How to Create a Measurable, Client-Centric Marketing Plan

As marketing services professionals begin planning for 2011, what is the number one question on the mind of management today? In an economy that is staggering and an industry where the unemployment rate is greater than the national average, a higher return on their investment in marketing is probably at the top of the list.


In other words, the strategies and tactics in your 2011 Marketing Plan need to be measurable. But, it is more serious than that. The plan must also breakdown how you will acquire, retain and grow client value. Yes, it needs to focus on clients.

Most firms believe they already focus on clients. If this is true, then why do we spend 80% of our marketing resources acquiring the 20% of new clients that are needed each year to replace lost clients?

The answer to that is simple: It costs at least 5 times as much to gain a new client as it does to keep an existing client. But it still begs the question: How do we keep existing clients?  You need to bridge the gap between marketing and business development, and you need to measure results.

Measurement can be a tricky thing when it comes to marketing performance. Some firms already measure the results of marketing, but are they measuring the important metrics? It reminds me of the quality craze in the industry when every firm was using quality as a way to differentiate. The firm I was at adopted the Phillip Crosby model. Everyone from clerical up to management was tasked with charting some aspect of their work. It soon became clear that there were a lot of things that could be measured, but not all of them were beneficial for improving job performance or quality.

The same is true in marketing. For example, the number of proposals written or hit rates could be measured. Obviously, these are metrics that are directly related to the number of new jobs. However, what if all of the new projects are coming from existing clients? If your overall hit rate is 70% and all of the projects come from clients who are at 100%, your effective new client hit rate might be at 35%. Is that a metric your company can prosper with? We can look at a different scenario to prove this point.


What if your new projects are falling in one market or service sector when your mission is to find work in multiple markets and service sectors? On the outside the return on marketing investment looks rosy, but when you peel back the results, the future does not look as good.

This is the paradox of measuring return on marketing investment. On one side you have to build client loyalty and on the other you need to find projects in multiple markets and service sectors. For many firms it means taking a new approach to market planning. It must start with the 2011 Marketing Plan.

The framework of the plan—Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Tactics—remain the same. Measurement happens in the details. When you review strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, you must start at the beginning with market research. What does your firm research prior to developing an annual marketing plan? Remember the three types of research: Secondary, Syndicated and Primary.

Are these essentials included in your annual market planning activities? In my seminars and workshops, I always like to use the story of Alice in Wonderland. Remember when she comes out of the hole and she asks the caterpillar which way she should turn? The caterpillar answers, “Where are you headed?” Alice replies, “I don’t know.” Then the caterpillar says, “Then it doesn’t matter which way your turn.”

Marketing plans without a foundation of research represent the same dilemma. It is no wonder that most industry marketing plans are simply copies of the previous year with new numbers.

Like I said at the beginning of this blog, 2011 is the year to get serious because management is serious. Management is no longer giving a rubber stamp to market planning as usual. They want measurement that is effective. Although they look at the bottom line, they recognize the business needs of feeding all service sectors and markets as well. Maybe they have even challenged you to look at new markets.

Business Development Professionals has developed a new workshop to help marketing services professionals with 2011 marketing plans. “Create a Client-Centric, Measurable Marketing Plan to Acquire, Retain and Grow Client Value” is the one learning experience that will help you achieve management’s expectations as you document the return on marketing investment (ROMI).

The Workshop will be held in Chicago on December 3 and Philadelphia on December 7. It will also be held in four other cities next January and February. For information call (610) 908-5143 or visit the website: www.businessdevelopmentpros.org

Appleize Your Brand: Turn Clients into Fanatics

As a project manager for campus planning studies at colleges and universities, I was faced with a dilemma when it came to scientifically accurate data collection. We needed a random sampling of all campus constituencies, but had trouble with the data collectors. We tried temporary employment services and hiring students who were attending the school. Each of these produced lackluster results because it was easy for individuals to not show up, arrive late or leave early.

Then I had a revelation: An incentive program that used student organizations for data collection. It worked like this: We needed to cover eight prime campus locations over 12 hours with two people per hour at each location. Representatives from organizations were invited to a planning meeting where the scope of the work was explained. A spreadsheet with times and locations was put up on a flip chart. Organizations were invited to take turns filling in the time slots.

