1. Update your contact list. People change jobs regularly or information is entered incorrectly and we never notice. If your data is wrong, it’s useless because your marketing won’t reach those individuals. Interns can take care of tasks like researching bounced emails and gaps in your data. They can also compare your social media and email contacts to find individuals that are missing from either list.

2. Create and send an email newsletter. A great way to stay top of mind with contacts is to send out an email newsletter every month. An intern may be able to help with creating an email template if you don’t have one, gathering materials that could be included in the newsletter, formatting the newsletter, and/or sending the finished product to your contacts and then reporting the results to you.

3. Post to social media. An intern shouldn’t decide what should be posted on your behalf but may offer suggestions. In addition, they can assist with the mechanics of scheduling posts, finding accompanying images, recording video, designing ads and monitoring and reporting on the results of your social media marketing.

4. Send social media invitations. If you’re not good about sending invitations to new connections, an intern may help. Further, an intern can assist with inviting your personal contacts to follow your business page on social media. In most cases, you want to have a separate presence for your business, but it means making an extra effort to get people to follow your business rather than your personal page.

5. Identify speaking and writing opportunities. It’s time-consuming to pitch yourself as a speaker or get an article published. An intern can research organizations and publications where you may want to appear; find out the requirements; and prepare, send and follow up on your proposals.

6. Write/proofread marketing copy. It can be useful to have a fresh perspective on the promotional materials you prepare. If your intern is a good writer, have them draft copy, provide feedback on your materials or proofread.

7. Get reviews from happy clients and referral sources. Reviews carry a lot of weight. Even when prospects have been referred to you, they will still google you and check reviews. If you don’t regularly ask for reviews, have an intern help send out requests for a review on Google and/or your social media pages.

8. Run marketing reports. Marketing involves significant trial and error. An intern can run social media, email, phone, google website and advertising reports to help determine what activities and campaigns are working better than others so you can make adjustments.

9. Design marketing materials. If you are fortunate to have an intern with graphic art and design abilities, make effective use of it. They can help spruce up your ads, flyers, invitations, PowerPoint presentations, social media posts, blog posts, website and other materials.

10. Update your website. It’s easy to forget to update your website, but it looks bad when a prospect visits the site and sees that all the “News” and activities are a few years old. Interns can review the site and add information on anything that has occurred in the intervening period, such as articles, speaking engagements, press, awards, community involvement, etc. In addition, the copyright information on the site should be updated.

This is not a complete list but provides suggestions for how you can leverage your marketing intern to promote your firm. Remember to give your intern adequate training and supervision so you both get substantial value out of this experience.

If you need assistance with your marketing, including training interns or other staff, contact us. We offer social media and email marketing training as well as writing and consulting services.

1. Update your LinkedIn profile. Do you have a strong headline (at the top under your name)? The default is your current position, but you can and should change it to reflect the type of work you do and who you help. Also draft a compelling summary section. The first few lines are the key because that’s all that shows when someone first sees your profile. Make them want to click on the link to read more. Finally, remember to fill in every section or most of them. Add in your writing, volunteerism, awards, association memberships, etc. This is essentially free advertising to highlight your skills and activities.

2. Be more active on social media. Regular posting is essential. You can share your own content or other people’s content so long as it is helpful and interesting to your audience. Remember every time you post something it is an opportunity for your contacts to be reminded of what you do as well as reach new people. For social media posting tips, read Do’s and Don’ts of Using Social Media to Grow Your Business.

3. Ask for recommendations/reviews. Email people you know well – referral sources, colleagues, vendors, and happy clients – to ask them if they would be willing to give you a recommendation or review on social media, Google and other relevant websites. Remember to give them one as well if you can.

4. Start an email newsletter (or consider publishing it more often if you already have one). Email is a great way to stay top of mind with your contacts and it is a very inexpensive way to market. A newsletter can contain a range of information from snippets of content you have created, links to third-party resources, upcoming events, and other material that would be of interest to your contacts. Check out How to Maximize Your Email Newsletter for more information.

5. Follow up with key contacts, referral sources. Everyone is worrying about their families and business. Reach out to contacts to find out how they are doing. Consider ways you can help each other now and in the future.

6. Check in with existing and past clients. Don’t pitch your services. Just let them know you hope they are doing well, and you are happy to help in any way you can. If you know of any third-party resources that may help them, point them to that assistance.

7. Create and/or update your contact database. People change jobs and email addresses. You are missing a great opportunity to market and stay in touch if you don’t have an up-to-date contact database. Leverage staff working from home to help create or clean up your data. And while you are at it, segment your contacts so you can tailor emails to particular groups of contacts (ex. past and current clients, referral sources, prospects, industry, job title, etc.). Consider which segments make sense for your business.

