Tag: best practices

How to find small firm marketing success – Part 2

Want to make the most of your marketing resources? In my last post, I shared 5 takeaways from a LMA small firm marketer roundtable. Here are 5 more tips to help any professional service firm find marketing success.

6. Repurpose all of your content. It can be very challenging to get firm members to write and speak so leverage everything they do. Someone wrote an article? Great, you can promote it as is, but also shorten it and put it out as 1 or more blog posts. Lengthen it or combine it with related content and make it a whitepaper. Turn it into a PowerPoint, webinar or video clips. Create other visuals like charts and infographics to highlight aspects of the article. Then post these different formats on your website as well as push them out via social media and email. That article will now have new life in several different formats and can be promoted over a long period of time to attract more people.

7. Manage expectations. Marketing takes time, effort and money, oftentimes more than partners would like. Writing, speaking, networking, meetings, follow up are a lot of work. And results may not be as dramatic or quick as some in the firm had hoped. That great article, speech, research study may not have brought in clients or gotten tons of press. But marketing isn’t a failure simply because there wasn’t an immediate or significant result. As mentioned in the last post, measure and track results. Look for small, but incremental changes. And realize that it’s seldom one single thing that definitively brings in business. You get clients by consistently making yourself visible and credible in a meaningful way that resonates with your prospects.

8. Share contacts across the firm. At some firms, members are reluctant to share their contacts. Everyone keeps their own, which creates a host of problems as well as limits firm-wide marketing efforts. With no centralized database, you can’t analyze and segment your contacts to better market to them. It may be difficult to monitor email metrics across the firm (opens, clicks, opt-outs, etc.). Individual members may not keep data up-to-date and may not be capturing the same information for each person. Also if something happens to that firm member, what happens to those contacts?

9. Share financial information. As with sharing contacts, the reluctance of firm members to share financial information, such as revenue and profitability, new business sources, etc., is problematic. Whatever the reason for withholding that information among the members, keeping it from marketers and outside consultants, can make it difficult for them to do their jobs. If you want them to advise you on how to grow revenue, they need an accurate picture of the business. Which practice groups are growing or the most profitable? Which members are bringing in the most/least business? The answers to these and other questions help determine priorities and allocation of resources. And when you are a small firm with limited resources you have to make the most of what you do.

10. Hire outside resources when needed and get quality help. Designers, writers, business and marketing consultants, public relations firms, etc. can help you with your marketing even on a small budget. They can take on the burden of certain tasks or introduce a different perspective. They also free up your time so you can focus on what you do best.

Hopefully these 10 tips will help you maximize your own marketing budget. Thanks to the LMA New York Chapter, Small Firm SIG chair and moderator Bruce Segall of Marketing Sense and panelists Michelle Birckhead of Chiesa, Shahinian and Giantomasi, Abby Fairman of Richards Kibbe & Orbe and Alan Levine of Levine Marketing Solutions as well as the other meeting attendees for their great tips.

How to find small firm marketing success – Part 1

Small firms may have fewer resources than larger firms, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be just as innovative, resourceful and successful in their marketing. At a recent Legal Marketing Association event, small firm marketers shared tips and advice on maximizing their marketing efforts. But you don’t need to be a small law firm to take advantage of these ideas. Here are some great takeaways for any professional service firm:

1. Define your unique value proposition. You don’t want to sound like everyone else so make sure you have a clear idea about what you offer clients that differentiates you from competitors. Think about where you have expertise, what are your niches, and where you provide the most value. If you need help, bring in an outside perspective to talk to you and your clients. And once you’ve done that, make sure your branding and content marketing strongly conveys and reinforces your difference.

2. Get internal staff involved. Engage staff and give them opportunities to contribute to your marketing. Of course, not everyone will be happy about the “opportunity.” Public praise is a great motivator as are small gifts. Also offer real benefits to them like learning new skills. Train administrative assistants to manage social media on behalf of members who don’t feel comfortable with it. Pay for classes for someone to learn design skills to help with small tasks.

3. Be smart about how you and others spend time. Prioritize, plan and organize. Create a written marketing plan. Establish an editorial calendar to make sure tasks are assigned and content deadlines are met. Set up procedures to help track and manage marketing activities and projects. But make sure you don’t have too many people involved or have staff with too many other responsibilities. Despite what I said above about leveraging internal staff, marketers should focus on marketing. Other staff should have their defined roles too. But when those last minute requests inevitably come in, you need to get help.

4. Constantly measure marketing results and share data about ROI. Too often firms will continue with specific marketing efforts long after they have ceased working. Sponsoring particular events, advertising in certain publications, and other tactics might have worked once and so the firm is comfortable with it and doesn’t want to stop. The way to combat this is to look at the results. If you sponsor a golf outing every year, but you haven’t gotten a client in years from it, ask yourself whether that money could be better spent elsewhere. If you’re a small firm marketer, present the ROI data to the firm members and then provide a list of alternative ways to spend that money. (Of course, if the firm hasn’t been tracking results at all, then you need to start.)