Each organization would be paid $6 per hour for every person they signed up and, if everyone showed up at their assigned locations and turned over completed forms at the end of their shift, the group would receive a $700 bonus. If one person failed to meet their obligation, the entire bonus was forfeited. A campus organization could make $1000 in a day without worrying about organization or long shifts for active members. The first time we implemented the new process, completed questionnaires increased 300%. In the past, it was easy for an individual student to blow off the $6 an hour, if sleeping in, studying, attending class or a more important meeting got in the way. However, the new process made individual students subject to the ridicule of their organizations. Who wants to be known as the person who cost the organization their bonus? In addition, there was also a certain amount of bragging rights between organizations as well.

What does this have to do with marketing in general and marketing professional services in particular?

First, it points out the need for outside-the-box thinking when you are faced with changing circumstances. More importantly, it verifies the need to create an “us versus them” attitude in your clients' minds. Too often professional services marketers look at branding and marketing as promoting specific services and promises. Highly successful brands and companies don’t work that way today.

Take a look at Apple. Some could say that it is Steve Jobs alone who has created Apple fanatics. The reality proves it is much more than that. It actually looks a lot like the process for increasing data collection results for higher education planning projects.

The “us versus them” is the genius behind the Apple brand success. The “1984” Super Bowl commercial started the process. It was followed by the Lemmings commercial the next year with blindfolded businessmen walking off the cliff. Recently it has been the highly successful Apple versus PC ads where the PC guy basically apologizes for his product.

Note the common characteristic of these, and many other, Apple commercials: they focus on the PEOPLE who use each product. These ads convey little or no actual product information, and instead mock PC users while portraying Apple users in a favorable way. I am not suggesting you mock your competition. I am suggesting you figure out how to make your group (firm) worth joining.

Just like students belonging to organizations were more powerful data collectors, your clients will become fanatics when they feel they belong to your group. Belonging to a group is wired into all people. The cavemen didn’t survive on their own, they joined groups.

Apple isn’t the only company that uses this to their advantage. Truck owners are extremely loyal to their brand. Obviously, the “us versus them” strategy works best for actual products that can be seen. However, there is no reason this strategy couldn’t be effective for professional services firms with clients who feel some attachment to the brand. Therefore, professional services marketers need to make their clients feel different, and to interact with them in a way that makes being part of their group more credible than a passing ad slogan. It is the best and probably the only way to turn your clients into fanatics. What would happen to your bottom line if more clients were fanatics?

What Professional Services Firms Can Learn from Kodak

Growing up as a boomer, photography was about Kodak. You took pictures with Kodak film and your photos were printed on Kodak paper. In the early 70’s Paul Simon sang about Kodachrome. Kodak was everything a brand could want to be. In 1975, they invented digital photography. The company went through its due diligence and in 2000 decided it would become a leader in digital cameras. Although the company had film and processing in its DNA, by 2005 it was number 1 in the United States in digital camera sales. The company designed one award-winning product after another to make digital cameras as simple as pointing and clicking. Isn’t this the kind of story every professional services firm would like to emulate?

So why does Kodak Chief Executive Antonio M. Perez now dump on digital cameras, calling them a "crappy business"? Simple: While blazing growth of camera sales has helped blunt the effects of Kodak's fast-fading film revenues, it hasn't replaced the rich profits of the film business. Even the best mass-market cameras yield slim profit margins. So, although Kodak's digital camera business was a roaring sales success, it turned out to be a crushing profit disappointment. Many of Kodak's problems can be traced to the successes of its past. Wherever Perez turns in Rochester, N.Y., he is haunted by the specter of George Eastman, one of America's greatest innovators. In spite of the fact that Eastman died in 1932, his mark is still huge on the company he founded in 1880. Decades after his death, it remains difficult to change Kodak's long-established ways. One of them is a hierarchical culture that believes in the omnipotence of leadership.

Is this a trait in your professional services firm?

