Marketing tactics tend to vary by industry and by the size of the company. A large consumer goods company, like Pepsi, might leverage a Super Bowl commercial to drive demand and brand awareness. A small management consulting firm that thrives on “word of mouth” referrals might engage in little to no marketing beyond its company website.

Most professional services firms can’t afford Super Bowl ads or hundreds of billboards in cities throughout the United States. But even if they could, those marketing tactics likely wouldn’t generate the best return anyway. Why? Because professional services firms are selling domain expertise (knowledge) instead of static products. It is difficult to articulate domain expertise in a 30-second TV commercial or in a momentary glance at a billboard.

When a client hires a professional services firm, the client wants high-quality deliverables produced within a reasonable period of time and at a fair price. It’s really that simple. The job of the marketing team is to convince prospects that the firm can satisfy these goals. When it comes to developing a marketing plan for a professional services firm, the focus should be on channels that best enable the firm to articulate its value proposition.

A marketing message for a professional services firm should generally convey the following:

• We are experts in our area of focus.
  ‍
• We consistently deliver high-quality work.
  ‍
• We are trusted by industry-leading clients (list them if possible).
  ‍
• We are fairly priced. (Note: this is not the same as “low-priced”.)
  ‍

The following are the marketing tactics that tend to generate solid lead flow for professional services firms:

Website

To a degree, this goes without saying, but if you want to position your firm as an industry leader, you need an industry-leading website. The website needs to be professional and polished. The content (i.e. case studies, white papers, press releases, etc.) needs to be engaging and regularly updated.

When clients are evaluating potential services firms, they often form their initial impression based entirely on the website. First impressions are usually lasting impressions, so you want to make a good one. It is important to invest appropriately in both user experience and content. This may require engaging an outside design agency and will likely require significant internal (non-billable) time in order to create valuable content.

From a marketing perspective, a professional services firm website should include some or all of the following:

• A list of clients and testimonials
  ‍
• A clear description of the services offered
  ‍
• Case studies of past engagements
  ‍
• White papers on topics of interest to clients
  ‍
• Webinars (both live and on-demand) on topics of interest to clients
  ‍
• Press releases showing the activity and momentum of the firm
  ‍
• Blog posts on relevant topics
  ‍
• A list of events and conferences that firm experts will be attending
  ‍
• A list of important awards that the firm has won
  ‍
• Bios of the firm leaders (including high-quality photos)
  ‍
• A description of the firm’s delivery processes (i.e. methodology)
  ‍

Content Marketing

Closely associated with the firm website is the firm’s content marketing strategy. Content marketing is about providing useful content that can attract, acquire, and engage a target audience (your ideal clients).

There are two broad benefits of a content marketing strategy for a professional services firm. First, the content itself will help differentiate your firm as a domain expert and thought leader in your area of focus. Second, the content will be indexed by search engines and drive traffic to your website at no cost. Highly-targeted, free internet traffic is very tough to come by but a strong content marketing program can deliver it.

The main objective of content marketing is to educate an audience. You want to create content that will substantiate your firm as a thought leader with deep domain expertise in a given subject. The following examples are excellent content marketing techniques for educating an audience:

• An eBook or articles that link back to your website
  ‍
• Regular blog postings
  ‍
• White papers
  ‍
• Webinars
  ‍
• Case studies
  ‍
• Videos (possibly hosted on YouTube)
  ‍

Speaking Engagements (including podcasts)

Another good way to convey your firm’s domain expertise is to have firm experts participate in speaking engagements. These engagements can vary from industry conferences to podcasts to local meetups. It is particularly useful to engage in speaking events where customers are likely to be in attendance.

Speaking engagements can be a great way to enhance your firm’s relationship with its existing clients while at the same time acquiring new clients. If there are specific topics that are in high demand in your industry, hosting a free “lunch and learn” in your city can be a great way to educate clients and prospects to reinforce your domain expert status. Aside from establishing your dominance in a particular subject area, you get the added benefit of connecting existing clients with prospects. This is important because there is no better way to convince a new prospect to hire your firm than to have your existing customers rave about how great you are to work with.

Networking

The business of professional services is largely about relationships – relationships with employees, clients, prospects, and partners. Networking is one of the oldest means of creating and developing these professional relationships.

As it pertains to lead generation, networking generally does not provide a quick return on the time invested. Don’t expect to go to an event tomorrow and win a new deal next week. But when done well and consistently over many months or years, networking has a compounding positive impact on sales.

It is important for representatives across your firm to get out in the community and network. It is particularly useful for salespeople, delivery experts, and even recruiting personnel to be regularly active. Each of these groups can have a positive impact on the impression of your firm’s brand in the market and that will eventually correlate to sales and key hires.

One important networking tip is to focus on helping others. The best way to get new business opportunities from people in your network in the future is to help those people accomplish something today. Make an introduction, provide some free counsel, help establish a partnership, etc. In short, the best way to receive in the future is to give today.

Paid Search Marketing

Paid search marketing (e.g., Google AdWords) can make sense for professional services firms that focus on a specific niche of a market (such as a vertical or horizontal segment within a few geographies). With the proper approach to paid search marketing, you can drive highly-targeted traffic to your website. If you spend $3,000 per month on paid search but generate a $100,000 client once per quarter, that is a $3,000 monthly check you’d be very happy writing – especially when you factor in the repeat business and referrals the new client may engage in over the years.

One caution with paid search marketing is that if you don’t know how to configure your campaigns properly, the costs can spiral out of control and/or the quality of the traffic can be low. If you do not have expertise with paid search marketing, you are far better off paying a specialist a few thousand dollars to set it up and manage it for you.

Industry Trade Shows and Conferences

While trade shows and conferences don’t always generate high-quality leads, they do give you an opportunity to network with clients and prospects. In general, you want to invest in the conferences that your current clients attend. Conferences will often have social events in the evenings that are ideal for forming relationships and partnerships. A big part of professional services is building and nurturing relationships, and conferences provide a good means of doing that.

Email Marketing and Newsletters

It is important to capture email addresses from clients, prospects, partners, and others in your industry. You can acquire email addresses from numerous avenues including event registrations, webinar downloads, newsletter signups, existing clients, etc. Your firm should be growing its email database consistently month after month. The goal should be to eventually collect thousands of email addresses and communicate with those recipients on a regular basis.

One reason email addresses are so important is that email is often the best way to alert people to new useful content on your website. Also, if your company is hosting a local event or webinar, an email blast is the best way to promote the event to potential attendees.

Referrals and Word of Mouth

The best form of marketing is when your existing clients rave about your firm to their peers in other companies. You can’t put a price tag on it. These types of referrals often produce project opportunities that aren’t competitive (meaning, you aren’t competing against other firms for the business.)

In a survey of over 34,000 consultants in 2019, Consulting Success found that 37% of consultants identified referrals as their primary channel for new business opportunities. The best way to get these referrals is by creating incredible value for your existing clients. You should strive to exceed expectations with existing clients 100% of the time.