Professional Services Marketing: Embracing Digital

What's inside the mind of professional services marketers? Brand awareness, differentiation, leads generation, client relationship, and trusted adviser-ship. What has it to do with digital - isn't that a fancy thing for reaching and connecting web crawlers and smartphone addicts, which is currently a big thing for mass consumer markets? Yes and No.

Yes, digital marketing is undertaken through and to web and smartphones. No, it's not just for consumer markets - some of your professional service client contacts are web crawlers and smartphone addicts too. Even they are not, they still use web and smartphones to access information. Today web and smartphones are ubiquitous, and one thing is universal for marketers - no matter for consumer markets, professional services, or industrial goods - where your customers/clients are, you are. And, no, it's not just a currently big thing: it is the norm going forward.

In fact, digital marketing is not so much a strange thing to professional services. How many of us as professional services marketers could deny the use of website, e-newsletters and email campaigns to reach out to and engage our clients and prospects? They are part of today's definition of the digital marketing sphere. It is the recently added domains such as Search Engine Optimisation, Blogging, Social Media that overwhelm and alienate professional services marketers. Compared with traditional targeted marketing tools employed by professional services, such as sponsorship, industry conferences, client seminars, thought leadership literature, these new tools look quite mass-ish, loose-ended, and off-mark to us.

Let us start with website. I trust 99% professional services firms have a corporate website, and I put my bet in that to over 50% of these firms a corporate website is more like a "everyone else has it and we have it" thing. Ten years ago, it was probably right and no big deal. Today, if you still keep this thought you are out, because instead of passively having the corporate website as a public face, the other half of your competitive league are proactively using their website to showcase their insights and expertise, to engage clients and prospects, and to drive business down that sales funnel. Ask ourselves reflective questions such as "could all our target audiences find what they are looking for on our website within three clicks?" or "whether our website is a relatively standalone information outlet or integrally woven into other marketing channels, campaigns and client touch points?". These questions will open up a totally new "worldview" into digital marketing.

But why social media? What have they to do with professional services business? The two merits of social media for professional services are "share-of-mind" and "word-of-mouth marketing". Through participating in social media communities, professional services firms could be constantly present with their clients and prospects without overwhelming them with too frequent mailings of stringent or scholarly points of view. And social media is a two-way street - it is more engaging and interactive than mailings and speaking engagements. Then you could gather the league of your most loyal clients around your brand on social network, provide information and advice where needed, seek for feedback, have them talk about your company and expertise. People ask for and proactively share references on social networks, and this is where your most loyal clients spread the word and help you attract new inquiries and client relationships.

Of course, there are also other digital marketing tools, such as SEO, online advertising, blogging, mobile apps. Not all of them are useful or practical to professional services, but some of the tools should definitely be on your radar and in your plan. Blogging, for example, is a wonderful new way for publishing your points of view and showcasing your insights into certain business issues.

Key for professional services to embracing digital marketing:

1. Bear in mind your ends - brand awareness, differentiation, leads generation, client relationship, trusted adviser-ship;
2. Identify and understand what each of these digital tools could offer;
3. Prioritise and begin with what's doable and what carries the biggest impact;
4. Integrate: develop an integrated marketing strategy with online and offline reinforcing each other.

Bottom line: digital marketing won't be and shouldn't be a UFO to professional services. It is one (or multiple) added means and channel, for professional services marketers to combine the traditional undertakings with the new digital means and platforms. Sooner or later, all businesses will need to have an integrated marketing strategy, online and offline, because this is now the planet we live on.

Welcome to digital.