The key to effective marketing for any type of professional is to establish and maintain strong relationships. As an introvert, it can be more difficult to get to know new people. Once you do, you need to nurture the relationship to build trust and credibility and stay top of mind, which can also present challenges. How do you do that as an introvert? Here are a few tips that can help:

Networking:

1. Focus on small groups. Introverts often prefer smaller groups of people, so join a professional association or charitable organization and volunteer on a committee. Or get involved in a business referral networking group.
2. Take a breather at large events. If you go to a big event, try to talk to a few people, then if needed, take a break from the crowd by walking outside or sitting in a lounge area. Cellphones make it easy to look busy when you really just need to get away.
3. Follow up for one-on-ones. Reach out to schedule a call or one-on-one meeting. This should be your focus whether you are an introvert or extrovert.
4. Be helpful. It’s better to give than receive in any relationship. Make introductions and referrals and ask contacts about other ways you can help them.

Social media:

5. Connect to contacts. Once you’ve met someone, connect on social media. It is an easy stress-free way to stay in touch and learn more about the person.
6. Share your thoughts. On social media, you can plan what you want to say, write it down, and think about it before anyone sees it. This is an ideal situation for many introverts. Take advantage of social media to post thoughtful content and comment on other people’s posts.

Research:

7. Read, listen and learn. Introverts like to be prepared. Use Google and social media to research your contacts and prospects before a phone call or meeting. The more you know about their interests and activities, the easier it is to interact in a meaningful way.

Writing:

8. Start a blog. If you like to write, blogging is a flexible platform that you control, so you can write what you want, when you want. Make the information helpful and share it with your contacts to keep you in their minds.
9. Write for other publications. Have a staff member or hire someone to look for writing opportunities. This is great to help you demonstrate your expertise and build credibility.

Video/Public speaking:

10. Consider video vs live presentations. An introvert may not feel comfortable presenting live, but be okay with video because you can keep re-recording yourself or have someone edit the video so you look and sound professional. I personally don’t enjoy either one, but I realize the tremendous value of verbal communication, so I tend to do live presentations over video. (At least I don’t have to watch myself if it’s live.)

Email:

11. Maximize email marketing. Emails are a great supplement to networking. One-on-one emails help you stay in touch and have the benefit of allowing you to respond on your schedule as with social media. Email newsletters to all your contacts serve as a tool to highlight your expertise and stay top of mind with your network.

If you are an introvert, you can be an effective marketer and you may even end up a better marketer than many extroverts. While you may have to stray outside your comfort zone at times, there is still room to adapt tactics to best suit your personality.

For help with your marketing, contact us for a consultation.

1. Design tools: Studies show that using visuals in your marketing makes it significantly more likely that someone will view, share and remember your content. But creating compelling visuals can be difficult for small firms who don’t have an in-house designer. Canva is still one of the top tools for designing graphics for social media, websites, email marketing, invitations, posters, ads and other uses. The free version works well for most small firms and it’s not hard to learn.

2. Photos: To the same point mentioned above, photos should be incorporated into your marketing, but unless you’re taking them yourself, you often have to pay for the rights to use them. (Just because you find them on the internet doesn’t mean you can use them freely.) HubSpot regularly updates its list of free stock photo sources. Another site with photos and not on the HubSpot list is Unsplash. I will admit that I don’t use these on a regular basis simply because it’s faster to use a big stock photo site with a good search tool, rather than look through several free sites for the right photo. However, these free sites provide a lot of interesting and unique photos, which may be exactly what fits your needs for a particular use. I should also mention that several of the tools mentioned in this post do provide a library of free or low-cost images. These include Canva, Hootsuite and Constant Contact.

3. Image resizer: Sometimes images are too big to use on social media or would load slowly if used on your website. Image resizers let you compress the image (also crop and edit it if needed). I’ve used ResizeImage.net and it’s free, but there are many others.

4. Audio transcription: Scribie provides inexpensive audio transcription. I’ve used the site to transcribe a podcast or radio interview, which makes it easier to repurpose for additional marketing value. Costs are less than a dollar a minute in many cases.

