About Us

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The Digital Revolution and

 the Marketing of Professional Services

 

The Challenge of Marketing Professional Services

 

Matrix Marketing

 

Newsletters

 

White Papers and Case Studies

 

Events and Symposia

 

Pulling it All Together

 

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The Challenge of Marketing

Professional Services

 

Providers of professional services – from law firms and ad agencies to CPA firms and IT companies – pose unique marketing challenges.

 

For starters, professional services are intangible and ill-suited to advertising. The power of most media is their ability to convey images. But unlike sports cars or sexy lingerie, professional services are difficult to depict graphically. The standard images of a bustling, briefcase-bearing professional and a technician hunched over a PC are generic and bland.

 

Secondly, consumers can’t readily compare features or prices of professional services. By the nature of their business, professionals tailor their services to the unique needs of the client. Ascertaining the cost of a service entails consultations with the client to define the nature and scope of his work. Even if it were possible to compete on the basis of price in the manner, say, of a dry cleaner, professionals have good reason to refrain from doing so. Broadcasting the message, “We’re Cheaper,” might well send the wrong signal regarding the quality of the firm’s service.

 

Thirdly, professionals find it difficult to script a compelling call to action. “Call and Get our Free Brochure” just won’t generate traffic like “Rent One Videotape, Get One Free.” Image advertising rarely generates tangible results. Business executives don’t pick up the phone to buy a discrete service – they engage a firm to provide an ongoing stream of services in a long-term relationship. Because the vast majority of clients are locked into existing relationships, they have no cause to respond to an image ad.

 

Personal relationships drive marketing in the professions. If an executive is satisfied with the work provided by his lawyer, CPA, engineer, investment banker, ad agency or network integrator, he will ignore a marketing pitch to try someone new. Switching to a new firm entails significant transition costs: A new player will rack up billable hours just getting to know the business. Switching also poses risks: There’s no guarantee that personalities will “click.” When a business executive does decide to change firms, his instinct will be to engage a professional he already knows and trusts.

 

As most professionals have discovered, the most effective way to generate new business is to extend their networks of personal relationships. Lawyers and bankers, in particular, are active participants in civic organizations and trade associations where they can build relationships of trust with people outside their existing client base. However, the time of key people is valuable, and time spent networking and schmoozing is time not devoted to billable hours.

 

The challenge for the marketing manager is to leverage the visibility of the firm’s key people. In recent years, professional service firms in Virginia have pursued the strategy of sponsoring events hosted by chambers of commerce, technology councils and trade shows. Sponsorships create heightened visibility for the sponsor in front of a highly targeted audience in an environment where the sponsor can interact with prospects on a personal level.

 

As effective as they can be, however, event sponsorships suffer from major drawbacks. The sponsor does not control the event, which means he cannot command the attention of any more prospects than he can personally interact with. Indeed, the sponsor typically must share visibility with others, including even competitors. Furthermore, the casual schmoozing of a coffee break or sit-down banquet does not lend itself to interacting with a large number of prospects. Although networking is valuable, it’s not clear that sponsors derive any more benefit from it than non-sponsors do. Finally, it’s impossible to measure the return on investment in sponsorships.

 

In the 1990s, professional services firms devoted a disproportionate share of their marketing dollars to event sponsorships because the payoff seemed greater than any of the alternatives such as print, direct mail or the Internet. But the time has come to move to the next level. Obscured by the mayhem of the dot.com bubble, the digital revolution is changing the economics of business-to-business marketing. Digital technologies have created new techniques for professionals to identify and attract customers. Rather than passively accepting the sponsorship opportunities offered by others, marketing managers of professional service firms now can take control of the venue in which they interact with their prospects.

 

Matrix Marketing

 

In the matrix-marketing model, professional service firms develop business primarily in one of two ways:  

• Extending the relationship with existing clients into new services in which the firm possesses expertise, or

• Leveraging a particular field of expertise into business with new clients.

If a law firm, for instance, conducts environmental litigation for a client, it can extend that relationship into related fields such as lobbying or regulatory compliance. A systems integrator that maintains a telecommunications network for a client might well parlay that relationship into an e-commerce project.