Product or service innovation alone is not the panacea for increased profits. Now Kodak is fighting to recover from a tech revolution that is strangling its core business. Kodak was late to recognize the problem, slow to react, and then went down the wrong innovation path, according to many industry insiders. Kodak needed to change its business model.

Professional services firm struggling through the recession might want to take a look at their business models. A March survey commissioned by IBM showed that 65% of the world's top CEOs plan on radically changing their companies in the next two years. It makes sense that clients in the United States will fall into this category.

Will the changes impact professional services firms?

If radical changes are in store for the business models of professional services firms, how do you begin? It has to begin with the people, much like the quality revolution of the 1980’s where management got everyone involved in the quality process. Perez has what he calls, “The Rule of the Thirds.” He believes that one third will support change, one third can be convinced and one third will be unwilling to make the change. To win over a majority, he created a committee of people who were skeptical and called it “Group R.” He asked them to make suggestions on how the company could be improved. Those discussions contributed to the strategy of coming up with new digital services and new ways of commercializing existing technology. Also, once these people felt like they were part of the conversation for change, they spread the word throughout the organization that Perez was a good leader. And, because they had credibility, their opinions influenced many others.

Radical change in the business model of professional services firms is coming. Some firms may be entrenched in what worked in the past and will not have the resolve to make changes. The winning firms will take a page from Kodak and understand, contrary to the popular opinion about technology, it is still employees who control the destiny of companies. So, don’t be afraid of critics within your company. When you let them buy-in with their own ideas, the results can be amazing. Give yourself time. It has taken a while for Kodak to learn that it is not a film company, but an image company. Look at their website today and you will see things about the “experience.” Professional services firms should not confuse what their companies do with how they do it. They need to look at their clients, who are also looking at change, and see what it is the client believes they are being delivered. The results might be surprising.

Professional Services Firms & The Brand Audit

How do professional services firms, including general contractors, engineers, CPA’s and architects build their brand? Is a promise something you can build?

Management at many firms believes that marketing creates brands. This isn’t the case for most companies. The marketing budget for a professional services firm would have to be in the high seven figures to effectively change a brand.

When I was Chairman of the Corporate Marketing Committee at Walker, management was toying with the idea of changing the name because the founder, Carl Walker was back in business. He had signed a non-compete clause when he was bought out, but immediately had gone back into the parking consulting business. The business consultant informed management that two million dollars would be needed to make the change and even then there were no guarantees of success. Her final words,"Why spend all this money to give away your brand when the new name might take years to impact the market?"

Although it takes time to build a powerful brand, sometimes it takes only a few broken promises to destroy it. How is the Toyota brand doing today? The brand is hurting even though the company is now spending a million dollars a day on safety improvements and using a massive marketing expenditure to tell consumers about their commitments. Better yet, where is the BP brand today? Granted those two examples are in need of expert crisis management advice, but, in the end, it is their brand that will suffer.

When customer complaints have the potential to go viral on the internet, you have to pay careful attention to your brand and its promises. A few years ago, a national hotel chain treated a customer badly. This was a business traveller who was in their guest honors program. He put together a Powerpoint presentation of what happened and posted it on the internet. Within a few weeks it had more than a million hits. It is not difficult to connect the dots to how that minor incident at a Houston property impacted occupancy across the brand.


A brand reflects past performance of the delivery of your services. Your brand will prosper (or suffer) based upon future performance of your service delivery system.
The “system” is the combination of all the promises you make to clients. Your brand is your promise to clients that you will deliver something. It includes the quality of what you will deliver, your team, schedule and your “wow” factor. Therefore, your brand begins with your value proposition. The marketplace recognizes your brand when clients reflect your promise. Brands are transparent.

Transparency has gotten a bad rap in the last two years. People talk about about a lot of things, but often fail to deliver. Politicians come to mind when discussing talk and little action.

Marketing is the sizzle of your brand. But, the actions of your firm are where the rubber meets the road. When all of your marketing is peeled back from your brand, the only thing that remains is the promise. Remember when “a man’s word is his bond” ruled business transactions? Brands says the same thing about your firm’s promise. The gap between words and reality are clear when looking at Toyota or BP. Does your firm have a gap?
Some professional services firms are getting beaten up in this economy over fees. Much of this happens because of the gap factor. Companies that live their brand and maintain many client advocates are not affected as much by pricing issues.

