Professional Services Marketing

I attended a presentation the other evening billed as how to fight your way through the credit crunch recession using lessons from when lawyers and accountants gain more clients.

Whilst it failed to deliver anything earth-shatteringly new or unique on this score (but then perhaps merely confirming ‘basics’ was the unspoken point even if the audience were hoping for something a little more creative), the speaker (founder in 05 of a four-person marketing consultancy, battling to increase the average marketing outlay of the 1,200 prospects in his universe to spend more than the average 2½% of revenue on Marketing) certainly believed in himself and, despite a notable absence of tangible examples from his chosen niche and client base, managed to provide a trio of useful points in his hour-long slot.

Actively Differentiate

Don’t trot out the same trite rubbish that everyone else does on their website (true partnership, genuine value-add, etc).  Think about what makes you special (or famous).  Stories are fantastically powerful with this.

Emotion Promotion

Promote emotions, and what people should feel when thinking of you or using your products.  “People buy on emotion first, logic second”.  “To influence someone you’ve got to touch them five, six, seven times”.  What can you do to keep your visibility high?  What plan can you have for these multiple touches?  Consider activities like cups of coffee, sending article (“saw this and thought of you”) and see at events.

Strategic Focus

Stressing you shouldn’t lose this, and continue to focus on areas where you shine, the possibility exists to laser-in ever closer on a key niche that you could own.  In addition, recessions tempt many to mistakenly erode their margin by reducing prices.  That this must be avoided is a fundamental point and is merely a “shot in the foot” as you “won’t sell more and it’s very hard to build [the price] back up again”.