If you are a partner in a professional services company, such as an accountant, solicitor or architect, you may have reached an impasse when it comes to new sales. It’s a Catch 22 situation: you need new customers for your business to remain viable, but you are too busy servicing existing customers to invest time into sales and marketing.
We understand this predicament well, so it’s not the intention of this article to patronise you by handing out nuggets of wisdom that there aren’t enough hours in the day to implement – especially if you’ve tried marketing before and been disappointed with the results.
We don’t expect you and your fee earning partners to invest time into blogging, SEO, emails and other marketing techniques; at least, not until we have proven the results that can come from such an approach.
The following four marketing and sales tips have all worked successfully for other professional services companies. None of them take you away from your core business and none of them involve a huge investment. We recommend that when doing marketing you work with a partner agency such as JDR. We have the manpower, resources and expertise to implement a marketing strategy and make it deliver for you.
1) Implement A Marketing Strategy
Marketing is a broad umbrella term that encompasses lots of different activities, such as blogging, digital advertising, social media, SEO and content marketing. Anyone can get involved in these activities, with or without a partner agency. However, they don’t tend to be effective if dipped into or carried out piecemeal. The techniques need to be drawn together into a systematic marketing strategy in order to be successful. By nature, this marketing strategy is bespoke to your business and is linked to clear financial goals. You may have attempted marketing techniques before, but without clear strategic objectives and the human resources to implement it, it is unlikely to have been very successful. Picking at different ingredients occasionally will not make a cake.
2) Use Blogs And Social Media More Effectively
Updating a blog, Facebook page or Twitter feed can seem like a colossal waste of time if it doesn’t bring any results. If blogging and social media fail to bring in traffic, it is usually because the content is insufficiently focused. The purpose of a blog isn’t primarily to share company news, but to address specific search queries that your customers are typing into Google. For instance, if your target customers are searching for “the best investment properties in Lichfield” or “how do I make an injury at work claim” then these are exactly the questions you should be addressing in your blog. You can use social media to publicise your blog posts, encourage shares and draw new attention to your business.
3) Engage In Pay Per Click (PPC) Digital Advertising
Google PPC adverts are an effective way to bring in new customers to your business within a short timeframe. Again, a PPC campaign needs to be carefully managed, or it may end up costing you a lot of money with little to show. When working with our marketing team, we can manage your keyword adverts to get you the best results, in conjunction with engaging website landing pages that convert website visitors to interested leads.
4) Overhaul Your Website For A Better Conversion Rate
Many professional services companies benefit from an overhaul of their website. If you haven’t looked at your website for a while, or if it’s basic, then it may need a refresh in order for it to work harder for you. This might involve new written content, new images or different layout – or you may need a whole new website altogether. The purpose of this is to enable your prospective customers to easily find the information they’re looking for, in the shortest possible time. This encourages conversions i.e. makes it more likely that they will get in touch through your online contact form or phone number.
Developing A Bespoke Approach To Marketing
An active marketing strategy is a proven way of reducing the risk of your business coming into jeopardy through losing customers. Adopting a pragmatic and personalised approach to digital marketing techniques will help you acquire new customers and increase your brand reputation. Furthermore, when working with an agency, it will not involve the sacrifice of much time or the expense of hiring new staff. To speak to one of our team about case studies and how we have helped businesses such as yours, please get in touch through our online contact form.
