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Key Lesson From the Survey : Go Digital or Go Home
Within the past couple of weeks, I’d wager that you were attracted – and acted upon – some kind of offer. It could have been as complex as signing up for a webinar to get more CPE, or as simple as redeeming a coupon for a tube of tartar control toothpaste.
Regardless, the process of reaching prospects, converting them to leads, and then into a customer happens every single moment of every single day.
In my last blog post (”The Top 5 Types of Offers That Generate Leads for CPA and Consulting Firms”), I talked about the different types of devices like whitepapers and free consultations that CPA and consulting firms use as offers for lead generation.
But if you don’t take proactive measures to promote an offer, than you’ve effectively wasted all of the time, energy and intellectual capital put into developing the offer.
In other words, you’ve got to reach the right eyeballs using a variety of different marketing tactics in order to present your offer for their consideration. And, if they’re interested in your offer, you need a way to capture their interest in the form of a landing page on your website that collects their contact information …. but landing pages and conversions of visitors to leads will be the subject of another blog a bit further down the road.
And the Top Ways to Promote Offers are...
In our survey of best lead generation practices, we asked respondents about the effectiveness of the different types of tactics their firm used to promote offers.
In the ol’ days of professional services marketing, we generally used tactics to promote an offer that were both tree killers and only modestly effective, like print advertising, telemarketing, and direct mail. But today, the top 3 ways are all digital: on the website, e-newsletters, and e-mail.
And the least effective tactics? According to the survey, firms are finding that social media ads, telemarketing and banner ads just aren’t making the cash register ring.
Got the Right Marketing Infrastructure?
Professional services firms are increasingly building their marketing programs around content, and the more progressive/aggressive firms are using content for lead generation, not just branding.
Firms that do a great job at lead generation at some point came to the realization that for firm growth, the networking activities of partners needed to be complemented by marketing efforts consistent with the ways that prospects use email, social media, the Internet and websites in their purchase decisions.
They realized that it was time to shelve some old marketing chestnuts like direct mail and telemarketing, and invest in the technology and infrastructure required for lead generation, like:
- A great marketing database for use in email and enewsletters initiatives
- A content marketing program, anchored by a blog, built around a firm’s keyword strategy to bring prospects to the firm’s website
- A variety of different types of thought leadership based offers
- Landing pages for lead acquisition
- Marketing automation for drip campaigns used for nurturing prospects
Change – especially change to marketing philosophies and approaches - doesn’t come easy to professional services firms. But history has always show that those firms that are ahead of the curve are generally those firms that reap the greatest benefits in terms of more leads, more new business and more ROI firm their marketing budget.
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