5. Online advertising: Claiming your Google My Business listing (which is free) enables you to be featured in the search results (as well as in Google Maps) for local searches. You can add information about your business as well as photos. This is also a good place to direct people to leave reviews about your business.

6. Email marketing: Constant Contact is probably the top provider and it’s affordable especially if you don’t have a huge database. However, if you have less than 2,000 subscribers and send fewer than 12,000 emails per month, MailChimp is a free and easy-to-use alternative.

7. Search engine optimization: Yoast is a top-rated WordPress plugin that helps websites improve their SEO. With Yoast, you can do at least some SEO work without having technical skills as it enables you to boost results by focusing on your keywords, titles and meta descriptions. It has a free version, but the premium option is very inexpensive and well worth it.

8. Website analytics: Google Analytics is free and easy to connect to your website. It provides a wealth of information from how many page views you’re getting to where your web traffic is coming from and lots more.

9. Market intelligence: Google Alerts enables you to set up web searches for specific keywords or phrases. You’ll receive email alerts whenever these phrases show up online. It’s a great way to monitor what’s being said online about you and your company, your industry, competitors, clients, prospects, topics and other areas.

10. Social media scheduling: It’s very time-consuming to consistently share content on social media especially if you have multiple accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. Hootsuite is a social media management tool that lets you schedule your posts in advance from 1 place, keep track of your activity, and get basic analytics. You can also set up keywords to monitor on social media and integrate RSS feeds in order to find content you may want to share with your followers. There are both free and paid versions. Buffer and Social Pilot are other options. I haven’t used it personally, but I know others who recommend it highly, including in a recent post on the Association of Accounting Marketing Blog.

11. Online learning: Udemy provides over 130,000 online courses. Courses start at only $12.99 and are a good way to get a basic education in social media, SEO, web analytics and other areas that will help your marketing. For a list of other companies with free or affordable options, check out this article.

12. Writing: Grammarly is an automated grammar and spelling checker that works on your email, social media, blog and elsewhere on the web. It helps minimize errors and improve your writing to make it more concise and understandable. There is both a free and premium version. TheHemingway App also can assist you in writing better by letting you know about problem areas such as overly complex sentences, passive voice or too many adverbs.

13. Content ideas: HubSpot has a Blog Topic Generator that can help you come up with ideas to write about. You just enter a few nouns that describe your subject matter, and you’ll get 5 ideas. This doesn’t always work for technical topics, but even if it doesn’t give you the exact idea, it can be a starting point.

14. Publicity. Help a Reporter Out is a free service that helps connect you with journalists looking for sources.  You can sign up for daily emails where reporters/writers indicate what types of people they are looking to speak to for a story. There is also a paid version with additional features.

Of course, there are many other free and online tools that I’m not mentioning. Check out HubSpot, Buffer and AdExpresso for more recommendations. Google users should also check out this link.

As good as these tools are, they all have their limitations. One of the biggest is that someone has to learn how to use them effectively. Sometimes it just makes sense to turn to a professional who doesn’t have a learning curve and can effectively implement and maintain your marketing. However, if you have internal resources and want to try these out, go for it.

Do you have a free/inexpensive tool you want to recommend? Contact me and I’ll publish an updated version of this blog post.

Note: This post was originally published May 12, 2017 and last updated February 4, 2021.

When firms try to define themselves too broadly – too many specialties or no specialties – they spend a lot of money and lose their ability to stand out from the competition. If you’ve got a niche, flaunt it with these tips:

1. Tell everyone what you do. It sounds silly, but too many professionals worry about promoting their niche because they think they may lose other types of business they could have gotten. So even though they may be doing some niche marketing, they aren’t promoting themselves that way to everyone. Basically they are hedging their bets. Unfortunately they lose out on the benefits they would have gotten from being explicit about their niche.

2. Write. That means everything from blogs to articles to white papers. Writing is the one of the best ways to showcase your expertise. I want to particularly emphasize long-form content. Short-form content like blogging is very useful for a lot of reasons including building your credibility and digital presence. The more you write, the more likely you are to show up in search results. However, for professional service firms, it’s great to use the blog post (and other content) as a way to lead people to more in-depth information like white papers and eBooks. Offering long-form content can be helpful in getting people to sign up for more information so you now have leads to nurture. –  It also really sets you apart because people recognize that it’s hard to write something long even if they don’t read it all. With that in mind, also don’t forget about publishing actual books. It’s a lot of work, but books still impress people and have tremendous marketing value.

