(Photo by Ravenwood)

How are you reaching prospects and clients? If you’ve settled on one tactic (email, social media, or phone calls, for example), you might want to reconsider that. Chances are that one tactic doesn’t allow you to reach your entire audience. Different people like different approaches, and you owe it to yourself and your business to figure out what those are and use them.

What tactics are working for B2B professional services firms? Let’s take a look:

Online video: Prospects, when they don’t have a referral, turn to the web for advice, solutions to their problems, and companies who can help them solve their problems. Even if they get a referral, they will still go to your website to learn about you before meeting you in person. They’re trying to get a feel for you and if you are a right fit for them, and online video can help win them over.

“Videos are a strong marketing tactic for any type of professional services firm,” writes Sharon Berman in her article, How to Use Video to Get Up Front and Personal with Your Prospects.

You can create videos that show the people behind the firm, as well as video testimonials that have clients telling powerful success stories. Either strategy will allow you to connect with website visitors on a personal level, Berman says.

Webinars: Webinars take the online experience for prospects up a level. They allow you to demonstrate your expertise and skills, as well as interact with attendees through Q&A segments. For an hour you can help attendees work out a problem and give them an opportunity to get to know you and start to trust you. At the same time, you help build your brand and establish your thought leadership.

When done well, webinars can result in new clients. But the key is to do them well, stresses Lee Salz, author of Stop Speaking for Free: The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with Webinars. For example, you can’t write a white paper (which people can download for free) and then do a webinar on that white paper. That’s because you’re basically giving an infomercial on the paper, which people already have access to. No one will attend a free webinar on that topic, let alone pay to attend.

Salz explains in his podcast interview, How to Attract Clients and Make Money Using Webinars, strategies for producing webinars that not only get people’s attention but lead to new business and revenue for your firm.

Mobile devices/smartphones: These days when nearly every professional has a BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, or some other smartphone, you can count on those people to use those devices to access information quickly while they’re on the go. It could be to check email, get directions to your office, or learn more about your services after their friend recommends you. Is your marketing email mobile-friendly? Is your website optimized for mobile access? Can they easily find your phone number and address on your site?

Those are just a few things to consider when devising your mobile marketing strategy, writes Jessica Wilganowski in her article, The Rise of the Smartphone: Why Your Business Needs a Mobile Presence. If you have loyal clients, you might also want to consider developing a mobile application to keep them engaged with you and your firm.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming your prospects and clients aren’t interested in or won’t respond to mobile marketing techniques. Do the research to find out for sure. If there’s interest, and your competitors aren’t using them, this is your chance to distinguish yourself from the pack.

Articles and white papers: Increasingly traditional advertising and PR campaigns fail to generate new leads. There’s too much competition and what prospects see doesn’t help them connect with providers. They’re seeking advice and solutions, and articles and white papers provide that while at the same time put your name in front of them.

e-LYNXX Corporation, a high-tech firm that helps organizations with print projects, has seen significant success with that type of content, writes Karen E. Klein in her case study, How a Specialized High-Tech Company Used Monthly Articles and White Papers to Reach C-Level Execs. The company is leveraging in-house expertise to write monthly articles, building media relationships, and taking advantage of free online posting opportunities.

“We feel that an article or an interview carries more influence than a paid-for advertisement, and that is another reason why we develop editorial content as tools for telling our story,” says company founder William Gindlesperger.
The effort is paying off for e-LYNXX. As a result, it gets its expertise in front of thousands of c-level executives and it ranks at the top of search engine results.

What Doesn’t Work

If prospects and clients think Requests for Proposals (RFPs) will help them make a good decision about which provider is best for them, they are greatly mistaken, writes Charles H. Green in his article, Open Letter to Clients: Why You Should Drop the RFP.

While RFPs serve a purpose for government contracts, where “the appearance of improper influence is per se destructive of our faith in government,” and in private organizations where there’s a history of buying abuse, in most other cases they are used “to the detriment of the buying organization,” Green says. For example, they prevent prospects and clients from having open dialogues with providers. With RFPs clients shut themselves off from any advice and guidance a provider could offer—usually for free.

Fear is often the motive for RFPs, as buyers are afraid that weasely sales people will talk them into something they don’t need. But any professional worth his grain will stay away from doing that and instead provide “some level of insight, perspective, and information that the client didn’t have, if only to demonstrate their competence,” Green says.