Although marketing can’t hide a weak brand, it can expand the brand image to new markets and clients. The management of your firm should initiate a brand audit. It should have the same commitment that firms had in the 1980's when they were involved with creating a "quality improvement" process for the entire company. Today might be a good time to start the brand audit. Go to www.businessdevelopmentpros.org for information.

Dancing with Strangers: Turning a First Date into a Wedding Celebration

Have you ever gone on a blind date or danced with a stranger? The blind date is filled with mystery and intrigue. It doesn’t matter how the encounter was started, your response is directly related to a positive outcome. It can be nerve wracking, but remember the other person is having a similar response. Both parties are at risk. A wedding is the furthest thing from their minds at the initial encounter.

The same is true in the professional services industry when one business wants to interact with another. There is always a first meeting and it often feels like you are dancing with a stranger.

Everything that comes in between is the interesting part. When you’re dating, you’re gathering information about each other: what you both like to do, eating and entertainment habits, recreation, family, job, and even hobbies. This courting process can take some time. Sure, there is always love at first sight, but that doesn’t work for a majority of people. Even when it does, additional knowledge does come in handy, especially when you’re discovering the things that you do well together. Your heart says a lot about developing this relationship, but so does your head.

It's no different when it comes to professional services marketing. You need to deepen your relationship with prospects over time, interacting in a variety of settings, learning more about each other's needs and capabilities while progressing seamlessly from one interaction to the next. Many firms will call this a strategic approach to business development, but not every firm employs it. Like travelling on the road to a lifelong relationship with another person, you need to know when to commit more resources to the relationship as well as when to pull back and give the prospect some space.

When you are courting, it is a process of nurturing the relationship. In your business it is the same thing with every lead you come across. You have to dance with a lot of strangers before you find the ones worth developing a deeper relationship.

The process for professional services firm is defined as building a relationship with qualified prospects who are not yet sales-ready, regardless of budget, authority, or timing – and of ensuring a clean hand-off to principals at the right time. Just as in dating, lead nurturing can be described with defined stages, including:

1. The Prologue
2. First Encounter
3. Dancing
4. The Proposal
5. Negotiation
6. The Wedding

The Prologue
The introduction is the first time your future client hears of you. It is up to an associate, vendor, mentor, website, social media profile, or some othermatchmaker to make you seem interesting and attractive. You don't have direct control over the introduction, but the more you can do to
influence it, the better. Just as a nice haircut and a manicure prepare you for that first date,
every marketer should prepare for that introduction.


Discover Your Ideal Prospect
The first step in the introduction should be to determine your ideal prospect. Just as you
know you like tall, dark and handsome, you should also know that the best prospects for
your services and solutions are companies in the United States with 100 or more employees,
in the pharmaceutical and healthcare verticals. It’s not usually this simple, but having an idea
of what your ideal prospect looks like will help you focus your marketing. If you know that tall, dark and handsome is often at your alma mater’s tailgate parties, you’ll probably want to be there, early and often. In other words, network where your ideal prospects congregate.

Build Your Brand
If you’re wondering whether branding matters in professional services marketing, a 2010 branding report says the answer is yes, concluding, "If you are well known, whatever lead
generation tactics you employ are likely to work better." In fact, 65% of companies that claim
they are well known report being good or excellent at lead generation, while only 44% of the
not well known companies report being good or excellent.

Brand matters because buyers of professional services are still people and emotions impact economic decisionmaking. Your prospects are overwhelmed with choices and information – more than any buyer could evaluate rationally. This means that no matter how disciplined a buying process is, emotional brand impressions do influence vendor selection. Web 2.0 is also changing the way marketers build their brand. With the growing popularity of blogs, podcasts, social media and the like, buyers would rather talk to each other, instead of listening to a marketing message. So take advantage of this by creating thought leadership, using Web 2.0 techniques.

Create Thought Leadership
One way professional service firms can build their brand is by helping buyers research early in the sales cycle, demonstrating that they are trusted advisers who understand the prospect's problems. By using thought leadership to engage prospects early, you build awareness and increase your chances that the prospect will respond to future demand generation efforts.

