Building Your Niche Practice Through Lead Generation Campaigns Done Right

Sixth in a series of posts about the transformations in CPA, insurance, law and consulting firm marketing (New Rules for Professional Services Marketing)

If your firm is looking for more ROI from their investment in marketing and business development – particularly niche marketing - you should be considering marketing strategies and tactics built around an ongoing series of lead generation campaigns, NOT camp-“pains”.

At its simplest level, a lead generation campaign consists of an offer; media tools to promote the offer; forms, processes and technology to capture information from people who want your offer; and a sales strategy to convert those people into a client.

Successful lead generation is dependent upon having the right tools and infrastructure in place. At a minimum, firms will need a web site engineered to accommodate inbound marketing, database, an e-mail program, and software (like HubSpot) that provides a wide range of capabilities for lead acquisition, tracking and nurturing.

Here are ten critical tips for making sure that your lead generation campaigns will be successful for business development and top line growth:

(1) Start with the objective and goals in mind, not the tactic

(2) Immediately develop a lead nurturing program and process relative to the campaign as part of the campaign strategy

(3) Put a partner or rainmaker or owner in charge of the campaign in order to get buy-in and accountability

(4) Narrowly define the target market

(5) Get your database in shape

(6) Build your offer around a current, relevant pain point or issue being experienced by the target market

(7) Define the tactic you will employ, for example, a white paper or a webinar, or some other device

(8) Get creative – when doing the creative for the offer, find the sweet spot between being professional and tasteful, and going overboard with an overly aggressive or salesy approach

(9) Use an integrated media approach to promote the campaign – some combination of e-mail, on-site promotion, pay per click, etc.

(10)Think about testing several versions of the offer around a limited sample of the database, then select and a do a full launch around the one that works best

You’ll also want to continually measure and monitor each of your campaigns, as the only way to determine ROI is to have a wide variety of metrics that provide insights on issues ranging from conversion rates to campaign sources.