Any firm that wants to succeed needs a marketing plan. Without one, an organization has no systematic approach for promoting itself to potential clients. The alternative is a haphazard, start-and-stop, inefficient effort that wastes time and money — two valuable resources no professional services firm can afford to squander. Show
However, the marketing planning process that works well for consumer products, industrial goods, or not-for-profits is not well suited for professional services. This is a lesson we have learned after many years of working across these fields. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what it takes to put together an effective marketing plan specifically for professional services firms like yours. Of course, there’s more to a marketing plan than a list of ideas to promote your firm. You need to follow a specific process — one that produces a plan custom-tailored to your needs. Before we get into that process, however, let’s clarify a few key marketing planning concepts. A marketing planning process is a systematic approach to developing marketing goals, strategies, and implementation tactics. It may be adapted to a wide variety of situations, from the launch of a new firm or practice area to the repositioning of an existing firm — even the routine planning of new business development activities. Depending on your specific situation, certain phases of the process may take on greater or lesser importance. For example, when launching a new practice area it’s prudent to focus on its strategic components. This is sometimes referred to as developing a go-to-market strategy. When focusing on repositioning your firm in the marketplace, often called rebranding, you will most likely need to emphasize both strategic and tactical elements to increase the visibility of your new brand. Once a year, most firms update their marketing plan or marketing budget, and they spend the majority of their time evaluating current performance and adjusting tactics. While they may take a cursory look at the bigger picture, few firms retool their entire firm strategy each year. Importance of Marketing PlanningHow important is marketing planning for professional services? Some would make the case that marketing planning, and indeed any marketing, is a waste of time and resources. They would argue that professional services marketing is all based on referrals and repeat business. In this view marketing is a non-essential activity, a kind of nice to have. This view is often held by executives with long histories in professional services, some of which may be in senior management positions. The only problem with this view is that it is not consistent with the data. In other words, it is wrong. There are two lines of research that support the importance of marketing planning. The first of these is research into the behavior of professional services buyers conducted by the Hinge Research Institute. This research shows that while referrals remain important, their significance has been steadily declining for a number of years. This is especially true since the global pandemic has made remote interaction the norm. Further, the key selection criteria favors firms that demonstrate superior relevant expertise over those with a strong referral. And importantly, the visibility of professional services firms has waned. So from the perspective of your buyers, the marketing process is more important than ever before. The second line of relevant research comes from our studies of the fastest growing and most profitable professional services firms. In this research series we ask the question ‘What do the fastest growing firms do differently than their slow growth peers?’ What we learned is that not actively tracking marketing results or that basing their plans on historical data from previous years are associated with slow growth and lower profitability. Conversely, firms that track marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) and return on investment (ROI) of their marketing spends are more likely to be high growth (20% or greater compound annual top line growth) and high profit (25% or greater profitability). The importance of marketing planning clearly shows through. If you want to follow your prospective clients’ lead and enjoy superior growth and profitability, the marketing planning process is essential. Now let’s focus on the specific benefits of a systematic professional services marketing planning process. Benefits of the Marketing Planning ProcessIt’s important to take a thoughtful, step-by-step approach to your marketing plan. Done right, it can yield a number of valuable benefits that can jumpstart success:
The 7-Step Marketing Planning Process
Look closely at the factors that affect your standing in the marketplace:
These are just a few of the key business drivers of marketing strategy. Often, you can use a SWOT analysis to organize and evaluate your business drivers. Within this framework, observations about the firm or practice are categorized as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, or threats. You want to do everything you can to root your planning process in reality. While that may seem obvious, many firms spend little time on their SWOT analysis, relying instead on personal beliefs and anecdotal experience. There is a better way. Start conducting regular, systematic research into your marketplace. Firms that do this kind of research at least once a year grow faster and are more profitable. Different types of research apply to different stages of the planning process. For example, opportunity research compares the viability of different markets or target audiences. Client or persona research helps you get a better understanding of your target clients and how they select a firm. When we assist clients with the planning process, we often combine several types of research into a comprehensive package we call brand research that can be applied throughout the planning process.
For example, you may realize that your clients value you as a trusted advisor. What you may miss, however, is that almost no potential client goes looking for a trusted advisor. Instead, they are almost always looking for someone to solve a specific business problem. If you understand that key distinction — and build your marketing plan accordingly — you will win more new clients, and then evolve into their trusted advisor. Remember this every time you see a competitor position their firm as trusted advisors. They’ve got things backward. When you are doing research, focus on your best, most desirable client segments. Which ones do you want more of? This will help you isolate which important benefits you derive from them and equip you to find more clients like them. It will also help you learn how your clients get information and search for new providers. This will help you in subsequent steps.
