Evoke Strategies    eNews   winter 2009

Don't Run Out of Gas:

Keeping Your Firm's Marketing Engine Running Smoothly and Cost-Effectively

Steven Skyles-Mulligan
Evoke Strategies

There's a real concern about how much to spend on marketing, where to spend it and how to know it's worth it. In bad economic times, marketing is one of the first areas to feel the axe. As things improve, it can be one of the last areas to see funding restored.

But treating marketing simply as an expense completely ignores its underlying purpose. Coach Tim Davis, who helps people use comedy to become better sellers, likes to point out that this is a lot like spending money on a fancy car (your business or practice) and neglecting to budget for the gas. Marketing is the fuel that feeds your sales engine and makes your business go.

What kind of "gas" do you need, when do you add it and how much should you add? The baseline marketing budget for professional service providers is 1-3% of last year's gross revenues. That doesn't tell you much, though; you could spend that 1-3% on the wrong things and end up in the wrong place.

(By the way, if you want to know more about how and where to cut costs in your business, check out our interview with cost management consultant Arlene Kahn.)

Plan Before You Spend

The beginning of a new year is a great time to reassess where you want to go. A simple marketing plan can be an important asset to your practice.

• Understand your purpose. It is incredibly easy to keep spending money on things you've "always" done. But why have you always done them — and are they still reaching the people you want to reach with the conversation you want to be having with them? A simple marketing plan includes:

• Definitions of your audiences (don't forget referral sources and current and prior clients, as well as various prospect categories).
• Clear articulation of the benefits each audience can obtain from working with — or referring business to — you.
• Listing of the best means for getting the right benefits message into the hands of each audience.

Do you know why people really hire you?

• Establish your priorities. Just as you probably offer a different benefit to each of your target audiences, each one of them has a different value proposition for your firm. For example, if you're a bankruptcy attorney, serving as committee counsel is far more lucrative than doing an individual's Chapter 13. However, individual bankruptcies are both more plentiful and easier to get without concentrated expenditure of potentially billable hours.

Have you defined the mix of clients and services that's optimal for your practice?

• Create a sustainable system. Back in the early days of advertising, it was observed that most people have to receive a message 7 times before taking action. This still applies to most marketing activities. You need a system that will get your message to your targets regularly enough so they will think of you when you can be of help. But you also need to make sure that the system doesn't place too much demand on your time.

How much time are you willing to spend on your own marketing?

• Be brutally skeptical. Before you allocate money to any marketing activity, think seriously about how it will really work. For example, if your current website is generating calls from bargain hunters, it is unlikely that spending money on search engine optimization will produce anything other than more of the same.

Are you in danger of spending money to produce more of the same unsatisfactory results?

• Favor the cost-effective over the cheap. As you start to dig into what you are going to do, it is perfectly reasonable to consider how you can get the best results for the smallest investment. But decisions made on the basis of cost alone rarely lead to satisfactory results. (Our articles on promotional items and trifold brochures discuss cost vs. value for two common marketing investments.)

What part of your marketing program is not representing you well and needs to be discontinued or upgraded?

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Feel free to email with any questions or to ask for
more information: steven@evokestrategies.com.
I'll be glad to help in any way I can.

There are as many ways to create a marketing plan as there are people who create them. Here's a high level guide to the approach that we like to use with our clients.

Arleen M. Kahn has been helping businesses uncover hidden savings for more than two decades. She spoke with us about critical ways businesses can save on essential goods and services.

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Steven Skyles-Mulligan

steven@ evokestrategies.com

212.967.7611

www.evokestrategies.com