Three Critical Videos for Marketing Professional Services Firm
Videos have become very popular through various channels on the internet. They are shared more often than any other media on social media, generate more clicks in email newsletters and are often preferred to reading explainer text. Professional Service firms should be taking advantage of this rise in video and have at least three main types of informative (and fun) videos to ensure visitors will be able to understand what you do, how you do it and why they should use you all through videos.
Effective Strategies and Tactics for Incorporating Photos Into Your Small Business Marketing Plan
Many important marketing tactics rely on eye-catching, arresting visuals and never has it been more important to make sure professional-quality images and videos. In this day and age when glamorous selfies, mouth-watering food photography, and breathtaking action shots (not to mention cute puppies) dominate our social media feeds, businesses need to step up their game with their own images. A good picture has the power to grab a user’s attention and help your small business gain visibility, both on your website and social channels. Professional pictures of employees, products or even your building can resonate with prospects and make them feel more connected to you as a business.
Miscalculation: The Little Big Horn Of Exit Planning
If you’re like 75% of all business owners, you may have a vague plan to transfer ownership at some point in the future, but feel little urgency to do anything about it now: Business is good, revenue is increasing – what’s the hurry? The author likens this mindset to the false sense of security General Custer felt on that fateful day in 1876! Owners often underestimate what needs to be done in the years leading up to an exit and the author cautions that it’s better to start planning two years too soon, than five minutes too late.
20 Small Business Trends and Predictions for 2019
A study stated that office workers are becoming more distracted at their desks and feel like they don’t have a space to be fully focused. Our company is fully remote and with project management and communication programs, our employees feel the same comradery between each other, and feel more productive and focused in their own environment. While offices continue to transform into spaces with more perks, like games and snack bars, employees could be prone to get more distracted. While many argue that the productivity between remote and office workers fully depends on people’s personalities, there are several key differences that can make an impression on one’s work performance.
What is Retargeting and How Can Professional Service Firms Utilize It?
A study stated that office workers are becoming more distracted at their desks and feel like they don’t have a space to be fully focused. Our company is fully remote and with project management and communication programs, our employees feel the same comradery between each other, and feel more productive and focused in their own environment. While offices continue to transform into spaces with more perks, like games and snack bars, employees could be prone to get more distracted. While many argue that the productivity between remote and office workers fully depends on people’s personalities, there are several key differences that can make an impression on one’s work performance.
Holiday Marketing For Law Firms
Holidays are a time for interacting with people, whether it be your family, friends, neighbors or coworkers. This also makes it a great time to socialize with your clients. The end of the year makes a perfect time for you to say “thank you” to your clients and wish them the best for the new year. Personal interactions around the holidays are things your clients will remember in the new year.
Why Branding Is Important for Growing Professional Services Firms
A number of traditional marketing tactics do not easily translate to professional services firms, such as independent wealth managers, legal professionals, and others in highly regulated sectors. However, the fundamentals of brand- and trust-building apply across industries and should remain core aspects of your marketing mix.
What Good is Branding?
Because of the highly specialized nature of professional services, it’s fair to say many prospective clients are uncertain about how to evaluate your services. For that reason alone, your brand becomes an important way to establish credibility and trust. And, it’s important to note, regardless of how much – or how little – marketing you have done, you probably already have a brand, whether you know it or not.
Everyone has a brand.
The question is whether the market has defined you or if you are in control of your brand. Ideally, you want to control your message. To do so effectively requires planning, strategy, implementation and ongoing monitoring. In a market where people often lack the expertise to really know which provider is the best, and have more choices than they know what to do with, your brand makes it easier for them to narrow down and weigh their options. And, because potential clients typically conduct initial research online before deciding to hire you (or a competitor) it’s important to ensure first and foremost that they find something about you and your firm, and secondly, that what they do find reconfirms their initial impressions about your brand. This is equally true for your referral pipeline.
I would argue that branding is and should remain a key strategy for professional services firms, regardless of specialty, not only to stake your ground in an already crowded marketplace, but also to establish yourself in anticipation of more and new competitors or alternative solutions.
The stronger your brand and the more articulately and consistently it is communicated, the more likely it is that you will attract like-minded prospects, partners and referral sources. A solid brand also increases the likelihood that your clients will remain loyal and that they will become strong word of mouth advocates for you and your firm.
But Business isn’t Built on Brand Alone.
As important as it is to develop and promote your brand, branding alone does little if it is not paired with effective business development initiatives.
In short, marketing is about creating the demand, while business development is about closing business opportunities: both are necessary to grow your business. And in industries in which it takes a significant amount of time to build the level of trust and comfort necessary to sign a new client, the goal should be to develop a multi-faceted marketing campaign, including branding, as a powerful tool supporting your in-person efforts.
Below, some Brand Development activities I recommend for Professional Services providers.
