Marketing professional services is not a casual client encounter. Unlike businesses that sell products with a short sales cycle, a firm offering professional services tend to take a relationship marketing approach. Relationship marketing acknowledges the value of long-term client relationships by providing valuable, rich content that goes deeper than the typical sales promotion.  

Valentine's Day is the perfect day to offer a heartfelt message about winning the hearts and minds of clients. I prepared a light-hearted post on this special day to show readers how much I care. 

At the beginning of each year, marketing professionals take a more granular look at their firm's annual plan for trade shows and events. Trade show and professional event strategic marketing is a process that takes some planning to ensure the firm generates an increase in business development activity that justifies participation costs. 

Any firm can easily inspire inbound marketing campaigns with mission and vision statements. These statements provide direction and purpose, encourage achievement and ensure inbound marketing campaign activities align with a firm’s business goals and inbound marketing strategy. A firm’s ability to effectively embrace the values of the mission and vision statements will enrich the firm’s entire work environment. 

How is your annual marketing plan coming along?  Our recent post, Do You Need a SWOT to Start Marketing Planning? Covered the situational analysis section of your professional services marketing plan. Another important component of annual marketing planning is setting goals and objectives.  In the spirit of kicking off the New Year with a complete plan, this post covers goals and objectives.

If you are going through the annual marketing planning process and realize that you have not completely analyzed your firm’s position in the marketplace, it may be time to begin situational analysis.  Situational analysis is the process of evaluating the firm’s situation as a whole and by market sector.  The intent is to develop a sharpened marketing strategy which includes: understanding where the firm is today, envisioning where it wants to go, and determining how it will get to where it wants to go. This process requires a keen sense of the firm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT).

It is the season for taking a closer look at the annual marketing plan. The annual marketing plan is essential to meeting next year's strategic business goals. The plan is a formalized statement detailing the actions needed to meet specific marketing goals and objectives.  

Every firm wants to attract attention and portray its services and experiences favorably. Blog posts and press releases cover a range of company messages. These tools are communication methods for maintaining a positive image and are essential to building a solid reputation. 

Are you starting to generate blog content for your firm? While you're drafting material, optimizing each post to attract the attention of desired audiences is important. A blog post is an effective communication tool for providing information to enhance and stimulate business development efforts. As you increase the number of posts, you will see an increase in blog traffic and the probability of converting a site visitor into a prospective client.

Did the 10 Benefits of Blogging for Professional Services Marketing convince you to launch your firm’s blog?  Hopefully, the answer is “yes” because this post offers ideas for generating blog content.