5. Think creatively about events. Large events aren’t always better. Offer to do events in client offices. Conduct smaller, more frequent, or highly targeted events at the firm. Also explore doing webinars. They are less costly and less time-consuming to produce. The turnaround time is also quicker to take advantage of new developments or hot topics. Virtual events can be a more interesting or engaging way to provide information to clients than the ubiquitous client update.

A small firm budget doesn’t have to mean small results. Plan carefully, try new things, and leverage your existing resources to improve your marketing. In my next blog post, I’ll cover more tips for small firm marketing success.

Attract more clients with niche-focused marketing

Are you worried you may lose business if you don’t market to every kind of client you’re capable of handling? A lot of marketing by professional service firms suffers from focusing on too broad a market. Although being more general theoretically gives you a larger potential audience, you can’t really be everything to everyone and your prospects know it. In fact, a Hinge Marketing study found that the fastest-growing firms tend to be specialists in a carefully targeted niche. Why is this? What are the benefits of focusing on a niche practice? Here are 7 of them:

1. Differentiating your practice. We’re all suffering from information overload and offering your audience more generic services and resources won’t set you apart and get you noticed. Marketing a specialty sets you apart from the competition because it forces you to clearly define what you do and what you know in a highly specific way that is different from other firms.

2. Fewer competitors. There are tons of firms that say they serve business owners or high-wealth individuals or they can handle a laundry list of issues for any size company. So if you target your marketing message that broadly, you are going to be competing with all those firms. On the other hand, focusing on a particular industry, type of service or other niche means you have a smaller group of firms who directly compete with you.

3. Better quality leads. How good are the leads you are getting? Are they truly solid prospects? Do you have a high conversion rate? Marketing yourself broadly may bring in more calls, but if they don’t convert to business then it’s not really helpful. Having a well-defined specialty means people have a better sense of the kind of work you do and whether your expertise is a match for what they are looking for from a firm. The ones who call you are specifically interested in your niche practice and that means they are more likely to become clients.

4. Becoming an expert. Your prospects don’t want a generalist; they want a specialist who understands their needs, concerns and industry/situation. By defining a niche, you can really get to know it well and showcase that expertise. Monitor the relevant developments and trends, learn the industry and the key players, influencers and competitors. The more you know about your niche, the better you can provide insightful information to your audience and position yourself as the go-to expert.

5. Knowing your audience. If you have a niche, you need to know who you are targeting with a lot of specificity. Who are they? Where are they? What are their challenges? Where do they turn for information? Imagine trying to understand all of this if you have a general audience. By specializing, you are in a better position to understand how to help your prospects solve their problems and make them satisfied clients.

6. Targeting your message. When you focus on a niche, you can develop better distribution channels for getting your message out. You know where your audience is and you can deliver the message to them. That means taking the time to join and get involved in the groups your audience is involved with, write for the publications they read, and build relationships with the influencers they trust.

7. Maximizing resources. If you’re trying to hit everyone, you will be stretching your time and money very thin. Instead concentrate your resources on your niche. You will find it easier to leverage your marketing and content efforts. Whatever you’re doing to showcase your expertise – writing, speaking, networking, search engine optimization, partnering – can all work together to help you amplify your message and get you more bang for your buck.

Still worried about losing potential clients you were qualified to handle? Marketing a niche doesn’t mean you’re only taking clients in that one area. And there is nothing to say you should only have one niche. The larger the firm, the more specialties you may want to have. However, keep in mind all the benefits described above and stay focused on your best niches for success.

14 things you must know to target your ideal buyer

What do you know about the people and companies you are targeting for business? You may think you know enough since you have a fair amount of business already. However, if you want to bring in more new clients and build stronger relationships with the ones you have, you may want to look at how you can understand them better. The best way to do that is to create a buyer persona – that is, a profile of your ideal buyer or client. Your goal is to develop a detailed profile so you can identify what content your audience will find helpful and deliver it to them when and where they need it. In that way, you can showcase your expertise and build the trust and connections that will grow your business.

If you are looking to attract business clients, the first step is to think carefully about who you are targeting within a company. You should build a buyer persona around a specific person (or persons) within the organization. Then gather information on the following:

1. Company size and revenue. Potential for growth in the business, number of employees, and other factors may also be relevant.

2. Industry. You should understand your prospect’s industry as well as what is happening in that industry – news, developments, economic issues, key players, etc.