Brand Development Activities for Professional Services Providers
Content Marketing
o Position and white papers, e-books and worksheets, calculators
o Blogging, content curation, social media presence and relationship building
Public Relations
o Establishing yourself as a SME (Subject Matter Expert)
o Public speaking and writing opportunities
Business Development activities that build on brand and fill the pipeline often include:
In-person Networking and Event Marketing
o Active membership in professional organizations
o Attending and maximizing personal interactions in public events
o Hosting or co-hosting live events
There are obvious overlaps between traditional marketing tactics and those best suited for professional services firms. Striking the right balance, and finding the time to understand and manage all of the elements of a professional services marketing strategy is difficult. It’s especially challenging for many professional services firms to market themselves effectively while also growing the firm, since closing any new business relies so heavily on the personal relationship between the professional and the prospect.
Helping our clients strike the right balance by taking on the marketing management role (freeing up their time) and helping to select the best tactics to most effectively market their business so they can not only grow, but continue to provide their clients with the appropriate level of service, has been very rewarding for me personally. If you have questions about Business Development activities, Public Relations, or Branding for your professional services firm, please get in touch. I’d welcome the chance to discuss your firm’s marketing challenges and goals.
Marketing Agency Sales Renewal Is Reinventing Small Business Marketing With Its JointSourcing Solution
JointSourcing is unique and especially beneficial for small businesses because it ensures that the client’s economic interests are perfectly aligned with its marketing agency’s. In this way, Sales Renewal is “sharing risk and reward” with its clients, and in the process, reinventing small business marketing.
Best of Growth Spurts – Our Favorite Posts from February
We regularly update our Growth Spurts blog with actionable marketing & technology advice, news and information. These articles are often hand-picked to address issues and projects we’re working on with our clients, but they are relevant to most business owners involved with any aspect of marketing their business. Here are our 5 favorite posts this month:
On Product Marketing
Psychological Pricing Is Your Golden Ticket to Selling More – You want to make money. That’s why you run a business. Whether you’re selling a product or a service-you’ll have to put a price on what you’re selling at some point. This article introduces the concept of creating an effective pricing strategy by using psychological pricing tactics. Simply put, it’s a strategic way to price your products or services to influence people when making a buying decision. Continue reading…
On Exit Planning
Are You on Track to Hit Your Exit Revenue Goal? How to know if you’re likely to hit your number and how Agile, Integrated Marketing can help – Most business owners have a sales price in mind when they contemplate selling their business. Because businesses are typically valued at a multiple of revenue (or revenue derivatives such as EBITDA) this sales price is directly dependent on the company’s annual revenue at the time of the exit.
If you are considering selling your business in 2 to 7 years and would like to increase the odds that you will achieve your exit revenue goals, read on to learn how better and more cost-effective marketing will propel you to success. Read the article.
On SEO
Google: SEOs Need 4 Months to a Year for SEO Changes & Ranking Improvement – We’ve said it time and again, but it’s worth repeating. SEO is a long-term strategy. Anyone who promises something different is not the right SEO firm for your business. In fact, in the recently released “How to Hire an SEO” video, Google explicitly mentions how long it takes for a site to see improvements due to SEO changes. Read more and watch the video here.
On PPC Advertising
Google AdWords Benchmarks for YOUR Industry – Whether you’re getting in to PPC advertising for the first time or it’s time for an account review, it can be daunting to know whether or not you’re doing a good job. Sure, we all want to create ads that have highest CTRs and the best conversion rates, but what’s a good metric for one industry isn’t necessarily good for another. So what numbers should you be looking to beat in your industry? This post was updated on 3 Jan 2017 and is chock full of useful online advertising benchmarks:
- Average Click-Through Rate (CTR) by industry
- Average Cost per Click (CPC) by industry
- Average Conversion Rate (CVR) by industry
- Average Cost per Action (CPA) by industry
On Website Security
The Benefits of Installing SSL on Your Website – For several years now Google search results have shown more preference to websites that use HTTPS. (HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to.) While Google claims that this is currently a “mild” ranking signal, there are indications that this is becoming increasingly important. So important that Sales Renewal is in the process of rolling this out to all our clients by purchasing and installing an SSL certificate on their websites and forcing HTTPS. Questions? Please contact us here.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
From exit planning to product marketing, SEO to PPC advertising to website security, here’s a digest of our favorite posts from February.
Are You on Track to Hit Your Exit Revenue Goal?
How to know if you’re likely to hit your number and learn how Agile, Integrated Marketing can help
Most business owners have a sales price in mind when they contemplate selling their business. Because businesses are typically valued at a multiple of revenue (or revenue derivatives such as EBITDA) this sales price is directly dependent on the company’s annual revenue at the time of the exit.
If you are considering selling your business in 2-7 years and would like to increase the odds that you will achieve your exit revenue goals, read on to learn how better and more cost-effective marketing will not only help you hit your exit revenue goal but can also increase your company’s sales price.
Will your current marketing effort deliver the revenue you are counting upon?
The first question to answer is: how much should you spend on marketing your business? There’s no fixed formula, but generally, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, “small businesses with revenues under $5 million should allocate 7 – 8% of their revenues to marketing.” This will need to be adjusted depending on:
- Your current investment in marketing – if you’re underspending, for example, you may need to invest more to catch up;
- Your exit revenue goals – an aggressive goal will most likely require a bigger marketing investment; and
- Your competitive position – how you are positioned compared to your competitors and how competitive your industry is will impact the level of marketing investment you need to make.