This starts with identifying what makes you different. These are called your differentiators, and they must pass three tests. Each must be:
It’s best to try for three to five good differentiators. If you have fewer than that, take heart. Sometimes one great differentiator may be enough. Next, you must use your differentiator(s) to write a focused, easy-to-understand positioning statement. This is a short paragraph that summarizes what your firm does, who it does it for, and why clients choose you over competitors. It positions you in the competitive market space and becomes the DNA of your brand. Each of your audiences (e.g., potential clients, referral sources, potential employees) is interested in different aspects of your firm. In other words, different messaging needs to be developed for different audiences. All of your messages should be consistent with your positioning, but they may focus on different benefits and overcoming different objections.
As clients’ needs change, you may want to create entirely new services to address those needs. Your research may uncover issues clients are not even aware of yet, such as an impending regulatory change, suggesting a range of possible service offerings. Or you might change or automate part of your process to deliver more value at a lower cost with higher margins. Whatever these service changes turn out to be, they should be driven by your business analysis and your research into clients and competitors.
Achieving high-level visibility requires a balance of marketing efforts — our research has shown that a 50/50 blend of offline (traditional) and online (digital) techniques work best. Examples of offline marketing:
Examples of online marketing:
In addition to balancing your marketing techniques, be sure to create content for all levels of the sales funnel — to attract prospects, engage them and turn them into clients. To keep things as efficient as possible, plan to use content in multiple ways. For example, a webinar could be repurposed as blog posts, guest articles, and a conference presentation.
Don’t forget the skills you will need. Even the best strategy will accomplish little if you don’t fully implement it. Many leaders find it challenging to build a full marketing strategy with just the right balance — and it can be even more challenging to keep teams up-to-date on today’s ever-changing digital tools. The fastest-growing firms use more outside talent.
You will need two key documents, a marketing calendar, and a marketing budget. The marketing calendar should include every tactic you will be using to implement your plan. It can cover the upcoming quarter or even the entire year. Begin by entering any events you know about, such as annual conferences and speaking events. Include every regularly scheduled blog posts, emails, tradeshows, webinars — everything in your plan. Recognize that you may need to adjust your calendar regularly, possibly as often as weekly. The purpose is to build consistency and predictability. Leave room for last-minute changes — but don’t get too far away from your plan and budget. To build a budget, start with the tools and infrastructure we just mentioned. For recurring elements such as advertising, estimate the cost for a single instance then multiply by the frequency. Use benchmarks when available, and don’t forget to allow for contingencies, typically 5-10% of the overall budget. Examples of Marketing PlanningTo help you understand the marketing planning process in more detail we will run through two real life examples. We’ve changed some of the identifying details, but in all other respects these capture the process in action. The first is a small technology consulting firm that has grown through referrals from current and former clients. The second is a large accounting firm with multiple practice areas and industry verticals. We’ll walk through each of the steps in the planning process to demonstrate similarities and differences in how planning is done. Step 1: Understand your business situationOur small technology firm has reached the limits of their referral base. Growth has slowed and they are not sure how to revive it. Their clients are from multiple industry sectors with the highest concentration in manufacturing. The large accounting firm has many audiences with little concentration in any industry. Their goal is to grow their advisory practice as the other service lines are becoming progressively more commoditized. Step 2: Research your target audienceOur small consulting firm is faced with a decision. Who should their target client be? To answer this question they looked at their manufacturing clients and compared them to the other clients. They learned that the manufacturing segment was a better match with their experience and valued their services more highly because of their industry experience and understanding. Our large accounting firm sampled their advisory clients, that were their highest business priority, as well as clients from other segments. They learned that their advisory services were indeed well regarded, but few clients were aware that they even offered this service. Step 3: Position your brandOther than “doing great work” our technology consulting firm had few differentiators. They made a decision to focus on their area of greatest strength and positioned themselves as specialists in working with manufacturing firms. They would accept work from existing non-manufacturing clients, but focus all their marketing push towards their chosen area of specialization. Although somewhat aspirational, the accounting firm decided to position themselves as an advisory firm that also supports their clients with other services. Their business priority is to focus on selling advisory services to their existing tax clients. Step 4: Define your service offeringsOur technology consulting firm realized