Are you trying to steer your professional service business toward growth? In this competitive industry, it’s not just about providing excellent services. You have to showcase and communicate your value to the world.
This guide helps you review your current marketing operations, unveil untapped potential and identify areas where additional support might be needed.
How many firms are offering similar services to you? Professional service industries are highly competitive. You need to cut through the noise to stand out. Be bold, straight-talking, and clear, allowing your branding to do the talking for you.
Your branding paves the way for your marketing communications. From your tone of voice to visuals, it’s your unique identity. To develop these things, we need to explore your business psyche and dig up the elements and values you want to emphasise.
Your branding determines how you present on social channels and acts as a psychological tool to influence consumer behaviour. Once you have a solid brand foundation in place, you can leverage it to create memorability and trust within your client relationships.
An essential component of your branding is highlighting your why factors. Why do you do what you do? Who for? What for? It’s a simple fact that people want to identify with your values and purpose-driven activities. But you must show how these things aren’t just accessories but influence the way your business operates.
Do you donate a percentage of your profits to charity? Are your services good for the planet? Perhaps your employees enjoy great benefits. You probably do lots of things like this, so show and tell! There’s a difference between gloating and inspiring change. You’ll find that your business naturally (actually, strategically) attracts more likeminded leads and crops up in more conversations.
Relationships are vital to your business’ success. Long-term client relationships are your bread and butter as a professional service. They become loyal to your services, advocating and recommending you. So, your marketing activities should take a client-centric approach.
Each client is unique and requires a different level of service, so display that with your messaging and communications. You need to make it clear that you’re exactly what they’re looking for, and why choosing your services is a good decision.
Your marketing strategy must be as unique and carefully crafted as your business. Why spend time perfecting your image and identifying your ideal client if you’re not going to nurture them? Let’s look at the formula:
As a professional service provider, you must be in the right places with the right content. We can pinpoint where your target audience spends the most time and become present on those platforms. The content you should provide is educational and showcases your leadership and specialism. It cultivates trust and creates value that goes beyond transactions. Think case studies, educational resources and infographics.
Email marketing isn’t dead. According to Litmus, 87% of brands say email marketing is critical to business success. It allows for the personalisation that we all crave. Tailoring content is about understanding your audience segments and delivering what they need and want. Email marketing is an essential tool for nurturing and managing relationships.
Improve engagement with your lead generation through personalised content from the start of the customer journey. The best way? Quizzes or assessments. Offer value in return for value. Their reward will be insightful information about their business or service offerings, and yours will be new information that collects specific information about that lead. It’s a win-win. Additionally, you can ask strategic questions to find out if you’re prospects are actually interested in your offerings and are the right client fit for you.
SEO allows you to optimise your website for specific keywords and phrases. It increases your visibility on search engines and attracts targeted traffic to where it needs to be. SEO tools provide valuable analytics and data insights. You can use these tools to understand user behaviour, track the performance of your website and make data-driven decisions to continually improve your online presence.
Industry influencers and thought leaders are people or other brands that have a larger audience made up of those who trust their opinions and expertise. Partnering with industry influencers is about leveraging your relationships to establish credibility and using other people’s platforms to grow awareness of your brand. You can exchange services, spark a conversation online or simply partner up to offer great deals to both of your audiences.
Events and webinars allow you to connect with a broader audience to generate leads in a digital or face-to-face environment. It is a good way to deliver educational content and thought leadership, that will build credibility and inspire conversations in your industry. It’s a chance for you to really show your insights off and begin to make a name for your business in the big wide world. People love being involved in things. Letting them get up close and personal with your brand and is a much more memorable activity than a post on social media.
People like to see work in action. Show your results, testimonials, how working with you would look. Encouraging your clients to give you a testimonial helps build up a great reputation and instils trust. You can also recycle these reviews into eye catching social posts and include them in your emails. It’s easy enough to say ‘we can help with this’, but the proof is in the pudding, and you need to let them eat cake.
Effective systems, processes and tools give you the power to maximise your efforts, helping you to truly scale your marketing activity. Consider assets and collateral that streamline communication production. Devise methods to simplify production processes. Use project management tools for creating efficiencies. Invest in CRM systems to ease the nurturing of leads and to simplify result measurement.
The advent of AI is revolutionising efficiency and productivity in marketing, presenting many new opportunities. While it’s a vast topic, it’s certainly worth exploring. For a great starting point, read this guide from HubSpot. It provides an excellent overview and practical tips.
If this all seems overwhelming, it’s because it is.
Unless you have an in-house marketing team, it’s probably not viable for you to implement all of this yourself. Collaborate with experienced marketing professionals to develop your dynamic marketing strategy, so you can focus on your specialism.
You don’t need to let yourself struggle with marketing. We specialise in supporting businesses like yours at MP&Co. Like attracts like. If your business is a good ‘un, together we could create something exciting. We can identify:
Let’s make sure your efforts don’t fall on deaf ears and waste your time, money and resources.
Want to see what collaborating with MP&Co looks like as a professional service provider? Read our Chase De Vere case study.
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