Inbound marketing is an effective way for professional services companies to generate traffic and leads and to position themselves as experts in their field.
A blog is fundamental to a successful inbound marketing strategy. But eBooks are the next part of the process - they are an excellent way to turn visitors into leads.
Research by the CMI consistently shows eBooks to be one of the most effective forms of content. And the bonus? They’re relatively inexpensive to produce.
Professional services firms have traditionally relied on referrals to grow their customer base. However, this method curbs your potential reach - your network is limited to your current clients and who they know.
And with 71 percent of B2B buyers starting their search online with no provider in mind, it's no wonder more and more professional services companies are moving to a content marketing approach in a bid to reach a wider audience.
The idea is simple: creating useful, informative and valuable content increases your likelihood of being discovered by potential clients looking for what you do.
But your content needs to be aimed at the right people - your target customers. It needs to attract (and maintain) their attention.
Technological and social changes have swept old methods of marketing away in every single industry and professional services marketing is no different. If you haven’t reviewed and changed your marketing strategy in the past decade, then you are getting left behind.
In this post, we look at some of the areas where professional services marketing has changed and what you can do to refocus your marketing efforts to remain competitive.
Clients are now savvy, short on time and keen on online tools that can make their working life easier and save them the effort. Your marketing strategy has to reflect this – old ways have changed, gone, and new approaches are the only ones with a chance of success.
Video can be a powerful asset for professional services marketing. The right approach for your campaign will depend heavily on your video marketing strategy.
Whether your intention is to raise awareness of your company, simply convey complex information, or share customer endorsements, visual media will bring your message to life.
This post explores some of the styles that work best for professional services.
Your website is where potential customers flock to find more information about your business and all that it has to offer, and it’s likely your homepage will be their entry point.
Research shows that 80 per cent of professional services buyers visit a company’s website to evaluate them as a potential provider.
So, if you're a professional services company your website needs to be giving off all the right messages.
Your website is a product of your business, and therefore a reflection of your work. A poorly designed website gives the impression you don’t care for your customers and are ok with mediocrity.
The point is, your website can make or break your business.
Take Apple for example. As one of the largest global technology companies, you’d expect them to have a well-designed and responsive website, right? Otherwise, how could anyone trust their products?
Cake. Yum.
Who doesn't love it? Sponge cake, fruit cake, gluten-free cake, chocolate cake. So many options!
You specialise in each area. And you make damn good cakes. But no one is eating them, because no one knows where you are. And now they’re out of date, and going stale...
What I'm trying to say is, it's all well and good creating remarkable content, but what’s the use if no one is going to see?
That’s exactly why some bloggers recommend spending as much time promoting your content as you do writing it.
The best bloggers for professional services understand the need take a professional approach. Business in this sector depends on the level of trust and authority you can convey to your potential clients (and to your existing clients). So just casually throwing a few words together will simply not bring the results you are looking for.
In this post we are going to look at three essential elements that contribute to a polished and effective professional services blog.
As a B2B marketer in the professional services industry, pressure from partners to bring in new opportunities means you need to deliver. But referrals aren’t what they used to be, and you can’t afford to sit and wait for them to come in.
The professional services industry has traditionally relied on referrals to fuel business growth. Trust and good relationships are created and built upon through hours of networking and recommendations from current clients. However, while word-of-mouth is still an effective tool, it is no longer enough on its own.
With 64% of the UK’s population of over 65 million active on social media spending an average of 108 minutes a day on one or more social networks, you can’t ignore social as an essential way to connect with people and businesses (Keith Herrington).
But, get social wrong, and it can cause more damage than good to your reputation and your business. Your strategy for social needs to cascade down from smart goals set out in your professional services marketing strategy. Here are some tips to maximise the potential of LinkedIn for your professional services firm:
Most professional services companies know that the best way to get more business is to get their best people in front of prospects – face to face. In such a situation, their expertise, knowledge and consultancy skills will go a long way towards making the sale. This is why networking events work so well for professional services – prospects can talk to your best people, and the benefits of a mutual relationship become obvious.
Unfortunately, you only have so many best people, and their time is in demand; the number of profitable networking events is usually small, and events require a physical presence that takes time out of the office.
Furthermore, time pressures on executives, managers and buyers have massively increased to the point where they are often unable or unwilling to spare the time for networking events, on travel, day-long conferences and so on.
No professional services company can survive without new business, and securing those leads is the highest priority for most B2B marketers. With traditional methods proving less effective, companies are turning to inbound marketing – but what type of content should you produce? How should you go about it? And what’s the best way to deploy it to generate the most leads?