3. Speak. You should look for opportunities with third party organizations, but also consider doing your own event or partnering with someone on an event. It can be a live event or webinar. Also take advantage of radio and video to provide your audience with helpful information in a verbal format. Video in particular is very helpful in getting attention and beneficial for search engine optimization.

4. Develop a specialized microsite. A microsite is an individual web page or group of pages that act as a separate entity for a brand. It can have its own domain or be a subdomain. The point is that it’s a distinct area where you can provide lots of information about your niche. You should include not just information about your background and services, but more importantly provide useful content and resources. There are big branding benefits as well as search engine advantages to creating such as website.

5. Prepare a research report. Conducting a survey or culling and analyzing information from multiple sources into a report can be an excellent marketing tool. You are providing original and useful information for your audience. In addition, it is something you can promote to the press to get additional exposure. If possible, look for opportunities to partner with industry groups or other experts to give you extra credibility.

6. Maximize social media. Use social media to promote your own niche content, but also seek out opportunities to share information from other relevant resources and influencers. Be very targeted in what you share and who you share it with. Make sure to comment on other people’s posts and ask questions to start discussions. It will give you more visibility and authority on a subject.

7. Find influencers and partners. Reach out to individuals and groups with established reputations related to your niche and help them spread their message. As you build credibility with them, opportunities may arise to work with them, or get them to share your work with their audience. With organizations, get involved in committees and look to take on a leadership position. It is a great way to stay informed on the issues and make key connections that you can leverage to build your reputation.

Use these tips to make your niche marketing more successful.

Looking for help with your marketing? Contact us for a consultation.

Everyone wants tips to help market themselves. We’re all hoping to hear the one thing that we can do to magically bring in business. Unfortunately there is no one thing, but there are lots of little things that can help. I work a lot with lawyers and was recently on a radio show to talk about Marketing Tips for Attorneys. To prepare, the host, Ken Landau, asked me to come in with 30 tips. I’m not sure how many we actually got to, but here’s a sampling to get you started whether you are a lawyer or other kind of professional:

1. Have a strong LinkedIn profile. When someone googles your name, your LinkedIn bio is usually one of the top results. What do you want people to see there? It’s your opportunity to impress them and stand out from the competition. Don’t waste it. And don’t rely on people going to your website to read your bio there. Some may only look at your LinkedIn profile.

2. Share content regularly on social media– both your content and other people’s. Social media is like networking. You have to be out there consistently, get involved, follow up with people you meet and stay in touch. Every time you share something on social media your network will see it. Post your own stuff, but also like and comment on other people’s posts, ask questions, and start a discussion. It will build your credibility and a lot of people will reciprocate, which will expand your reach to everyone in their network. And remember to join and share posts within groups. That gets you in front of members of the group even if they aren’t part of your direct network.

3. Focus on a niche. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. Focus on a specific area, type of client, business model, etc. It’s better to focus limited marketing resources on a niche area rather than spreading them all over multiple areas. Ultimately it will bring you better leads and more money. (Check out Inc.’s, How to Narrow your Target Market for more tips.)

4. Position yourself as an expert. This goes along with focusing on a niche. Identify a topic, issue, specialty, etc. where you have experience and you can speak with authority. Get known for that by speaking and writing about that area consistently. Make sure your marketing message highlights that expertise. Again focusing on a narrow area brings better results than saying that you can help anyone with any problem.

5. Blog regularly. In determining how to rank a website, search engines look for sites with high-quality relevant information. They also look for websites that are updated frequently and have lots of pages. Blogging helps with all of these. It boosts a firm’s organic search results when prospects are searching online. And it also makes firms more credible (because they have lots of great content) for prospects who are now on the website and evaluating their services.

6. Involve employees. A recurring problem professionals have is coming up with good topics to write and speak about. Employees can help you create content that is interesting to your readers since they are often dealing with day to day issues with your clients. You want your blog posts, newsletters, presentations, etc. to address the real questions that your prospects have about their problems. Employees can also help promote your content by sharing it via their own social media channels.