3. Competitive position. Who are your prospect’s main competitors and how do they compare?

4. Location. Where are your prospects and their customers?

5. Job title, responsibilities, and key demographics. Remember there may be differences among companies in how they title a position and the scope of the responsibilities so focus on the key attributes that define your buyer. The same is true with respect to demographic information. Consider the ones that are most important.

6. Role in the decision-making process. Within a company, are you targeting an influencer, the actual decision-maker or the person researching and gathering information? The point is that if there are multiple people involved, you want to make sure your content is appropriate to each one.

7. Buyer’s journey. How are buying decisions made? What are the steps and who controls and influences each one? What factors are most/least important at each stage? How are potential vendors identified and researched?

8. Behavior patterns/motivations/objections. What causes your prospects to seek outside resources? What are the arguments or objections you anticipate hearing during the decision-making process? What do they value and trust? What are their communication preferences?

9. Budget and priorities. How much money do they have to spend and what are their competing concerns?

10. Interests, concerns, goals and pain points. What do your prospects care about? What are they looking to achieve and what are their problems and stressors?

11. Information sources. Where do your prospects turn to for information about their industry or to solve their problems? How often and in what format do they prefer to receive information (email, print, webinars, live events, etc.)?

12. Other service providers. Are your prospects using several service providers in your area to handle their needs? If yes, who are they and how and why is the work being distributed among the firms?

13. Up-selling/cross-selling. Could they have need of other services you could provide?

14. Level of knowledge about your services. Are you dealing with experienced buyers? Have you worked with them before?

In creating your buyer persona, you can turn to free basic templates offered by HubSpot and Buyer Persona Institute to help get you started or work with an experienced marketer. However, the important thing to remember is to not gloss over creating these profiles. Know your buyers so you can tailor the substance of your message as well as how you promote it to them.

Now that you know what you need to know about your buyer, how do you find this information? That’s the subject of my next post.

Is there a place for “canned” content in your firm’s marketing?

Are you using canned content? On one level, I’m surprised how often I see professional service firms relying heavily on content from third party providers for their content marketing. I understand why firms choose to use this content. They appreciate the value of providing regular information to their clients and prospects, but they don’t feel they can do that work themselves. As a content marketer, I try to convince them they can and should produce their own original content. However, is canned content all bad?

The first issue is defining canned content. The term itself has a negative connotation, but encompasses a wide-range of information from different quality sources. This is content created by various publishing, website and marketing companies to be licensed for firms to use on their websites and in newsletters. These companies often focus on providing content to specialized and regulated professions. The material is not custom content developed for a particular client and it is not licensed content republished from premium publications (think NY Times, Reuters, etc.).

What are the pros and cons of using this content?

Pros:

1. Regularly delivered, solid information. It’s important to stay top of mind with clients and prospects and constantly sending them promotional material will just annoy them. These services allow you to provide some useful information on a regular basis. Assuming your source is top-notch, the content should be well-written and accurate.

2. Specialized content may be available. As mentioned above, you can often find providers who specialize in content for your profession or subject area, such as accounting, finance, tax or employment law. In the case of some regulated industries, like the financial industry, the material may even meet strict compliance requirements and be pre-approved for use.

3. Less investment. It takes less time, money and staff to license third party content, than to create it yourself. However, pricing does vary greatly.

4. Copyright is not a concern. If you want to republish all or substantial portions of third party content, then licensing is the ways to go. You don’t have to worry about fair use, getting permissions or other rights issues. The information can also reside on your own website so you’re not linking off to other sites and sending readers elsewhere.

5. Other benefits. Some of these services provide everything from design templates, to email platforms and tracking.

Cons:

1. Generic content. By its nature, canned content is meant to appeal to a wide-range of people. Therefore it tends to be very generalized, providing information that is more of an overview for a broad audience. It’s less likely to be targeted or relevant to your audience’s needs and wants. So it will be less interesting and thus, probably not very effective as a tool to attract and retain business.

2. Impersonal. Since the material is written by someone else, it won’t have your “voice.” It also won’t reflect your unique message and help build your personal brand. Most likely your audience will recognize your content as canned and wonder why you sent it. People are inundated with too much information as it is. Providing them with something they could get elsewhere and you didn’t put any personal effort into, won’t make them feel you really want to engage with them.

3. Not a differentiator. Since the content is generic and impersonal, it won’t differentiate you from your competitors. Some of those competitors may even have the identical content on their site. Worse, they may have great content and yours is canned. You will miss an opportunity to stand out and position yourself as a true expert, thought leader and trusted advisor.

4. No SEO benefit. This is duplicate content that appears on multiple sites so it won’t help you be found online by search engines. Google rewards sites with original content and penalizes low quality sites with duplicate content.

5. Limited rights. It’s likely you have restricted rights to edit or modify the content. This means you can’t repurpose and leverage the material in different ways to get more value out it.

