WHATS MISSING FROM SERVICE FIRM MARKETING STRATEGIES

By Mike Schultz

Ask 10 professional service firms to see their marketing strategies and you will get an interesting mix of answers. You might get a 50 page document that would get an “A” in any business school class. Some firms might give you a few pages on the tactics they plan to implement by month or quarter. Many firms would say, “Marketing strategy? We're working on getting it down on paper this year.”

Regardless of the length, when I look at a marketing strategy for a service firm I always ask myself five questions:

Does this plan make good business sense?

Do I know where you are spending time and money, and why you have chosen various components?

Is there enough information to guide actions and implementation?

Are all of the contents useful, or are the pages just filled with off-target and misleading information?

What's missing?

Unfortunately, I am not always happy with what I see. Most of all, I'm disappointed that these service firms have spent valuable time, whether it's a day or a year, on a marketing strategy that is not yielding them all it can and should be.

If you, as a service firm leader or marketer, are about to build your marketing plan (or if you've just built it), ask yourself the following high-level questions to help craft the best plan for your business.

What are our revenue goals?

How and when do we plan to achieve them?

What is our realistic potential for improvement in our current marketing and sales process?

Where does all of our current business come from? Where did it originally come from?

How should we go about improving our marketing and sales results?

How much should (or must) we invest to reach or exceed our expected results?

Which tactical activities are likely to provide the best results?

What has and has not worked for us in the past?

What are our competitors doing? What has and has not worked for them in the past?

What are companies outside of our specific service industry doing for marketing and sales, and what has and has not worked for them?

What is the best mix of tactics for our firm to use specifically for lead generation? For lead nurturing? For branding? For client retention?

How do the tactics in our marketing mix each contribute to us reaching our revenue goals?

What kind of tactics and campaigns should we engage first, and what tactics should we test over a period of time?

With the tactics we choose, how do we make sure we implement them as well as we can? What implementation pitfalls must we avoid?

How do we set up a process to make sure we nurture demand within our target markets so we gain the most effectiveness over the long-term for our investments in marketing and sales?

Which marketing and sales tactics should we avoid altogether because they are unlikely to produce results?

How long might it take for results to materialize based on what assumptions?

How will we measure and improve results continuously over time?

Are our marketing and sales (or business development…or rainmaking) processes working together to produce the best results?

How do we get the most out of our internal staff regarding sales – tapping their energy and potential and helping them to be successful for themselves and for the firm?

Is there any low hanging fruit that we should immediately address to either fix glaring problems or get fast results?

If we achieve our revenue goals, how will it affect our business operations and ability to deliver at or above our current quality levels?

Finally, and possibly most important, “Does everyone agree that we are headed to our revenue goal, and do we have commitment (vs. either compliance or lip-service agreement) from the team to do whatever they can to help us get there?”

These are not the only questions you should ask when building a marketing strategy. Indeed, by asking each question you will spur others from yourself and your colleagues. If you first ask the questions, and then do the research you need to get the answers, you'll have a compelling, implementable, and well-researched marketing strategy.


WHATS MISSING FROM SERVICE FIRM MARKETING STRATEGIES - To learn more about this author, visit Laurie Stafinski's Website.

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