How to Use Regulatory Change for Making Marketing That Prospects Love

1. From the Federal Register or FASB or New Legislation to a Lead. Really?

I read this quote the other day about inbound marketing that I want to share with you because of one key word in the text:

“Inbound marketing is any marketing that relies on earning people’s interest instead of buying it”.

A very cool definition indeed! But what word in the definition stimulated my thinking and triggered this blog post? Here it is: earning.

That word can really be a show stopper for a CPA, legal or consulting firm marketer. Put into a different context, is your marketing program (and budget for that matter) designed to earn people’s interest? Or, are you trying to buy their interest with traditional advertising or direct mail, or a website that’s more of an online brochure that’s about you, and not your prospect?

How do you earn someone’s interest?

By creating marketing that people love.

Running Away From Interruption Marketing

Perhaps the single biggest game changer in professional services marketing is a rapidly moving shift away from interruption marketing to permission based marketing, where a key objective is to earn interest (and a relationship) through great content. Today, accounting and consulting firm marketing is all about getting found, showcasing your firm’s thought leaders and leadership, and using content to earn someone’s interest.

So, here’s a few ideas to noodle about how your marketing program can earn someone’s interest:

How Do You Make an Emotional Connection  Between You, Your Prospects and FASB ASU Update No. 2013-06—Not-for-Profit Entities (Topic 958)?

OK, I could have picked on any FASB ASU, or for that matter, some new case law, pending  OSHA regulations, changes to local building codes … you get my drift, right? For professional services, making marketing that people love is all about taking out the jargon in your content, and putting in personality.

I concede that it’s difficult – but not impossible – to create marketing around technical issues that people will love.  So let’s think blog, and instead of just rehashing the key points of new legislation, standards, regulations, findings, and so on,  here’s a pathway to making an emotional connection:

1. Define the audience (persona) you wish to reach  - CEO? CFO?  Board Member?  Staff? Here’s a tip – you can write more than one blog post on a technical issue, each addressing the perspective of a different persona.
2. For each persona, take a look at the issue through their eyes, and then use your content to address the issue in that manner.. Is a Board Member’s take or concern about the issue going to be the same as the CFOs? Probably not, so why try to use the same piece of content for each  perspective?
3. Discuss what that persona needs to know about the issue and why they need to know it             
4. Describe what’s going to happen to the organization if it’s unresponsive to the issue … connect the need to the want!
5. Provide some thought leadership and guidance on how you might solve or approach the issue. (“Here are 4 action steps …..”)
6. Last but not least, the emotional connection you make will be a direct reflection of the readability of your content. Give it some personality and write conversationally, not in technical jargon.

Is the World of Professional Services Marketing Getting Increasingly More Complex?

Sometimes it seems that professional services marketing is just getting a whole lot more complex and difficult. From the perspective of the explosion of new marketing tools and technologies, that’s certainly true and I believe a strong argument can be made that the trend toward content marketing and the manifold channels for promoting content are not making matters any easier.

If there is a common denominator to this complexity it’s this: creating marketing that people love by publishing it to the right issue at the right audience at the right time  will create more relationships, and ultimately, more leads and new business.