Your goal as a services professional is to help prospects and clients understand that.

Challenges, no matter how great, can be overcome (Photo by Darcy McCarty)

“Nothing is easy.”

That is the mantra for several people I know. They sigh, shake their heads, and mumble those words whenever something doesn’t go smoothly or fails to succeed. Life seems to be one long struggle for them.

I don’t believe that nothing is easy. Many people have a natural ability to do things very well, whether it’s engineering, accounting, writing, or speaking in front of people. Those people aren’t without challenges, however, especially if they’re trying to sell their services.

For many service professionals, the challenge is in marketing and selling their services and growing their firms. Add to that the inability to think creatively to tackle that challenge, and they end up with the same old tired solutions that do little to help them. They are usually the ones saying, “Nothing is easy.” But it doesn’t have to be that way.

To break out of that rut, Mark Levy, author of Accidental Genius, suggests using freewriting to open your mind and explore ideas you might never come up with using traditional methods. You essentially approach a problem by writing as fast as you can about the topic or ideas that spring forth from that writing. You write constantly even if the writing turns to random thoughts. But you have to write fast enough that your internal editor doesn’t stop you. Let the ideas flow.

“With free writing you not only come up with new ideas, but you come up with the ability to share the information with other people in a way that they can follow what it is that you’re saying and can act on your words,” says Levy in his podcast interview, How to Solve Business Problems Using Freewriting. “Freewriting is probably the single most valuable productivity tool I’ve ever learned in my life.”

Not only will freewriting help you solve business problems, Levy says, but it can help you with writing blog posts and articles and with preparing for speaking engagements such as webinars.

Creating a great presentation for a webinar is just one aspect of running a successful webinar, writes Aaron Joslow in his article, Stop Producing Bad Webinars: 3 Tactics to Make Webinars Shine. You can create the best PowerPoint presentation in the world, but if you don’t deliver it well all will be for naught.

Speakers are “talking to attendees who, for the most part, are listening alone at their desks. While a webinar may have 50-200 attendees listening, the speaker is having 50-200 one-on-one conversations,” writes Joslow.

How do you get such speaking engagements? Vickie K. Sullivan says one avenue is social media, particularly organizers’ online efforts. In her article, How to Use Social Media to Generate Speaking Opportunities, Sullivan says there are many ways to participate in organizations to make yourself known. You can produce video samples of your speeches to share, interact with organizations in public social networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter, and get involved in their private communities.

CPA firm Hughes Pittman & Gupton recognized the importance of social media networks and became an active participant on Twitter and LinkedIn. They use them to attract prospects and to maintain current client relationships. By going on the offense with  social media and other digital marketing tactics, it has been able to keep growing while many competitors have lost revenue and struggle to stay afloat.

“We’re cost-conscious, but we also believe that marketing means going on the offensive. We need to remind prospective clients about us and close that business. If these marketing efforts weren’t working for us, we would drop them,” says partner Brooks Malone in the case study, CPA Firm Goes on the Offense with Digital Marketing and Grows Business.

If you’re selling services to law firms, you must also go on the offensive, says Allan Colman.

“This market is uniquely idiosyncratic, resistant, and challenging, and it requires special insight, strategies, and training to successfully penetrate,” Colman writes in his article, Selling Services to Law Firms: Are You Up to the Challenge?

It is possible to break through, however. Colman says it requires making a concerted effort to understand their markets and challenges and to develop trust. And it means understanding the behaviors of lawyers and law firms, which are unique. Fail to do so, and you can destroy a relationship. But if you follow Colman’s strategies, you will as a result experience extraordinary professional reward.

Use your social network to spread the word about your events (CC BY-SA 2.0)

If you’re selling a complex service in a crowded industry niche, you know how challenging it can be to establish your firm. It’s doubly difficult when you’re the start-up in an established space.

That’s one reason this story about Avature is instructive. In 2004, this firm entered the crowded field of customer relationship management (CRM) technology and consulting and the company’s leadership was looking for a way to differentiate.

They already had a lot going for them: the founding team had previously launched and sold a successful jobs website. With their new company, the experienced team members wanted to position themselves as thought leaders in the CRM field. They did this by co-creating content with other industry leaders and then distributing it through free webinars, video, and slide presentations. What’s most interesting is the approach they took—combining social media and partnerships.