Creating thought leadership helps your prospects learn more about you, your background
and how you think. It helps build the foundations of a relationship: familiarity and trust. At
this stage, don’t hide your thought leadership content behind registration forms. Set this
content free to allow it to spread virally.

Write White Papers
White papers are used at almost any stage of the pipeline, from lead generation to customer retention. They typically range from four to eight pages, and shouldn’t be more than
12 pages long. According to Michael Stelzner of Writing White Papers, “A white paper is a persuasive document that usually describes approach of an article and weaves in
persuasive corporate messages typically found in brochures.” And studies have shown that white papers are highly viral; that is, they are passed around by 60% of technology professionals. According to a study by MarketingSherpa and KnowledgeStorm, this is because white papers are considered to be credible resources for thought leadership and subject matter expertise.

Create eBooks
As an alternative to white papers, consider eBooks, defined by David Meerman Scott as the
"hip and stylish younger sibling to the nerdy whitepaper." An eBook delivers the content in a
form that's designed for quick scanning and reading online. The content tends to come in
more bite-sized chunks (as in a presentation). With newer versions of Microsoft PowerPoint,
audio can be added to each page/slide.

Use social media
Social media continues to grow in popularity, and has become another conduit to your
prospects. Sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace allow people to build online
relationships by joining groups, chatting and commenting about products and services. On
LinkedIn, for instance, you frequently see questions from your network asking for
recommendations for services and consultants.

Blogging is a great way to build thought leadership and, therefore, your brand. Your blog
should fill the information needs of your prospects and invites comments from readers.
Podcasts – essentially audio clips of you speaking instead of writing, or of an interview with
another thought leader – are a great attachment to your blog. RSS feeds and content
formatted for mobile devices such as Blackberry, Treo and iPhone extend your blog’s reach.
The YouTube phenomenon cannot be forgotten. A funny or clever short video that goes viral
can quickly build your brand.

The First Encounter
The first encounter is all about making a good first impression. Remember, you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression. Don't come on too strong or you'll scare your prospect away. Who would say, “will you marry me,” after their first dance? Think about philosopher, Toby Keith, when he wrote that “sometimes I want to talk about me”. Don’t make the first encounter all about you. Use the precious time as an opportunity to learn more about your prospect's wants and needs, as well as to share some relevant information about yourself.
The prospect might be in the early stage of the selection process so carefully plan the delivery of information. If you know where the client is at, you might want to go with thought leadership information. Either way, they should be short and to the point. You’re trying to make a good first impression.

Develop case studies
Also known as success stories, case studies are short, one or two page documents that
vangelize a client’s success and ROI from use of your solution. Sections typically include
an introduction, challenge and solution. And don’t forget to include a compelling client quote or two and a short section at the end that tells about your services and company.

Dancing
Prospect development starts here. Your prospect has shown at least some interest in you. You don't want to ruin a good first impression by calling too often or asking for
too much commitment too soon. Instead, develop the relationship by sharing additional information at the right time. If tall, dark and handsome responds to your overtures,
you want to talk to him and try to gather more information: Is he single? Is he interesting? In professional services relationships, it’s much the same: make offers of more information at scheduled intervals and determine the level of interest at each stage. The goal, of course, is to get agreement from your dance partner that the relationship should move to the next level.

Share relevant third party information
You don't need to create all the lead nurturing content yourself. You can demonstrate how well you understand each prospect's wants and needs by sharing relevant third party content with them. This can be as simple as emailing a news article and saying "Based on our conversation last week, I thought you'd find this interesting."

Make it personal
Remember, the goal of "courting" is to build a relationship with a real person. Buyers of professional services are people, so the human touch matters. John Nesbitt in his best seller Mega Trends, wrote that as our culture became more dependent upon technology, we would need to have more human interaction. He coined the term: Hi Tech=High Touch. Lead nurturing is a conversation, not a series of disjointed campaigns. Personalize email responders and landing pages. Make sure each step connects with the prior one. And except for webinar invitations, don’t make the same offer twice in one email flow.


