Integrate your marketers to best use their skills
Professional services firms need marketers (and many other professionals outside their core technical service offering) to create a sustainable and profitable client base. However, partners’ lack of understanding of marketers’ skills and ways of working can cause frustration on both sides, leaving the marketers feeling that their planning and advice is being ignored and the partners wondering why they hired marketing professionals in the first place.
Once a firm has decided to hire marketers, it is essential to understand how to make best use of their expertise and how to integrate their work with that of the firm’s fee earners. Expectations for both sets of professionals must be discussed and aligned with an agreed marketing plan.
First, a professional services firm needs to understand that marketing has several broad specialisations.
Marketing generally can be defined as devising and using a range of activities that will assist in positioning the firm to sell services to specific target groups. The marketing of the firm’s services may be presented as the provision of solutions to organisations’ needs and problems through devices such as events, sponsorships, seminars and presentations, and supporting communications materials including brochures, tenders, and credentials statements.
Business development is based on understanding clients and the market in a systematic manner and then devising strategies to meet the needs uncovered. Business development aims to retain clients and recurring revenue and to generate new revenue from existing clients or strategically selected targets.
Communications can be divided broadly into external (to the marketplace) and internal (to staff). External communication activities include media and public relations, production of brochures, capability statements, speeches and presentations, and Internet, email and direct marketing activities that increase knowledge of a firm’s brand and reputation to clients and targets. The communication can be general, to the mass market, or tailored to specific clients.
Internal communications involves the use of intranets/email, in-house publications, voicemail, posters, and internal speaking forums. Internal communication is important to ensure that messages conveyed to the external marketplace are known and reinforced by all staff. It also plays an important role in ensuring that conflicts of interest are uncovered and useful business, new client or target relationships are identified and used in retaining or winning clients.
Advertising provides information about the organisation and its work. It involves different types of media: print-based advertising, catalogues, flyers/inserts in publications or handouts, commercials on radio, TV, Internet, billboards and posters. Advertising can be used to generate brand or name recognition, assist with recruitment, announce successes such as awards and achievements, or to promote a specialisation.
To achieve a return on investment in any of these marketing-related activities, professional services firms need to understand these specialist roles and how they can be integrated into practice development. Without a long-term strategic view, the skills of marketing staff will be under-used. Professional services firms need the infrastructure to manage marketing staff — career paths, access to management and partners — plus an understanding of the application of marketing skills.
Many marketing activities will be wasted effort if they are undertaken on the spur of the moment, suddenly dragging fee earners off billable work and forcing the marketing professional to quickly act, unplanned, without understanding of expectations or outcomes.
Marketing professionals also need to play a role in the education process. They must articulate how professional marketing skills can meet the firm’s present and future needs, such as identification and development of revenue opportunities, market positioning and brand development, and how the results of their work can be measured and assessed.
Here is an outline of what can and cannot be achieved by a professional services firm using marketing’s skills and tools.
Marketing
Marketing can:
- Provide effective tools to reach key targets.
- Measure and monitor activities used to reach targets.
- Tie external communications to business needs.
Marketing cannot:
- Be successful if delivered piecemeal or outside a defined strategy.
- Replace face-to-face relationships or a total communications program.
Indicative measures:
- Number of materials produced that achieve desired outcomes, e.g. tenders, marketing collateral that can be a talking point for clients.
- Feedback from clients or partners as to the accuracy and quality of marketing information and queries generated.
Advertising
Advertising can:
- Assist the market to become aware of your firm and its services.
- Generate interest and inquiries.
- Complement an external communications program, especially media.
Advertising cannot:
- Build relationships with clients.
- Compel people to contact the firm.
- Replace face-to-face or relationship-building activities.
Indicative measures:
- Responses from a ‘call to action’ in the advertisement or arising from a sponsorship.
- Number of queries generated from advertising.
- Capturing comments from clients and targets (solicited and unsolicited feedback).
Business development
Business development can:
- Provide understanding of existing clients and their needs.
- Provide analysis and strategy of targets and how to reach them.
- Focus resources to meet business needs for profitable, long-term client relationships.
Business development cannot:
- Replace the need to act in order to retain or gain new clients.
- Be effective without implementation by professional staff.
- Work in isolation from other specialists.
Indicative measures:
- Number of new engagements from cross-referrals in targeted segments.
- Size of engagements – has the work increased in scope or complexity.
- Client satisfaction measures as per client feedback.
- Client retention or new client wins,
- Number of relationships and depth of these – i.e. decision-maker-level access arising from marketing activities.
External communications
External communications can:
- Profile expertise in particular area.
- Increase awareness of credentials.
- Showcase intellectual capital.
- Assist in differentiation from competitors.
- Enhance market reputation.
- Lead to more publicity.
External communications cannot:
- Be effectively controlled.
- Create sales.
- Compel people to buy.
- Limit competitor activity.
Indicative measures:
- Number of media hits (compared with competitors).
- Number of follow-up pieces of media arising from activities, e.g. additional request for information arising from release, quoting of source article in other articles.
- Measurement of Internet traffic, particularly relating to campaigns.
Internal communications
Internal communications can:
- Profile expertise of firm to all staff.
- Reinforce firm’s values to staff.
- Identify relationships or prior work for client.
- Educate staff on external messages and brand.
Internal communications cannot:
- Generate sales or interest from the marketplace.
- Build relationships with clients.
Indicative measures:
- The staff understands the firm’s core values (solicited and unsolicited feedback).
- Staff can name key clients/industry segments and key statistics about the firm as per surveys and feedback.
- Responses to conflict or relationship searches (number, timeliness and additional information).
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