 

The key to winning this kind of business is to deliver the promised results and maintain a relationship of trust with the client. Because this approach builds on existing relationships, it lies outside the sphere of marketing.

 

Alternatively, a law firm that has won an environmental lawsuit for one client can offer its expertise in toxic torts to a different client whose law firm may lack that particular competence. Similarly, an IT company that has developed an online-training program for one client can readily provide the same solution, with necessary customization, to another client. This approach does lend itself to marketing.

 

In the matrix-marketing model, the marketing manager has several key roles:

 

(1) Identifying spheres of expertise in the firm that can be applied to new clients,

 

(2) Identifying the clients most likely to benefit from such expertise, and

 

(3) Facilitating face-to-face meetings between the firm’s experts and its best prospects.

 

There are a number of strategies for accomplishing these aims, as we shall outline below.

 

Newsletters

 

One of the fastest-growing phenomena in business-to-business marketing today is the company-sponsored newsletter. Professional service firms are positioning themselves as experts by publishing newsletters on topics in which they hold special competence, distributing them as an added value to clients, and distributing them to prospects as a preliminary to establishing a full-fledged relationship.

 

Recent advances in digital technology have made newsletters far more attractive than in the past. They can be produced in electronic format and distributed by e-mail, saving the expense of printing, postage and mailing. Electronic newsletters also can be translated easily into HTML for archiving on the company’s website or converted into a format that can be put into print.

 

Meanwhile, a lush business ecology is rising around the Internet. Companies are providing an array of digital services that make it easier to produce electronic newsletters and to augment their effectiveness. For instance, the layout, design and fulfillment (or distribution) of electronic newsletters can be efficiently out-sourced. Electronic-clipping firms comb the Internet for news and content that can be appended to the newsletters at modest additional expense.

 

Perhaps most importantly, new electronic media outlets make it possible to promote the newsletter beyond the firm’s existing-client base. A simple click on a link takes prospects to a registration page for a free newsletter. The registration data is easily captured, and a channel now exists to promote the firm’s meetings and symposia.

 

Newsletters do have a drawback: It takes a significant commitment of resources to generate worthwhile content. While the cost of producing and disseminating a newsletter has declined precipitously, writing and editing is still quite labor intensive. If a firm is unwilling to produce a quality product, the endeavor may backfire. People are too busy to read mediocre content, whatever the source. Indeed, a poor product may reflect negatively on the publisher.

 

White Papers and Case Studies

 

Professional services firms unwilling to commit the ongoing resources necessary to produce a quality newsletter might consider less expensive alternatives.

 

A white paper poses a business problem and proposes solutions that the publisher is qualified to carry out. Writing the paper entails a one-time effort rather than an ongoing commitment of resources. Like a newsletter, a white paper can be archived on the company’s website, and it can be cost-effectively promoted online. Publication of a white paper also can be tied to the promotion of an event or symposium on the same topic.

                                                                  

A case study also addresses a business problem and proposes solutions, but it does so from a more readable, journalistic perspective. A case study highlights how the professional service firm devised or delivered a solution to a real-world business problem for a real-world client. Readers relate to a flesh-and-blood case study, accompanied by photos of real people, more readily than to a white paper dealing largely in abstractions. The drawback is that publication of a case study is more expensive than that of a white paper, typically involving engaging outside writers, editors and photographers.

 

Closing the Loop: Events and Symposia

 

If a newsletter, white paper or case study induces a prospect to pick up the phone and call an expert in the professional service firm, then it has succeeded. But the benefits don’t stop there. These tools for highlighting business solutions also raise awareness of issues that can be addressed in an event or symposium where personal relationships can be forged.

 

Firm-sponsored events can range from massive, all-day affairs in a rented ballroom to business luncheons around a conference table. Whatever the setting, the organizer controls the setting to advance its own agenda. The organizer selects the issue and decides who will attend. The organizer puts its own experts front and center, where they deliver a message to a receptive audience. Finally, the organizer gains exclusive access to the attendees in an environment conducive to establishing an ongoing relationship.

 

James A. Bacon

Publisher, VA Newswire

(804) 873-1543

jim@vanewswire.com