that they would have to broaden their service offerings to the manufacturing community. Their research suggested that process automation would make the most sense for them. This required hiring a new staff member with that experience and skill set. The accounting firm was already offering advisory services so did not feel a need to broaden their portfolio of services. What they did need was to crosstrain their existing tax professionals in pitching and offering some basic advisory services. Step 5: Identify your marketing techniquesThere are a wide variety of marketing techniques to choose from. The primary goal is to use the techniques that allow you to be found where your prospective clients are looking for business advice and insight. You will get this information from your research. Our small consulting firm is focused on techniques that help them be found during web searches. This involves producing valuable content and making sure it is “findable”. This includes using search engine optimization (SEO) and paid digital advertising. They also supplement this with attending two key manufacturing conferences. The large accounting firm is in a position to employ more techniques. They are focused on developing more valuable educational content around advisory services. These are a series of webinars on different issue areas where advisory services would be very valuable. The webinar series is accompanied by an executive guide which lays out how to make best use of advisory services. These will be targeted to existing tax clients and new prospects. Step 6: Identify new tools, skills and infrastructureThe technology consulting firm needed several new tools. The website needed a total upgrade to reflect the updated focus. Marketing collateral and case studies needed an overhaul and new SEO and digital marketing campaigns needed to be set-up as well. As we mentioned above, the accounting firm will need a training and skill development effort to allow for the needed cross selling of services. There will also need to be a new webinar infrastructure and staff training to allow for a smooth transition to this new marketing strategy. An updated advisory brochure is also planned for the near future. Step 7: Document your schedule and budgetIn this step we consider the timing of your marketing efforts (your marketing calendar) and their cost (your marketing budget). Consider both one time and ongoing costs separately. Our small firm example layed out the one time costs and estimated the time and budget needed for ongoing marketing efforts. As a small firm their marketing expenses are relatively higher as a percentage of revenue than are typically found at a larger firm. Also, since this is their first real marketing plan, there is also more one time set-up expenses than would be found in an organization with an established function. Our large advisory oriented accounting firm will go through the same process. Here there are a number of one time expenses to set up the infrastructure, train people and produce the needed content. After the initial materials are produced the implementation expenses are much reduced. Here again the marketing calendar lays out the schedule and the budget captures the costs. These two examples show how professional services firms can produce specific actionable marketing plans using the seven step process. Now let’s turn our attention to some of the top marketing planning tips. These will help solve some common planning challenges. Top Marketing Planning TipsThe planning process can be daunting. Here are a few tips to make it go more smoothly.
We call these people Visible Experts®, and our research shows that buyers seek them out when they have a specific problem or challenge that requires a solution fast.
The right marketing plan and tools give professional services firms the power to expand their horizons and reach audiences in distant markets. But your marketing plan has to be flexible. Online marketing gives you the power to recognize what is working and what isn’t, and you need to be prepared to make adjustments on the fly. But don’t discard traditional tactics that have been working for you just because they are old. Carefully consider every technique’s role and value in your marketing, then use research and your best judgment to select the best ones for your plan. Just don’t bite off too much, or you may drown in a sea of possibilities. Happy planning! How Hinge Can HelpHinge has developed a comprehensive program, The Visible Firm®, to deliver greater visibility, growth and profits. This customized program will identify the most practical offline and online marketing tools your firm will need to attract new clients and attain new heights of profitability and growth. Additional Resources
What is the purpose of evaluating performance during step 5?What is the purpose of evaluating performance during Step 5? Management evaluates the firm's various products and businesses. Management allocates its resources to products with the greatest potential to be profitable.
What is the final step of the marketing planning process?Positioning: The final step is to position your product in a way that will appeal to the needs of your target audience and encourage them to buy your product.
What is the final section of the marketing plan?The final section of your marketing plan describes the marketing tools you'll use to achieve the objectives stated in your plan, and your Marketing Strategy in particular.
What are the steps of evaluating marketing strategies?Step 1: Research Your Ideal Customer/Audience.. Step 2: Analyze Your Market & Competition.. Step 3: Audit Your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Threats (SWOT). Step 4: Research Your Distribution & Promotion Tactics.. Step 5: Know Your Financials.. Step 6: Set Marketing Objectives & Goals.. Step 7: Define Your Brand.. |