8. Create content. Writing and speaking are great ways to highlight your expertise, build credibility and be more visible. Consider blog posts, articles, tips, charts, graphics, podcasts, presentations, webinars, and PowerPoints. Experiment with video because it has been shown to get more views and interaction than written content. Video on your website should always be produced by a professional, but amateur efforts are forgiven on social media.

9. Participate in virtual networking. Many groups have now turned to Zoom. Face time with contacts is still important so join these meetings to stay in touch. You can also easily create your own groups and facilitate introductions among your contacts.

10. Refresh your website. When was the last time you updated your website? The content and/or the design could be stale so do it now.

While you may be worried about loss of business because of COVID-19, if you don’t market during this period, your recovery will be that much harder. Don’t get left behind.

If you need assistance with your marketing, contact us for a consultation.

1. Regularly reach out to your best contacts. Every month pick a few of your good contacts (referral sources, clients, etc.) and set up a phone call or meeting. Many businesses deal with an 80-20 rule – that is, 80% of their revenue comes from 20% of their clients. Often that’s true with referral sources as well so that a small number of referral sources refer a disproportionate amount of business. It makes sense then to make sure you keep in close touch with those people. Before your phone call or meeting, make sure you prepare. Do some homework about what is going on with their business. Look at their contacts on LinkedIn and identify people you could ask to be introduced to. Also know what you want to get out of the meeting. Pick one or two goals for the meeting and the rest can be left more open-ended. You also must think about how you can help them. Most people feel uncomfortable asking others outright to refer them business or make an introduction, but if you are prepared with ideas on how you can help them, it becomes much easier. Plus, the other person will tend to feel obligated to help you if you first offer to help them.

2. Become more active in an organization or charity. Networking is most successful when you see people often and get to know them. Going to occasional events is fine, but it’s better to pick a group or two and get involved. Join a committee, volunteer to help with an event, take on a leadership role, and attend every event. You will get to know more people and develop a closer relationship with them which will help your marketing efforts. In addition, it’s important to pick a group that is meaningful to you whether it’s a professional organization or a personal cause. You’ll feel good about the time spent with the group and your natural commitment will shine through to others.

3. Set aside a block of time to write something each week for your target audience. Writing is a wonderful way to demonstrate your expertise and build your credibility. Best of all, writing can be anything – a blog post, article, checklist, eBook, chart, practical tip or anything else that your audience would find interesting or informative. Blogging and article writing are particularly effective, but even if you just regularly comment on other people’s posts on social media or share a helpful tip in an email blast, it’s still useful for your marketing. Writing can be time-consuming, so you must allocate specific time and resources to getting it done. Schedule it on your calendar. Otherwise it’s easy to put it off.

4. Use social media. At a minimum, you should be visible on LinkedIn. That means having a strong LinkedIn profile, building a solid network and regularly posting content. LinkedIn is for professionals and business people. Even if your direct clients are consumers, your referral base is likely to be on LinkedIn, so it is a must. You should also have a Facebook presence. This is particularly important if your client base is consumers, but even for those providing services to businesses it has value. Posting to social media helps you stay top of mind with your network and reach new people. Anytime you write or speak, post it to social media. In addition, share interesting articles written by others or like and comment on the posts of your contacts. Just as with writing content, set aside time each week to focus on social media. Start with a small block of time and expand from there as you get more comfortable.

5. Send a monthly email newsletter to contacts. If you aren’t already doing this, start now. If you are sending one out, then make sure you are making the most of it with these tips from one of our prior blog posts. When done the right way, email newsletters provide an inexpensive way to keep in touch with your contacts, highlight your expertise, build credibility and drive traffic to your website.

6. Set goals for the year. It’s not just about big goals like how much money you want to make. Break it down. Do you want to increase new leads by a certain amount? Expand your network of referral sources? Upsell existing clients? Develop a new practice or specialty? Without goals, it is hard to allocate your marketing time effectively. You want to spend time on the things that are most likely to move you closer to your end goals.

What are your marketing resolutions? Start the year off right and commit to improving your marketing.

Contact us for a consultation.

Email services like Constant Contact collect data on industry averages and show open rates for professional service firms averaging between 15-21% and click rates ranging from 2.5-7.5%. But many email newsletters do much better than that and those statistics don’t take into account the fact that your firm name is seen by your contacts when you send an email even if they don’t have time to click on the email to read it. That’s very important when it comes to staying top of mind. It’s like walking into a networking event and even if you don’t get to speak to everyone you know, seeing those individuals across the room reminds you of them. Of course, that shouldn’t be your goal. You want people to read your material.

When done the right way, email newsletters provide an inexpensive way to stay top of mind with your contacts, showcase your expertise, build credibility and drive traffic to your website. But how do you get it right?

1. Have a plan. Who do you want to send it to? What do you want to accomplish? Think about what content will help you achieve your goals. You’ll also need to set up a schedule and allocate resources to getting the work done.