Make it personal. The goal of courting is to build a relationship
with a real person.

The Proposal
When identifying your ideal customer, marketing and business development must work
together to determine the best indicators of success, in terms of what
the client looks like (markets,services,geography, etc.). During this discussion,
you should also determine the activities that result in agreement-ready
lead. For instance, if a prospect fits your demographic target, responded to your email, and asked for more information, you might give him a 5 or 6 on readiness to move forward. If he asked for your assistance in writing the RFP or talks to you about project-specific budget issues, you might put the prospect at an 8 or 9.

Use customer references
Client references are always excellent ways of closing new clients. Marketing should
cultivate and nurture existing clients and gain permission to use them as references. Care
should be taken with references to ensure any single reference isn’t over-used. Remember
that they’re doing you a favor. Get these references published on LinkedIn as well.



The Wedding
The Deal. The Close. The Win. Ultimately, making the sale is up to your
principals, but by implementing a sound nurturing and scoring process,
you have helped them by establishing a relationship and positioning your
company as a leader with the prospect.

Leveraging Social Media in Professional Services Firms

Professional services companies are discovering that social media marketing is quickly becoming an important method for driving business growth. While the idea of using “free tools” to drive marketing can be exciting, this excitement is often followed with the realization that these tools take time and commitment. At the end of the day, the million-dollar question is: can social media help professional service firms make more money?

This article will answer the following questions:

1. How does social media drive business revenue?
2. How do firms resource the time needed for social media?
3. How can blogs drive professional service firm leads?
4. How does the B2B application of social media for professional service firms work?
5. How can social media support offline marketing activities?
6. How do industry firms get started using social media and keep generating content?
7. How is the cost of customer acquisition lower when using social media compared to outbound methods like direct mail, advertising and print

First we must frame the problem that professional service firms are working to solve using social media. If you don’t know the root of the problem, understanding the details of social media will not be relevant to your business. Traditionally, large commercial businesses have had an advantage over small business owners because they’ve had larger marketing budgets and could spend more money on outbound marketing techniques like print advertising and direct mail. This is true in the professional services industry as well. Social media is one way to level the playing field. But like Alice in Alice in Wonderland, it won’t make any difference which path you choose, if you don’t know where you’re headed. First step: Identify the problem.

In the old marketing model, budgets dictated success.

Successful professional services firms have long thrived on word-of-mouth to help promote their services. With social media, these firms are now able to use free tools to help increase word-of-mouth while decreasing the need for outbound advertising platforms like the yellow pages, cable television ads, newsletters, magazines,newspaper ads, etc.

The 10 Fundamentals of Professional Service Firm’s Social Media Success

Professional services firms that successfully use social media…
1. Commit weekly resources to creating content and engaging in social media.
2. Have some methods of understanding how social media activity had an impact on business results.
3. Regularly generate content using blogs, Twitter, Facebook or other social platforms.
4. Don’t try to do use every platform, instead focusing time and resources on the social media channels that drive the best results for their business.
5. Use social media to drive participation in offline events.
6. Set clear expectations for customers regarding frequency and types of social media interactions their company is willing to provide.
7. Leverage social media to position their company as a thought leader within their industry.
8. Provide clear calls-to-action and opportunities to generate leads and new customers using social media.
9. Use information and data from social media to drive business strategy.
10. Balance paid and organic search engine traffic.

Does your content marketing mix include blogging, search engine optimization, whitepapers, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, email marketing and pay-per-click advertising?

The Importance of Building a Blog Network for Professional Services Firm Success

Business blogging has been on the rise for many professional services firms. Some companies have taken blogging to another level and are creating more business because of it.

Instead of a traditional blogging approach, these companies built a network of internal blogs to match their diverse service offerings. Why do it this way?

Blogs are a key driver of organic search engine traffic. In order to create content that was relevant to diverse service areas; these companies have built blogs on different topics. Each blog serves a dedicated purpose and audience. Another important component of the multiple blogs is to have both general and specific blogs. Having both broad and specific blogs allows a company to generate search traffic from niche, low-search-volume keywords as well as broader, high-search volume keywords.