7. Seek out relationships with other experts, organizations, and media. Get to know others who speak to the same market you are targeting and are well-known. They can help you build your own credibility and spread your message. But remember you have to help them first.

8. Have a marketing plan. Random acts of marketing are not effective. Create a written plan outlining who you want to specifically target with your marketing and how you’re going to do it. Then make sure you allocate resources (time and money) to getting it done.

For more tips, listen to the radio program.

Are you taking advantage of social media marketing? There are lots of benefits, but it also takes time. Like all marketing, social media is a process of taking lots of small steps to build your presence and reputation. A recent Legal Marketing Association webinar offered some great tips for firms to help them make the most of their social media efforts.

1. Have a plan. Don’t rush into a social media campaign. Determine your priorities and goals. Build a strategy. Be clear about your message. What do you want to say? How do you want to be seen by others? Who are you targeting?

2. Do your homework. Look at what your competitors and clients are doing on social media. What kind of conversations and industry trends do you see? What are others saying about you online? Use this information to help determine your own strategy. Remember too that social media is a great tool for researching the needs and interests of your clients and prospects. It can help you be more proactive in your practice instead of waiting for them to come to you.

3. Build consensus internally. If you’re within a firm, not everyone will be equally supportive, but it won’t work if there isn’t some consensus. There needs to be advocates for social media within the firm to keep it going.

4. Focus on quality, not quantity. Yes it’s very important to be constantly visible on social media. Consistently sharing information is a key component in getting noticed and staying top of mind. However, quality matters a lot too. Better to produce really good material less often, than lots of mediocre stuff.

5. Measure results quantitatively and anecdotally. It takes time to see results. In developing your strategy, you need to decide what kind of results you are looking for (more new visitors to your site, time spent on your website, followers, likes/shares of your content, etc.). Then you need to make sure you measure those results over time. The numbers are important, but anecdotal results are also key. It may be great that your web traffic has increased by 20%, but it feels pretty good too when someone calls you to say they liked your article. Those personal stories can be great motivators and confidence boosters.

6. Provide training. Make sure you and others at the firm get appropriate training.

7. Help rising stars. The strongest benefits from social media may be seen by professionals who aren’t as well-established. Those who already have strong networks and reputations should still use it to market themselves. But social media provides an opportunity to new and lesser known professionals to develop their reputation as experts and grow their network.

For more tips on using social media, see Do’s and Don’ts of Using Social Media to Grow Your Business.

If you need help with your social media, contact us.

1. Don’t just report the news or new developments. There are lots of sources for news. Yes there is value in passing along items you think might interest your audience, but you want to take the extra step. The real difference you want to provide is to talk about how the new development impacts the client’s situation. Offer insights and practical advice. That’s what will help you stand out from your competition.

2. Don’t be self-promotional. It is okay to talk about your activities and awards to demonstrate credibility. However, keep it to a minimum. Think of the 80-20 rule – 80% useful content; 20% promotional content.

3. Don’t use canned content. There are lots of sources of canned content. Even though the content can be well-written, it’s also very basic, generic and boring. It doesn’t focus on the specific issues of your audience, won’t be enticing to read, and doesn’t showcase your unique value proposition. It’s also “duplicate content,” – that is, content that appears on lots of websites. Google will penalize you for that and it will hurt you in search engine rankings.

4. Don’t worry about perfect grammar and syntax. Just recently I read a blog post from Top Rank Marketing that reminded me how we get caught up in writing like it’s a term paper. Write in a way that’s comfortable for a real person to read and also shows your personality. You can still be a professional and not have your writing feel like a treatise.

5. Don’t forget about headlines. A great headline entices people to read more. A lot of lawyers, accountants and other professionals write very dense factual headlines. Give your audience a reason to read on. Even if you can’t find a way to be clever or funny, make sure you’re clear about why they need to know something; how it’s helpful; and what’s the benefit or risk of not knowing.

It’s hard to create compelling content. Keep these tips in mind to help make sure your information gets read.

Do you need help producing great content that will attract clients? Contact me for a free consultation.