5 Stellar Tips for Building a Killer Professional Services Content Marketing Program

Turning Your Accounting or Consulting Firm’s Thought Leadership Into Leads

I recently participated in a discussion about content marketing in professional services in the Professional Services Executive Forum LinkedIn group.

There was one comment in the dialogue fromGreg Austin, The Head of Global Marketing atZS Associates, that I thought was worth sharing.

So, with his permission, here it is:

At ZS Associates, we've been focused on building a robust thought leadership / content development capability for several years. A few thoughts:

• We established an editorial board comprised of senior leaders that helps set strategic direction for our content and related integrated marketing programs, which elevates thought leadership development to a more prestigious level with a business development focus
• Content is tied directly to specific marketing programs, many of them integrated across practices and leveraging multiple media formats and promotional channels; this creates both real deadlines as well as motivation to complete the content because there is line-of-sight visibility into how it will get to market
• Internal peer review panels are assembled for most thought leadership to give our subject matter experts a sounding board as well as to apply positive pressure to make progress
• We strive to make the process as smooth and efficient as possible, so that our SMEs are responsible more for the "thinking part" and less tied to the "getting down on paper" part - this is tough, though, because as I'm sure you all understand, highly intelligent and opinionated people with a huge stake in what is communicated tend to want to be very involved in the process; we have an experienced writer on my staff, and we outsource some of the "lighter" pieces of content
• We do lots of internal communication leading up to and following production and promotion of our thought leadership, which provides both a personal boost as well as a very real business outcome because our people are more likely to promote the content to their clients and contacts, thereby creating lift for the SMEs practice

We also build thought leadership and innovation into the annual planning process.

An interesting challenge that we face is actually getting our SMEs to *write* less - to move from a mentality that long, highly detailed white papers are the most effective way to interest clients and prospective clients to one that recognizes and adapts to how busy people really are, what they really want, and how content formats have evolved to become more fresh, immediate and topical, less formal, more interactive, easier to consume quickly, and more personal.

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ZS Associates is an international consulting firm with offices throughout the US, Europe and Asia. They specialize in helping their clients transform sales and marketing from an art to a science with a suite of consulting, technology, software and outsourcing services. For more info, visit their website or contact Greg at 617-557-5834