How to improve data consultancy client attraction with proposition clarity

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If you run a data consultancy or data solutions business and want to attract clients online, e.g. through LinkedIn, you already know that clear communication is vital.

The benefit of increasing the clarity of your content online is that attracting clients via the web is fundamentally different to how you've attracted and converted clients in the past.

In this article, I'm going to outline four areas that are key to improving online communication and attracting more clients to your data consultancy.

But first, let's look at some examples of client attraction the 'old' way...

Selling data services via referrals

Let's imagine you've delivered data warehousing or data analytics solutions for various clients or employers in the past.?

One of your old clients moves on to a new employer and needs a similar solution.?

The client remembers the great work you did, so she picks up the phone and invites you to coffee to chat about their data platform challenges and see if/how/where you can help.

There is?implicit?clarity in this situation that both parties don't need to repeat:

• She knows you're a whizz at building data warehouses but hate designing the front-end reports and dashboards
• She knows you have a framework and process that you follow
• She knows you're great at mentoring and supporting junior staff on the client-side
• You know she expects regular progress alerts to the sponsor team without getting too deep into the data-speak
• You know she expects you to be comfortable presenting and engaging with executives

So when you sit down to chat over coffee and paninis, you can get into the specifics of what she's looking to achieve in terms of timelines, technology, stakeholders and commercials WITHOUT having to clarify your background, approach and testimonials etc.

Selling data services via trade shows and events

You're at the most prominent data event of the year. Standing in the coffee queue, you get chatting to a guy who heads up digital transformation for a leading telco.?

Taking the conversation to a nearby table, a data governance manager from the same telco joins you.

You go through the usual 'what brings you to the conference' pleasantries, and before you know it, you're twenty minutes into a deep conversation about the data journey these guys have been on so far.

It turns out the data governance guy invited the digital transformation director along to learn more about how data is key to the digital strategy they've been wrestling with for many months.

The link between data and business strategy is your sweet spot, so you share war stories and lessons learned – you've got a captive audience. You send each other LinkedIn connections and agree to a zoom call to talk more next week.

Why are both these situations different to attracting clients online?

The initial attraction event with a prospect is far shorter when marketing online.

You typically have 2-3 seconds for someone to be attracted to the headline of your article or the first few words of your LinkedIn post.

Contrast a LinkedIn post compared to the conference example above, which relied on a lengthy conversation to explain your approach and expertise.?

When I had my own data consultancy, I would speak on stage then chat to decision-makers who wanted to learn more after my session. We would then grab a coffee or even carry on the discussion during an evening meetup. In a multi-day event, I would even have a sponsor booth and chat to a stream of attendees.

Just like the referral story, you have so much more time in the physical world compared to online client attraction.

So, when it comes to online marketing, you need to be crystal clear about proposition messaging so that your ideal clients resonate instantly with how you help them tackle a problem or reach a goal that matters to them deeply.

What are the different proposition elements you need to communicate your data services?

If you take a look at the diagram below, you can see that every proposition needs to communicate content, or messaging, around 4x key components:

• Problem?– The scenario or situation your ideal client profile is wrestling with.
• Solution?– The proposition, process or product that moves the ideal client from their present situation to a desired goal state.
• Results?– The effect your solution has on the transformation of your ideal client profile (i.e. the individual) as well as the company.
• Difference?– An explanation for how you approach the problem or solution in a different way to your peers or competitors.

This messaging model is just one of a series I would typically work through with clients and comes at the end of a discovery exercise based on the past work you or your team has delivered.

But what's interesting is that even with this simple model, you can start to see where some data firms struggle to attract the volume and quality of client conversations they were hoping for with their online marketing.

'Fuzzy' communication across these messaging elements can lead to a variety of syndromes such as:

• 'Talking to yourself' – This is where a data firm publishes content from the perspective of the data professional instead of their ideal client (who is rarely another data engineer, architect or consultant).
• 'Proposition Proliferation' – The website has more data services than employees, which spills over into a confusing blogging and publishing calendar where a new service or proposition gets a mention every week.
• 'Consultancy clones' – Where the differentiators are so unclear, every consultancy looks and sounds the same (digital transformation firms – I'm talking to you!).
• 'What results?' – Lack of testimonials, case studies and deep insights result in a lack of perceived credibility. Note: I think this is one area where data firms especially need to improve. It also gives you a great excuse to loop back with past clients to talk about life after the work you delivered and explore fresh opportunities now that they have matured some aspect of their data journey.
• 'Context gaps' – To attract your ideal client, your content needs to resonate, especially with their problem and the outcome (or results) they desire. They'll trust you to deliver a data solution because you've captured the context around their problem in such vivid detail it feels like you got inside their head. For example, I often get clients signing up to my accelerator program without asking for any details of the steps involved, simply because the LinkedIn posts I write are resonating with their frustration at not having a predictable method of attracting clients.

We've barely scratched the surface here, but hopefully, you can take a look at your proposition messaging and start to explore which elements have areas for improvement.

Then the fun?really?begins – how do you translate these messaging components into engaging articles, posts, videos, podcasts and webinars that people are desperate to consume and act on.

(Which we'll discuss in the next article).

Next Steps...

Need help implementing a content strategy that attracts a consistent pipeline of opportunities for your data consultancy?

myDataBrand has developed a 7-step content-driven growth system that helps data consultancy founders implement all the training, tools and tactics they need to convert expert content into great clients.

To discuss your challenges and learn more about the myDataBrand system, book a free discovery call: https://mydatabrand.com/breakthrough

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