Here’s a snapshot of the Avature approach:

Find your audience: Avature started by identifying which social media networks would be most effective for spreading the word to their target audience. They listened to who was participating on these networks and what they were saying.

Find partners: They partnered with industry leaders (through existing relationships) to create compelling content. They didn’t want a thinly veiled sales pitch, so they created content around a timely topic (web 2.0 technologies) with recognized names (Pixar Animation Studios). They positioned the webinar events as two industry leaders speaking on an issue the target customer valued. In addition, they sought out very active participants on the social media networks they targeted to help spread the word and create buzz around their message.

Find the right platforms for social sharing: Avature kept its message available and circulating after the live event by posting the recorded event online. (They used the free Blip.tv to host the hour-long recorded event and posted the PowerPoint presentation that accompanied each event on SlideShare, another free service.)

The approach proved to be a success. In one six-month period Avature ran five webinars that attracted more than 200 people—with more than three times that number viewing the recordings and presentations online following the live events. Beyond being a thought-leadership platform for the company, each webinar generated a minimum of 10 qualified leads for the company’s software, and of those, 20% turned into sales. In addition, new business from referrals increased by more than 50% in the three months following the webinars—with many non-customer referrals from people who referred business to Avature based on what they had heard about the company.

“You have to think about your messages as something someone is going to want to read. They want to be educated, and the message needs to tie back to your product or service.” says Michael Johnson, director of sales. “We weren’t interested in just saying, ‘Here’s what our product or service is.’ That would die on the vine and not get very viral.”

Has your business used webinars in your content mix? What kind of results did you see?

After you cast your net for prospects, make sure you keep only those good for your firm

When times are tough and it’s difficult to sign on new clients or get current clients to buy additional services, we’re all tempted to take any business that comes our way. But that is a mistake. You must have a discriminating eye when considering prospects. You want a client who will stick around for the long haul and will help you grow your business.

With that in mind, Vickie K. Sullivan this week writes about the types of prospects you must have in your sales pipeline (3 Types of Prospects You Want in Your Pipeline Now):

• The Ready and Willing
• The Willing and Exploring
• The Small and Steady

Each group has its own qualities, and their members are all serious buyers.

We’d all be wise to look at each prospect that comes along and evaluate whether it’s the right fit. If it isn’t, throw it back. As Sullivan says:

“Pipelines with too many false buyers create a low close ratio, a low cash flow, and a high degree of frustration. Effective lead generation campaigns catch the attention of many buyers and have a system to distinguish between serious prospects and the wanderers in the wilderness.”

Buying Is an Emotional Experience

Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology —Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, says buying is an emotional experience for the purchaser. Whether people buy a product or services, their emotions are always part of the equation.

Mike Schultz and Robert Croston explore that concept in their article, Use Your Brand Symbol to Trigger Emotional Responses in Buyers. Looking at the successful use of cookies in the marketing strategies of DoubleTree Hotels and Midwest Airlines, Schultz and Croston point out how those two companies used a brand symbol to appeal to travelers by creating an experience those people will value.

Professional services firms can do the same thing, they say. Ask yourself what feelings are associated with working with you and then find a symbol that represents and elicits those feelings.

Another way to get prospects comfortable with you and help them understand the value you offer is to produce online audio such as podcasts, says Randy Shattuck in his article, Podcasts: Powerful Marketing and Sales Tools. They can significantly improve lead nurturing and give you a leg up on the competition. Shattuck says:

“Audio tools such as podcasts and MP3 files can have a major impact on client acquisition, perceived value, and profit per deal. When prospective clients understand your firm’s value, expertise, and unique vision before they talk to you, you’ll realize a shorter sales cycle, higher close rates, and enhanced profitability. “

The key, however, is to produce business-class audio. Badly created audio will hurt you—you won’t be considered professional. Review Shattuck’s five best practices for producing online audio so you can avoid that.

Such communication with prospects and clients is actually public relations, Drew Gerber points out. You’re developing relationships with them—your public—and you need a strategy for doing so, he says in this week’s podcast, Get Prospects to Notice You: What Every Marketing Campaign Must Have. Listen as Gerber discusses techniques for reaching your public, whether it’s via traditional or social media; what’s required for a good PR campaign; and the success businesses can see as a result.