Many of my professional services clients first approach me with a very broad request:
“We need to get better at marketing, but we don’t have the time or the experience in-house yet. Can you tell us what we need to do?”
Yes, of course I can. That’s exactly why I founded The Marketing Associates, to provide strategic marketing guidance and support, along with bringing in Associates with specific skills sets to allow professional services SMEs access to expert marketing.
But often, business owners also want to play a more active role in their marketing – but without necessarily having the confidence that comes with experience.
If that sounds like you, I’ve got some good news for you. There are some really simple things you can do. In fact, they are so simple that, when I share the secret, people sometimes look at me in amazement.
But really, it’s true. There’s no magic involved.
The truth is that very few businesses get these three basic things right. So you could gain a significant competitive advantage just by taking three simple steps.
1. Keeping an open mind
One of the common traits of small business owners is being too close to their business. It’s understandable. When you spend every day working in and on your business, there is little opportunity to step back and take a fresh look.
This can result in ideas and opinions about what your customers want and need fixing themselves in your mind.
If you can move out of your comfort zone and focus on evidence rather than opinion, your marketing will improve rapidly.
I frequently hear things like:
- “My clients don’t want a monthly newsletter.” Our data shows more people will read your newsletter if you send it monthly instead of quarterly.
- “Prospects won’t like being added to a newsletter database.” Some do, some don’t. Try sending it out so they can make their own decisions. You have to allow them an opt-out option. Some will use it. But many won’t.
- “My clients won’t want to do a testimonial video.” How do you know? If you ask people in the right way, they are usually pleased to be asked (even if they ultimately say ‘no’, which could be for a multitude of different reasons unrelated to their willingness or otherwise to endorse you!) and many of them will agree to do it. Find out how to ask here.
- “I can’t ask my clients for referrals.” That’s fine. Coming straight out with a referral request isn’t necessarily the best way of going about it. But what about instigating conversations with your clients about your business, which includes referrals and recommendations? Approaching things in a different way is more likely to get results.
- “I don’t want to use more than one review platform.” Why not? Social proof, in the form of reviews, is a hugely powerful (and free) marketing tool, as words from your (genuine) customers provide you with a legitimacy that you can’t get anywhere else. The more choice you give your clients, the more opportunities new clients have to read good things about you. Which platforms you use will depend on what is relevant to your industry, but Google My Business is ubiquitous, and VouchedFor and Trustpilot are also popular.
2. Developing consistent marketing habits
Marketing is the same as healthy eating or exercise. When you develop a habit of doing it regularly, and have a system that works for you, good things happen.
How many times have you made yourself a promise about changing everything, overnight? ‘I’m going to…go to the gym every day, cut out ALL sugar, red meat, alcohol…….(or whatever your favourite change of choice happens to be)’.
You get the point. We often try to change too much, all at once, setting ourselves up to fail.
Start small with your marketing changes, make it achievable, and keep doing it.
When you build good habits, with processes that make them achievable, you quickly start to see results, and it encourages you to continue, and to add new habits.
You could begin with:
- Setting up a simple way to record all new enquiries
- Connecting with your clients on social media
- Thanking clients when they recommend someone to you
- Emailing clients to ask for reviews after a meeting
- Writing down ideas you have for content (blogs, videos and social posts) when you have them
- Allocating time, or budget (if you’re outsourcing the job) so your newsletter gets sent every month, without fail
3. Making time
There’s no getting around the fact that effective marketing takes time. Whether it’s your time, or you invest in someone else’s.
But it doesn’t have to be a huge amount of time, at least to begin with.
If you set up templates for emails asking for reviews following a meeting, or put systems in place to record and respond to new enquiries, you can reduce the time it takes to carry out important marketing tasks to seconds.
And here’s a bonus one…
Cultivating patience
While it is possible to generate some surprisingly quick wins, marketing does take time to deliver tangible results. Once you’ve decided on your actions – whether it’s a few small steps or a fully formed marketing strategy – you need to give it time to take root, and of course you need to record and track the results.
You’ll get plenty of people trying to distract you with sparkly new platforms, tools, offers to ‘fix’ this and that. Resist the temptation. Stick with it.
For more ideas to help you get better at marketing, or to discuss how we can provide your business with strategic marketing support, get in touch.
tabitha@themarketingassociates.co.uk or call 01233 720379
At The Marketing Associates, we specialise in strategic freelance marketing support for professional service practices, providing excellent quality advice on your marketing strategy to develop and grow your business on a retained basis.