the work, and designs the villa or palace of that politician for free.
My firm belief is that most Architecture in many countries is just a laundring scheme. A lot of money comes in and out of pockets. It is one of the most efficient and safest ways to get your tax dollars in politicians pockets.
my other issue is a point raised by another poster, is my competitors have 6 or 12 employees, a huge renderfarm while I do everything myself and have limited resources. How to convey to a potential customer that I have some attributes that these companies don't so that these clients choose me? sometimes when you try to talk about yourself some people think you are arrogant, yet I see people talking about themselves all the time. or is that a no no since the main goal of marketing is to focus on the clients needs?