How Successful Professional Service Firms Become Lead Generation Superstars

9 Kickstarter Ideas and One Critical Observation

I took Damian for a walk the other day, and on the way to the dog park, I passed the soccer fields where a couple of 12-13 year old girls teams were playing. It brought back a lot of fond memories ... goalies no more than 4 feet tall, popsicles at half time, 15 girls bunched up around the ball legs a’ flailing, and Dads bellowing and cajoling their daughters to “play with more fire in your belly !!!”.

I confess. I was one of the “play with more fire in your belly” kinds of Dads and to this day, I still am.

And by the way, congrats to the US Women’s 2015 Gold Cup team. Talk about playing with fire in your belly!

But today, my attention is focused on trying to get CPA, consulting and other professional services firms get some fire in their belly when it comes to doing inbound marketing and lead generation.

I don’t bellow and yell anymore... at least not out loud.

Lead Generation Strategy Trends

Ascend 2, a firm specializing in Research-Based Demand Generation exclusively for marketing software, data and media companies, and digital marketing agencies recently published a Survey Summary Report called Lead Generation Strategy Trends.
Even though its focus was not exclusively on professional services firms, there’s a lot of interesting data that goes a long way towards showing accounting, consulting and other B2B marketers and marketing committees that you are not alone in your lead generationchallenges and frustrations.

And – drum roll if you please – here are the top challenges:

Top_Challenges_for_lead_gen_success

Looks familiar, eh?

9 Kickstarter Ideas for Overcoming Lead Generation Obstacles in Your Firm

There are professional services firms, from accountants to recruiters that are working really, really hard to overcome these obstacles. It’s not that they’re moving away from referrals, word of mouth and one to one marketing as the key sources of lead generation, it’s that they realize that they need to complement tradition with new thinking that accommodates key shifts in the ways that prospects are finding and engaging resources to help them deal with their challenges.

Here’s a brief overview of what those firms (your competitors) are doing to create an ever widening gap between their lead generation machine and the way you’re doing lead generation:

TOP 3 CHALLENGES	TOP 3 STEPS PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRMS ARE USING TO OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES
Lack of an effective strategy	They set quantifiable goals and objectives, first, strategies to meet those goals second They prepare a SMART Marketing Plan They work at the niche practice level, not the firm level We’ve written a lot of blogs on this topic! Check out our most popular, “9 Bold Statements CPA Marketing Directors Need to Tell Partners” here.
Inadequate marketing budget	They have stopped talking about costs and instead, talk about ROI They’ve gotten rid of legacy spending that didn’t contribute to reaching strategic objectives They spend between 2% to 5% of their top line to build the budget Read our recent blog, “How Much Should You Budget for Inbound Marketing” here.
Limited content creation capabilities	They make content creation a “must do” and tie it into compensation for partners who are reluctant rainmakers They Outsource. Outsource. Outsource. They are developing programs to make content creation a responsibility of younger partners and rising subject matter experts For more ideas, take a look at our whitepaper, The Partner’s Guide to Content Marketing here.

You Need Fire in Your Belly for Lead Generation!

Is the biggest challenge lack of inertia and risk aversion?

That’s a rhetorical question by the way ... of course these are the biggest challenges, and while firms have tried various tactics like incentive programs to rally the troops it’s hard to artificially sustain enthusiasm for lead generation.

Overcoming these challenges has to come from within the partner or shareholder. The most successful marketing programs have a partner that’s passionate and committed to marketing as a nucleus, and frankly, that’s a tough find.

I believe that lead generation success is a function of providing the resources and assistance to those partners who “get it”, and to those niche practices that want it. That’s a pretty powerful combination. And by extension, there are going to be firms that get it and want it, and who will both create opportunities and have opportunities come to them.