Blog about niche topics related to your industry to drive quality leads that can be captured using landing pages connected to calls-to-action.

Do you Twitter?

Where does the power of social media come from? It is evident when you realize that, unlike email, which is often communication between two or a small group of people, Twitter updates can be seen by hundreds and even thousands of people. It is the process that brings clients to you. Twitter is a place where you can expose your firm as thought leaders.

Plan how often you will engage with client online beforehand as an effort to set expectations for online customer service and engagement. This begins by making sure you have optimized your web pages for better search engine optimization. The second step is to set up landing pages so you have a method for driving leads. Finally, you create content around long tail keywords. Keywords become the niche to your business that will help drive incremental increases in search engine traffic.

The web is full of so many good ideas, that often the best use of time and resources is to apply someone else’s idea to your own industry. This approach has worked for professional services firm, with targeted blog posts and keywords strategies driving the best results for traffic and leads.

Social media also provides a secondary benefit of providing better business intelligence and insight. When clients are inbound to your firm, you can develop a better sense of how to emphasize your strengths and exploit competitors’ weaknesses. The bottom line: sharper, longer-term goals and a clear road map on how to get there.

Professional services firms need to take an integrated approach. Industry firms need to understand that tactics like social media, blogging and search engine optimization drive more powerful results when used together, instead of only picking one tactic. Integrating social media tactics and content creation drives results, and it is important to track the results of each of these tactics to determine the best ways to invest time and effort.

Final Thoughts

1. Start blogging today. “If you’re not blogging, you’re letting competitors win,” is how Tryst Anderson frames the importance of blogging in his Social Media Seminar. Blogging is such a powerful driver for improving organic search traffic and leads.

2. Focus on what works for your business. Professional services firms shouldn’t try to do everything when it comes to social media marketing. Twitter and Facebook need not be a major focus, if you find more business value in blogging and search engine marketing.

3. Use a content management system (CMS). As a professional services firm, having control over your website is critical. Content management systems could be called ‘Web Design for Dummies.’ Not having to rely on a webmaster to make changes to your website allows you to take control and quickly and easily publish new content.

Linkedin: Tool for New Business

How are you using LinkedIn to generate new business? The social networking site for business is certainly a place where you can reach clients. However many industry professionals are still sorting out how this makes business sense. Have you been asking yourself this question?

What was the “old school” method for networking before social media? There were industry events, cocktail parties, trade shows and other venues where you were face to face with clients. What was the platinum networking opportunity? I believe it was when you were talking with a client who viewed you as a trusted advisor and someone you were pursuing to become a client joined the conversation. When your client started talking about all of the great things you were doing and had done, what was the reaction of the potential client? It was always great to go fishing for new clients at these events, but you often went away like the Disciples who had fished until dawn without success. Using the strength of an existing client to open the door for your next client was always the best outcome you could expect.

The old ways are still the best ways to use LinkedIn. It is really about creating a three-way conversation between you, your client and the universe of potential clients active on LinkedIn. The problem with LinkedIn and other social media outlets is lack of private chat rooms. There is a process that will bring results and it is a three-way conversation. It just doesn’t happen at the same time. In order to get started you need to know your client is active on Linkedin. The next step is to ask the client for a recommendation. While most recommendations are from people you have worked with or for in current or prior positions, the most powerful are those that come from clients. Offer the client some suggestions for what to put in the recommendation. If your company is on Linkedin, your firm should pursue recommendations as well. Think about it this way. When an RFP asks you for reference letters from previous clients, what do you do? I used to send the person a draft of the letter to help him out. Although the client wants to help you, their time is limited. You make it easy for them. The same is true with LinkedIn.

Recommendations are always posted in Linkedin’s weekly updates sent to everyone you are connected with. In addition it will be posted on the update that goes to every one of your client’s connections as well. You can independently post it on the groups you are a member of. How many potential clients will then end up becoming part of this three-way conversation?

Finally, when I first started marketing professional services, my mentor told me to join allied organizations. But, he warned, don’t simply join the organization. Be an active member. He said, “You only get out of the organization what you are willing to put into it." The same is true with social media. You will only get business from it when you are willing to become an active participant.