Is there a role for canned content?

I believe firms that use such content realize there is value to content marketing, but need to fully appreciate how important it is to be different when there is already an overwhelming amount of information available to people.

If you want to use some canned content to help get your content marketing off the ground, then use it selectively and in combination with your own material. First, look closely at what your vendor is providing to you. Make sure the material has some value for your particular audience and then consider how you can make it more useful. Is it basic introductory content? Then organize and label it that way so those who are interested can easily find it. Then look at ways to enhance it. Write up your own commentary and takeaways. Provide related checklists, tips and case studies. Use the canned content as inspiration for writing your own pieces that take the subject matter to a new level. Think about how it applies to your specific audience and your own expertise.

The point is you can start small. You can bring in original, personal and targeted content a little at a time while you phase out the use of canned content. In the end, you’ll do a much better job of differentiating yourself and building stronger relationships with your audience. And that will drive your business success.

3 reasons why you didn’t achieve your marketing goals in 2014

As 2014 comes to a close, it’s time to look back at what you wanted to accomplish this year with your marketing and how well you succeeded. Disappointed in the results? Well, here are 3 common reasons why.

1. How well did you target your audience?

Most businesses have multiple potential audiences for their marketing. The problem is understanding and prioritizing the markets you want to go after and making sure your marketing is tailored for and promoted to that group.

How well did you select your target audience? Did you analyze what market segments were the strongest candidates for your business? Which ones seemed likely to grow or contract? Where you had the strongest relationships and expertise?

Maybe you knew clearly who you wanted to pursue, but how much did you know about them? It’s important to research and gather information about your audience’s needs, interests, challenges, etc. Explore the best ways to reach them. Be as specific as possible. For example, if typically you have to go through several gatekeepers before being hired by a company, identify the decision makers within these companies at each stage in the process. Then understand the pain points they are experiencing. How can you help them with their problems and build trust?

The better you understand your market, the better you can adapt your marketing materials and distribution so you can deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.

2. Did you set specific goals?

Sure everyone’s ultimate goal is to grow their business, but how did you break that down? Were you specific about how much new business you wanted to bring in? How about client retention? What about profit margins and return on your marketing investment? Did you plan for which business areas had the most potential for growth? Which ones were stagnant or declining?

Along the way to growing your business, there are also other goals you might have set. Some examples include building brand awareness and trust, generating more or better quality leads, showcasing your thought leadership, educating clients and prospects, driving traffic to your website, engaging audiences through social media and many others.

Each of these goals has corresponding metrics to help measure your progress. Some of them are fairly straightforward, but others need to be well-thought out. Do you want to increase your website page views by 10% or do you want visitors to spend more time on your website and view more pages? How do you define whether you’re getting better quality leads from your marketing? Your metrics aren’t about whether you succeeded or failed. They are about helping you continually test, compare, revise and hone your tactics so you can improve results.

My point is that you should have had very particular (and prioritized) objectives in mind that you wanted your marketing to help you obtain. This helps you to understand where to focus your marketing efforts and create benchmarks to monitor how you’re doing. Without that, your marketing was probably less effective and directed than it could have been otherwise.

3. Did you have a strategic marketing plan?

In a strategic marketing plan you set out your goals and target audience as well as look at your business and financial situation. Then you identify and outline appropriate strategies and tactics. A marketing plan lets you think about your priorities and where and how you should focus your resources for the most impact.

Without a plan, you run the risk of spending time and money on an assortment of different tactics without a clearly defined purpose. Maybe some of those efforts will work. But what about the things that don’t work, or more likely, you’re not really sure what worked or what could have worked better. When you act without a marketing plan, you’re more likely to make ad hoc decisions. For example, let’s say you want to start a blog because everyone is doing it. If you start by thinking of your audience, goals and business situation, you can now more easily strategize what topics you want to cover, how you should promote and distribute it, and other ways to leverage the content. Or you may decide to go in another direction completely that fits your plan better. The plan helps you look at all the pieces in a logical way to maximize your investment.

What should you change in 2015?

Before you dive into the New Year, take some time to think about where to focus your efforts. Creating a marketing plan doesn’t have to be a huge undertaking especially if your business is small to mid-size. Start simple. Decide on a limited number of priorities with a well-defined market segment and develop your strategies around that. Determine a few tactics you want to test and establish metrics to gauge your results.

If you already have several marketing efforts in progress, think about how they fit together into an overall marketing plan. For example, let’s say you already have a monthly newsletter. What are your goals for it? Who is the audience? How does it fit into your overall strategic plan? What can you do to get better results? By thinking about it in this way you may see ways to tailor and exploit the newsletter in new ways.

Start 2015 right. Plan upfront for marketing success.

Good luck and Happy New Year!