(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.
