The vast majority of companies that provide professional services invariably have a similar mindset. They think that social media or any form of professional services digital marketing offers no results and therefore, does not embrace it or attempt to, but are extremely inconsistent and in turn, see less than ideal results.
From my experience running a digital marketing agency, this happens for a few reasons:
Experienced professionals typically prefer to get their customers through existing business relationships from their current network. This, of course, has tremendous value as credibility is perceived to be overcome from the offset.
Secondly, there is often assumed that there is no need for an updated website with high SEO, an excellent user experience, or social media when they’re already managing things adequately through relationship management and some sporadic direct marketing campaigns.
So, why Professional Services Digital Marketing?
Companies that embrace inbound marketing correctly nowadays are usually ahead of their competitors. The success is usually defined by and includes greater credibility, as well as high website traffic and engagement compared to their competitors. In any industry, you can still be a thought-leader even if you perceive yourself to be late to the party.
Put an achievable strategy into place
Here are a few tips to help you get in the right mindset…
You need to put a strategy into place.
It doesn’t need to be an enormous document planned out over weeks. It’s merely a process/exercise. Set aside some planning and thinking time to answer a few select questions. The answers will give you clarity for your digital marketing efforts. It will provide guidance when you’re struggling to create content, or finding something relevant to converse with your audience.
Your strategy can be as simple as answering these few questions…
Who is my audience?
This may be different for each channel. Go where your target audience is most comfortable.
What is my message?
What topics or narratives will I derive the content around?
What social channels can I commit to realistically?
Don’t try and do them all. For example, start with Linkedin and build from there as you get consistent and more confident.
What am I trying to achieve on each of these channels?
What does success look like for you? Is it X number of contacts or inquiries?
How will I measure my success?
Always try to evaluate whenever possible or it becomes aimless and is harder to justify future activity to yourself and your peers.
It should hopefully be relatively clear at this point that your social media strategy has to be part of a greater digital marketing strategy.
Target and be relevant.
It’s a pretty clear fact that one of the greatest differentiators between traditional and digital marketing is the ability to target more and efficiently and accurately.
When you take out an advert out in a newspaper or any other print publication, you are paying a premium for their entire audience, but it is unlikely that you either need to speak to all of those people, and you may only require a tiny percentage of them.
Professional Services Digital Marketing is different. You can specify that you want your messages to reach just 2% and be highly relevant to them; and with so many marketing messages around us nowadays, relevancy and focus are key! There is no need to waste time or budget sharing your message with anyone else.
On certain social platforms, you can acquire your audience organically by location, gender, relationship status, education, interest, and age. To clarify, ‘organically’ is defined by the social media interactions you obtain based on the quality of your content, without the need for a paid advertising campaign.
Ultimately, the more targeted your content is, the more relevant it is to your audience and the higher the engagement for your business.
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