What is your professional services firm going to do differently in terms of marketing this year? Another financial year has just begun and it if you haven’t already (at your most recent partner meeting) reviewed your marketing metrics, then there is no time to waste.
Finding out which marketing activities have generated the most (and best) leads and which ones haven’t is a good starting point. If you know how each initiative has performed, congratulations, you are ahead of the game. I bet your firm is active in the digital or inbound marketing space and you’re gathering data and reviewing your metrics frequently to find out where your best leads come from and at what rate you’re converting web visitors into leads for your firm.
There is no longer any reason why your firm should not all be all over your marketing metrics. You would not devise a financial strategy for your clients without a financial goal right? Marketing needs to have quantifialbe lead generation goals that are aligned with you firm's partners' individual business development goals.
Let's talk some more about that.
Professional Services Marketing Today
Firms who are active in the digital space are more likely to have an accurate handle on how their marketing campaigns perform. They keep a constant finger on the pulse and can tweak their campaigns quickly so they know where to focus to stay on track to achieving their lead generation and client goals.
Financial services marketers have plenty of good reasons for being inbound marketing advocates. It enables them to keep and eye on their cost per lead and helps them realise a better ROI on their marketing budget.
If all this sounds like your firm, then well done. What are you doing here anyway? It sounds like you are on top of the inbound lead generation game.
For those who are not yet there, here's what you should be measuring and how you can get started planning your professional services firm’s inbound digital marketing strategy for 2016/17.
Where to start with your accounting firm’s business development goals
Where else but with numbers? If you are serious about using digital channels to generate leads for your firm, it is essential that you work out how many leads you need to get you to your revenue goal. Here are the numbers you need:
- New Client Goal
- Marketing Qualified Leads Goal
- Leads Generation Goal
Do the following 3-step exercise to establish meaningful and realistic lead generation goals that support your firm's revenue goal.
Step 1
Your starting point is to work out the number of new clients you need to win in order to reach your revenue goal.
Step 2
Now consider how many opportunities you need to generate to get to reach that number of new clients that we established in step one. To discover this number, have a look at the number of face to face meetings you have had with opportunities during the past 12 months and how many of them have become clients.
Step 3
Not every lead or new contact is ready to retain your services immediately. Some never will. Do you know how many of the leads your firm generated in the past 12 months have become billable clients? This will tell you the number of leads you need to generate to get you to your overall business development goal.
What's next?
So now you have quantified your lead generation goals and you are ready to put in place an inbound marketing strategy and plan of action.
In my next post I will discuss how you can put together a education based content strategy that targets your ideal buyers and where to focus you efforts. Can’t wait? Why not read about your ideal customer profile and the b2b customer journey. They are an important aspect of any digital strategy for professional services.
