Getting to know what makes you, your markets and your competitors, tick.
My task is to help your practice generate more fee income than it does now. In pursuit of that goal, we’ll cover a lot of ground including (but not limited to) identifying what makes your business the business it currently is; an assessment of your existing (if any) marketing initiatives and we’ll establish who your clients and your direct and indirect competitors are.
During those deliberations, we will no doubt touch on matters relating to your website, client profiling, referrals, Social Media, e-mail campaigns and PR to name but six. But initially my main concern will be to get to grips with the broader and more abstract issues relating to your firm’s marketing and branding.
Together we’ll determine how best to package your services and develop propositions that will resonate with your clients. If we conclude that a change of direction may be required, we’ll analyse the advantages and the disadvantages that might bring.
1. Analyse your business
Assess your strengths, weaknesses, skills and expertise. What can you offer that your peers can’t — there’s always something! It doesn’t have to be a service feature, it can be symbolic or emotional. Providing the difference (no matter how small) is meaningful to the potential client, it will be deemed advantageous and help distance you from your competition.
2. Look at — and learn from — your competition
Who are they? Where are they? What are they good at and what aren’t they good at? How do they market their services? Do they have a unique selling point? What are their fees? What are they not offering, that you could?
3. Understand your clients and would-be clients
Who are they? Where do they live? What needs do they have that you can (and can't) fulfil? Would it help to split your clients into groups so that you can get a better idea of what you might have to offer them? Can you identify niche clients or potential niche markets and if so, are you equipped to exploit those segments?
4. Establish a market positioning
Knowing your qualities and strengths, you can then package those attributes and communicate and create a unique proposition which summarises your values and tells (directly or indirectly) potential clients what you’re about. And having established your positioning, stick with it.
Once the above tasks have been completed, we can then define some realistic goals and timescales. It’s also the opportune moment to consider what options you have for marketing your business — undoubtedly, some will work better for your firm than others.
We can look at:
- Client profiling: where to start, what it can tell you and what to do with it once you have it
- How best to keep in touch with existing clients
- Developing a PR strategy and creating press releases that get published
- Getting your website higher in the search engine rankings
- Newsletters, Social Media and e-mail marketing — getting the blend right
- To Pay per Click or not to Pay per Click?
