Rule No. 1 of lead nurturing: Don’t squander your leads. You’ve worked hard and followed tips on this blog to bring them in through SEO, social media, blogging, etc. These efforts are not solely about creating content – and if it’s the thing you’re focusing on, you are not using these methods to their fullest potential.

Successful social media strategies for professional services firms must be targeted and meaningful. If you are with a small to medium-sized firm, you don’t have time to waste by spreading your social media efforts too thin. In addition, there are so many great social media marketing tips on the Internet today that it is difficult to read through all these articles to arrive at the right combination of activities that makes sense.

If you are developing your content marketing strategy for the coming year, always remember this effort involves highly strategic, consistent creation (sometimes curation) and distribution of valuable content to attract and keep a targeted audience of clients and prospects. 

Most professional services firms have an email list--and they don’t do much with it. Often these firms send out general interest newsletters or keep in sporadic touch with industry touch points and companies on the list. Much more gold to be mined in those email cases that your firm has been accumulating. Email marketing is a powerful tool to gather information and help deepen relationships. 

Images can bring businesses and professionals closer to their social media fans, followers, clients, and prospects. Photographs, especially photos, have always had an arresting quality: now they’re more accessible than ever to create and highly sharable. Images, infographics, and video serve as excellent shorthand to say a lot quicker and as perfect shortcuts to bringing people closer faster. 

Establishing your firm’s value and good name is, as ever, the key to brand marketing. This can be challenging in a wired world, where much of your activity is transparent, leaving it open to comment and criticism. As your brand generates interaction and feedback, make the most of the positives and learn from criticism to move your business forward. Professional services brand marketing is simple--when you adopt these seven basic tenets:

Lead generation for professional services firms is best accomplished through the synergy of various well-thought-out, ongoing marketing efforts. The goal is to get in front of your target audiences (clients and prospects) wherever they are and keep in touch. This way, you catch the prospect when they need your services—when they’re ready to decide to "seal the deal." At this point, quality clients and pre-qualified leads will jump right into your inbound marketing funnel.

The online world is getting more crowded daily, so setting your company above the rest can be challenging. By keeping concrete goals in mind, however, strategic inbound marketing for professional services firms can bring your core audience to you. inbound marketing

In today’s wired world, electronic communications are rarely extraordinary. Daily is filled with emails, text messages, tweets, likes, and follows that typically fulfill some useful purpose. These messages are quick, take minutes to draft, and rarely involve thoughtfully written prose.  One could easily say, “This is simply the natural evolution of communication.”  While that may be the case, I am not convinced. 

In prior posts, you've learned how inbound marketing practices can be highly effective when it comes to catching the eye of a desired visitor. It is essential to apply these methods to keep visitors, leads, or existing clients interested in learning more.  You must delight readers with fresh, relevant content to keep their attention.