Using technology to market your professional service continues to change as new ways to reach clients evolve explains Studio 2055, a brand development and design studio in Carlsbad, California. Today’s biggest challenge for finding new customers is “how to fill the sales channel.” Advances in technology provide new ways to support the sales cycle by increasing traffic to your website and creating buzz around your brand. In the past, leads and new clients were attracted by expensive advertising and public relations campaigns. Now, content marketing is paying huge dividends for firms willing to make a plan and stick with it.
What is content marketing? The concept behind content marketing is to pull customers to you as opposed to push. The purpose is to pull in customers by consistently creating relevant content with the purpose of changing or enhancing consumer behavior. The key word is consistent and proves most valuable when integrated into your overall marketing strategy. You own the media; you’re not renting it.
2. WHAT IS IT? PRODUCING CONTENT
FOR ONLINE MARKETING INITIATIVES
– Books, white papers, research studies
– Speeches, presentations, seminars, interviews
– HR manuals, policies, annual reports
– eNewsletters, email marketing, CEO blogs
– Customer reviews, employee testimonials
– Video, podcasts, audio clips
– Social media/electronic output: blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn,
Flickr, Tumbler, Pinterest, Facebook
– Historic records, stories, articles
3. MIX IT UP.
ONLINE MARKETING AND
SOCIAL MEDIA = CONTENT MARKETING
Online Marketing: SEO, social media and content marketing
Social Media: an avenue for building your content online
5. THE RESISTENCE FACTORS
• Stuck in responding to proposals instead of brand building
• Time/priorities/budget
• Internal resources
• Education and experience
• Lots of noise out there…where to go?
• Generational
• Weighing the risks, security
• Measuring, evaluating ROI
6. WHY BUILD
CONTENT FOR ONLINE MARKETING? THE BENEFITS
THE BUYER’S PERSPECTIVE
• Further defines a brand and tightens customer bonds
• Convenience and speed
• Familiar process
• Remain informed; information relevant
THE MARKETER’S PERSPECTIVE
• Increase lead generation, brand awareness, website traffic
• Fuel sales pipeline, drive more business for company
• Share information with customers and dimensionalize brand
• Measurable and adjustable
• Largely automated
• Geographic reach; share and viral potential
7. ONLINE MARKETING FACTS
• 77% of professional services firms generate new business leads online
• Online lead generation drives faster firm growth
• 55% of firms get new hires online
• 66% of firms plan to increase their online marketing budget this year
8. BENEFITS OF ONLINE MARKETING
• Differentiate your firm from other companies; brand building
• Position your thought-leaders; stand out from the competition
• Build personality of company; gain trust. Social media is more
personal, conversational
• Generate website traffic, lead generation
• Gain market awareness/sharing
• Stay top-of-mind with clients
• Inform new markets/geographic, advance new products/services
• Expand reach; electronic marketing is viral
• Recruiting. Employee retention
• Improve SEO, search rankings (Google)
• Cost-effective. Repurpose content across all media
9. DEVELOP STRATEGY
FOR ONLINE MARKETING
• Establish your objectives and goals
• Outline your campaign
• Determine responsibilities for implementation
• Create schedule
• Determine brand position, voice, messaging
• Reporting, analyze
• Adjust
11. IMPLEMENT YOUR PLAN
Establish Process
• Content strategy, creation and distribution coordinator
• Content calendar
• Writing, coauthors
• Voice, brand messaging, key words
• Extend distribution to website, blog, social, email, enews
• Engagement, sharing, incentives, offerings
• Brand consistency with social media accounts
• Analytics
• Sync with other marketing strategies
• Coordination and communication with bus dev and sales
• Files management, naming conventions
12. PLAN OF ACTION
Blogs:
relevant content
frequency
Social
Accounts:
keep updated
leverage content
tools
White Papers
Books:
gold standard
credibility
Content
Marketing
Public
Relations:
wire service
leverage content
tools
Interviews
Speeches
Podcasts
Video:
sustainable
Inbound links
Client sharing:
social and
website
13. PLAN OF ACTION
Tips for How to Get It Done
• Allocate resources–internal or outsource
• Establish a social media policy
• Get buy-in of strategy
• Pinpoint your thought-leaders, senior/junior management
• Marry face-to-face with online
• Research your firm’s relevancy for your target audience
• Poll existing clients. Where/what are they reading?
• Set up and report Google analytics
• Listen first, broadcast second
• Repurpose content
• Dig into history, archives, customer testimonials for great content
20. RESOURCES
• chiefmartec.com
• contentmarketinginstitute.com
• marketingpower.com: American Marketing Association
• socialmediatoday.com
• hootsuite.com
• tweetdeck.com
• blog.propertypal.com/40-inspirational-architects-websites
• Managing Content Marketing by Robert Rose
• The Fame Game 2.0 by Carl Friesen