To help businesses understand how to make these marketing investment decisions, Sales Renewal has a proprietary process – the Marketing Investment Analysis: Exit Planning Edition – that considers:
- Who you market to (B2B vs. B2C)
- What you sell (services vs. products)
- Industry Competitiveness (not competitive to super competitive)
- Firm Competitiveness (weak to strong competitive advantage)
- Top Competitor (much stronger to much weaker)
For example, a business in a highly competitive industry that wants to double its revenue prior to a sale will require a very different marketing investment than one with an average competitive position in typically competitive industry and a modest growth goal.
Marketing Investment Analysis, Exit Planning Edition
The Sales Renewal Marketing Investment Analysis: Exit Planning Edition is composed of 18 high-level questions which typically take 10-15 minutes to answer online. Based on those answers, Sales Renewal will formulate and deliver a set of sales & marketing recommendations specific to your business. Contact us to learn more.
Agile, Integrated Marketing – The Key to Hitting Your Numbers
Sales Renewal has taken two well-known concepts – Agile Development (from the software industry) and Continuous Improvement (from manufacturing) – to develop an approach to marketing that allows small businesses to use their often-limited time and financial resources to maximize their marketing return on investment.
The two key principles of agile, integrated marketing are:
Rapid Iteration – Produce marketing concepts quickly, get them out into the real world and iteratively improve them based upon feedback. A popular agile mechanism is the “sprint” during which the team breaks big, complicated activities into small, bite-sized actions that are quickly implemented and promptly evaluated so that the next set of activities can be prioritized and undertaken.
Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle in Marketing – Agile marketing isn’t just about producing a lot of things quickly. It’s about responding to direct and indirect sources of feedback using rapid iterations to adjust and improve accordingly.
Integrated Marketing Breaks Down Strategic & Tactical Silos
Most marketing problems are multidisciplinary and so require the integration of multiple marketing tactics. For example, getting more leads from your website could be solved by: getting more traffic from SEO or getting more traffic from ads or having a better converting (written, designed) website.
But none of these tactics is right if implemented in a silo. Marketing today is multi-disciplinary, multi-channel and complex, and therefore requires an integrated approach.
The key to making this work? A coordinated, integrated marketing plan.
The Integrated Marketing Plan + Continuous Improvement
The traditional Continuous Improvement cycle is an iterative process that breaks down into four steps: Plan, Do, Check Act. When applied to integrated marketing, it means:
Plan
The first step is to create a coordinated, integrated marketing plan that considers:
- High level, investment view to determine the financial ballpark;
- Assessment of your business goals and strategies; customers; sales, marketing, brand & technology assets and needs;
- Competitive review;
- Specific strategies and tactics; and
- An actionable plan detailing the required expertise, technology, budget and timeframes.
Do
Following your Integrated Marketing Plan, the second step is to put in place the foundational changes (brand, company positioning, etc.); one-time set up and configuration (website, redo social media sites, design direct mail piece, etc.); and on-going marketing (SEO on website, post on social media, mail targeted direct mail, etc.)
Check
Use analytics and benchmarking to measure the effectiveness of your marketing plan to grow your sales & leads. This will two critical questions:
- Where did our visitors and leads come from?
- Which of our activities generated the visit or lead?
These answers will allow you to do more of what’s working and less of what’s not and become more efficient over time.
Act
Integrated marketing is not a “set and forget” process. As you “do” and “check”, you will most likely need to adjust your plan. Acting in sprints allows for fine-tuning without having to recreate your plan.
The Key Benefits of Agile, Integrated Marketing for the Exiting Owner
Implementing an integrated marketing plan allows the exiting owner to increase revenue and decrease the cost per lead and cost per sale in the years before the exit. Using a Continuous Improvement cycle provides marketing metrics that allow you to systematize your marketing processes and workflows to make them repeatable and the Company less dependent on key individuals. Combining these concepts in an agile, integrated marketing program will allow you to make growth and return more predictable, thus reducing the buyer’s risk and resulting in a greater sale price.
This post is a summary of information presented in a recent Sales Renewal webinar, co-sponsored with BTA. Watch the full presentation here:
_____
Sales Renewal is committed to helping all small businesses grow their sales while sharing the risk and reward. If you’re considering selling your business in 2-7 years, however, our powerful agile, integrated marketing will be particularly attractive as it can help you maximize your sale price. To learn more, please contact us today.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Most business owners have a sales price in mind when they contemplate selling their business. Because businesses are typically valued at a multiple of revenue (or revenue derivatives such as EBITDA) this sales price is directly dependent on the company’s annual revenue at the time of th
e exit.
If you are considering selling your business in 2-7 years and would like to increase the odds that you will achieve your exit revenue goals, read on to learn how better and more cost-effective marketing will not only help you hit your exit revenue goal but can also increase your company’s sales price.