Professional Service Providers, What You Must Know about Marketing Professional Services Today
Let me be clear - what should be referred to as selling, now is called marketing by many. This is problematic because it causes them to expect too much from what are actually very indirect efforts.
Many people think that marketing - the single most important thing any of us can do to increase our business - is supposed to result in new clients.
In fact marketing's role is to put us in a position where we can sell more effectively. A well considered marketing strategy will illustrate our uniqueness, our suitability as a service provider, and it will attract people - the right people to us, but unless we are willing to ask them to buy something, it was all just a waste of time and money.
Marketing professional services effectively is an art as much as anything else. If you do it the right way, you will find a lot of takers in the market for your services. If you do it wrong you will be considered just another hype merchant whose so-called value proposition sounds remarkably like all the others.
In the good old days marketing professional services was a lot more straightforward. Your goal was to have a very strong network of friends, relatives, fellow service providers, and existing clients. Then, thanks to your wide network, you were able to get new clients through word of mouth alone.
So, you never felt the need for marketing professional services aggressively. When your inventory was low you'd attend a Rotary Club meeting, play a round of golf, attend a convention in your target industry, or take another professional advisor to lunch and get a few referrals.
However, that was before the advent of the Internet. Now, everything has changed - or has it?
The Internet has completely altered the way people do business. Earlier, a nice referral from one of your existing clients would seal the deal - converting the prospect into a new client. This is not necessarily the case today. Even with a very good referral, prospects will insist on taking at least a cursory look at your web site.
In the old days they might ask you for your brochure and they might even look at it. Now the expectation is that you have a web site - everybody does, and if you are as sharp as you want them to think you are, it will be well put together and up to date.
If you have a clunky, poorly managed web site, it will create a very bad impression of you. By now everyone knows it does not cost much or take much knowledge to have a professional looking web site, so if you don't - what does that say about you?
And if you do not have a web site at all, your chances are slim to say the least. Think about it.
A great looking web site does a brilliant job of marketing your services. It does it better than the brochures of old because there is never any out of date information on it - and new content is added regularly. Like your old brochure your web site is your brand, you can't leave it on their desk, but they can bookmark it. Here are three things you should remember while developing one.
1. The design should be professional. It should not look poorly constructed. And that's simple with about a zillion WordPress themes available - at no charge whatsoever or customized to beat the band for as much as you want to spend. That's why there is no excuse for not having a respectful looking web site
2. The content, needless to say, is the king. Potential clients won't just take a cursory look at your web site, some will actually read it, subscribe to your newsletter, and regularly read the information posted there - they want to get to know you better. Again this is too simple - people know that and if you don't have good relevant content, you lose points on the credibility scale. The better your web site copy, the better the chances of impressing your new clients.
3. Your web site should be optimized properly. To many people that means all the search engine optimization stuff we hear so much about, but that's not important. What is important is having your on-page and off-page optimization around the keyword phrases your prospective clients use when they are looking for the services you provide. The beauty of web site optimization, compared to traditional advertising and marketing, impacting marketing professional services - is that it's possible for you to puzzle out the precise terms people are using when they are looking for services like yours and then test - getting results quickly so you can make the adjustment on the fly.
Marketing professional services is very easy once you harness the power of the Internet, but it still won't put clients on the books and it won't put money in the bank.
That will come from making sales. Your Internet marketing strategy will tilt the odds in your favor and increase the number of people to choose from, so you spend your valuable time with the people you really are fired up about serving.
While the Internet has dramatically altered marketing professional services, it has not eliminated the power of referrals, the importance of attending association events, or having lunch where the successful business owners are.
Everything that worked in the past should still be done - the Internet makes it faster!
About the Author
Successful professionals are always on the lookout for ideas and resources to help them. They are also looking for creative ways of marketing their professional services. If you want to be even more successful in the future than you are today, learn more about marketing professional services and share your insights with others, visit us and join in the discussion.
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