2. Send it at least monthly. Quarterly is too infrequent. You can send it more often than monthly, but make sure you have quality content to fill it and you should keep a close eye on your results. Test the frequency of your emails to find out what works best for your audience.

3. Segment your email contacts. You should put your contacts into categories so that when you need to, you can send different emails to different groups of people. For example, past and current clients should not necessarily get the same emails as your referrals sources or prospects. Maybe you want to create separate lists for people with certain job titles or in particular industries. Consider which segments make sense for your business.

4. Keep email lists up to date. Make sure you’re adding in new contacts and updating old ones. Check your email bounces. People change jobs all the time or there could just be a typo in an email address that no one noticed until they checked the bounces.

5. Fill it with quality content. Self-promotional content is okay, but follow the 80-20 rule – 80% helpful substantive information vs. 20% promotional. Provide insights, tips and stories to engage your reader. Definitely don’t use canned content you buy from a company, unless you want to sound like everyone else in your profession.

6. Use teaser content. Don’t put everything of value into the email. Instead, provide a good headline and some intro text; maybe a few tips, but then get people to go to your website to read the rest.

7. Have a call to action. What do you want people to do when they see your email? Read a blog post; sign up for a webinar; contact you for a consultation? Make sure you include links in your email so readers can engage with your content and you can track those clicks.

8. Test what you’re sending and when. Send emails at different days and times. Change your headlines and email subject lines. Try including different types of content or varying the length of your emails. As you test different tactics, you can gauge whether you are getting better or worse results.

9. Design it. A visually appealing newsletter helps. If it’s too cluttered or dense, it can put people off. Add images too. It breaks up the text and is more eye-catching to readers.

Don’t miss out on the great opportunity that email newsletters provide to help you market your business. Use these tips to maximize your results.

For more tactics, check out 7 tips for getting more value out of your client newsletter.

1. Pay attention to design.

Not everyone has a budget for a sophisticated design, but even small changes can make a difference in readability. Lots of dense text will discourage reading. Adding white space, using bullets, changing fonts and including subheadings can help. You can also box off and highlight statistics, interesting quotes and takeaways from the text. You want to make sure readers can quickly scan it if they are in a hurry. It’s especially good to add visual elements to break up the text like charts, graphs, infographics, and photos. Studies show that 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. Remember to think about design in each format that someone will read the newsletter. Firms often create a PDF version of the newsletter for mailing or downloading as well as versions for email and web.

2. Distribute it through multiple channels.

There are lots of options here including regular mail, email, website, blog and social media channels. I know some people don’t want to print and mail copies anymore, but firms still have clients who like print and printed materials may get noticed over emails. Remember to get individual members of the firm involved in helping to distribute the content through their own networks. If you went to the trouble of creating the newsletter, you should be making sure your audience sees it. Different people have different format preferences. As with advertising, it also helps for people to see the same content a few times before they pay attention to it.

3. Include calls-to-action tailored to the distribution channel.

Entice your readers with some additional action. If you’re distributing the content via social media, you want to push readers to sign up for your newsletter so you get their contact information. If you emailed them, encourage them to download a whitepaper or sign up for an event or webinar. The idea is to continue to interact with your audience and build the relationship.

4. Test headlines and subject lines.

It’s hard to get attention when everyone is being bombarded with content. You only have a few seconds to get a reader’s attention. Make headlines and subject lines interesting and keep track of what types of language get better results.

5. Slice it up.

The newsletter can be pushed out in whole, but then repurposed and promoted as individual “chunks” of information for different social media channels. Articles can be shortened or rewritten for a blog or LinkedIn post. Even those charts and infographics can be separately marketed.

6. Reuse and repackage it.

Periodically you should go through your old content to look for opportunities to get extra use out of it. If you have good relevant content, find ways to update and promote it again. You can also pull together a bunch of related articles that were previously published. Revise them where needed with new developments, takeaways, lessons learned, etc. and repackage it as a multi-part series, a whitepaper or ebook. Looking at the content this way also may give you ideas for additional articles you could write in future months to help fill in gaps. It also may be helpful in identifying topics for webinars and live events. Those articles can then be distributed to attendees as supplementary materials.

7. Enhance it.  

It’s beneficial for design reasons to add visual elements like charts and infographics, but even more importantly it’s great for content purposes. It grabs attention quickly and gives the reader some useful content at a glance. A great visual also entices people to read the text that explains the picture. Some other ways to enhance the content include adding in checklists, FAQs, case studies, interviews, surveys and video segments. You can also curate content that your audience would be interested in – that is, give them suggestions for other great resources (beside you) they would find helpful on the topic.

Your client newsletter can be an excellent vehicle for content marketing. Start with great content and then make the most of it.