How to Market Professional Services

This article is primarily for firm managers and in-house providers though SMEs or other practitioners may find it useful as well. Marketing professional services is largely about marketing the firms and experts who provide them. It’s about personal and corporate branding. The business identity of the firm and personal brand of the SME generate leads for the firm. 

Here are some traditional and modern lead generation tools that are deployable by SMEs and professional services firms.  These marketing tools are generally effective at reaching and resonating in the marketplace for expert services.

Traditional marketing tools include: 

• Thought Leadership a.k.a. traditional scholarly articles written for a business rather than academic audience 
• Leadership of Professional Associations which give you a platform and brand identity  
• Membership on Charitable Boards alongside peer leaders who control budgets
• Participation in Referral Organizations such as BNI which help you expand your reach outside your profession or area of expertise

Modern marketing tools include:

• Host an event and, if possible, demonstrate your expertise at the event. For example, at your cocktail party, play a video of how your cyber tools combat cyber threats. The video could be a virtual video game between your company, the hero, and the bad guys the hero kills with your cyber superpowers.
• Host a single-issue podcast. For example, if you are an expert at corporate finance, each episode should be about a current event in corporate finance (i.e., a major financing that was recently completed), a trend in corporate finance, or an in-depth look at a corporate finance facility.
• Create a social media persona. For example, if your firm is engaged in forensic science, you might create a character that solves mysteries on your YouTube or Instagram page. 

All these tools are good. In fact, the important thing is not which tool you choose but that  you recognize that the tool itself is a marketing tool intended to bring brand awareness not a sales tool that leads directly to immediate revenues. You’ll still need a sales strategy to monetize the brand awareness created by your marketing efforts. But the marketing strategy will bring you the leads that you and your team can work on converting.