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Evoke Strategies eNews fall 2010 Start at the Beginning: Redefine Marketing and Reap the Rewards Steven Skyles-Mulligan Most of the professionals we speak with have difficulty envisioning how marketing would work in their own practices. Their initial concern is that they don't build their practices "that way" and that marketing doesn't work for them. When we drill down, we find the broad perception is that new business comes through talking to people, whether prospects, referral sources or current clients. Our usual response? Exactly! In a world where we are constantly bombarded by advertising impressions, we have lost sight of what marketing is — and what it is intended to do. Professionals in particular cannot be blamed for perceiving a huge disconnect between the slick, seductive ad campaigns put on by product companies and the kinds of intensely personal expert services they render. More in Common than You Think Picture a crowded, old-fashioned marketplace. Hawkers loudly promote their wares, urging the passerby to stop look, examine, touch and sometimes taste. In a direct, person-to-person way, they are doing exactly the same things as the slick ads for the next techno-gadget: inviting you to stop and take another look, to consider different possibilities. Put very simply, all marketing is an invitation to conversation. The invitation can be seductive, it can be blunt or it can be intensely personal. Some invitations are hard to resist, whereas others can be declined with little or no regret. Obviously, if you are going to spend time and money on a marketing activity, you want it to be more in the former category than the latter. The Most Irresistible Invitation You Can Issue When professionals do undertake some kind of formal "marketing," they often work so hard to take a different path that they produce brochures and websites that stiffly list credentials and capabilities. If you've ever seen one of these things -- or even if your own firm has produced them -- you know how tedious and unengaging they can be. There's a reason why you get clients by talking to people. They are buying you, the sense they get when they sit across the desk from you with an uncomfortable situation and the way you respond to both the problem and the person. This is just as true in b-to-b situations; we are all much too stressed and too busy to pay money to someone who simply doesn't "get" us. So if you want to issue an invitation that is difficult -- if not impossible -- to refuse, you need to leverage the most irresistible thing you have: you. A certain amount of that leverage will have to be realized the way you've been building your practice all along, by speaking with people. But is there a way to put yourself out there without having to make all of the connections individually? Pull the Conversation into Your Marketing Materials If you have ever stopped what you were doing to listen to an interview on the radio, gotten absorbed in a lengthy profile in Rolling Stone or The New Yorker or even spent more than ten minutes on YouTube, you already understand how even media presentations of conversations can be incredibly enticing. What if your approach to marketing were to move in this direction? There are many ways do to this, and not all are right for every professional -- or every firm. Some firms could benefit from having a YouTube channel, while others may be more comfortable with "Internet radio" programs on their websites. Still others may want to supplement -- or even replace -- their traditional brochures with printed and emailable question and answer pieces that showcase both professional knowledge and the personal touch. Whatever you do, re-focusing your marketing efforts to be more inviting will get you more of the conversations -- and the sales (i.e. client fees) that you want.
Every client relationship starts with a conversation.
onMedia from Evoke provides nine integrated, inclusive, turnkey marketing programs that can help you start many conversations at once. You can choose between video, audio and written formats -- or a powerful combination of formats. Some packages even include built-in email promotion campaigns. Best of all, onMedia leverages the most powerful marketing tools you already have: you, your expertise and your approach to the issues clients need your help with. Check out the brochure and learn how you can start getting more leverage from your limited marketing time and budget.
Feel free to email with any questions or to ask for
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NEW VIDEO:
Here are three examples Evoke helped to create, one for an attorney’s alternative dispute resolution practice, another for a private mortgage banker, and third for an expert in Spanish-speaking markets.
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Steven Skyles-Mulligan 212.967.7611
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Become irresistibly inviting. Evoke has worked with professionals of all descriptions — including attorneys, CPAs and financial advisors — to create marketing approaches that are intriguing, engaging and very real. When you are ready to stop struggling with your message and start putting it to work for you, call us. |
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Professionals often shun marketing because the act of promoting themselves seems inherently distasteful. Focus your marketing efforts on the problems you help clients solve every day and you’ve both eliminated that objection and made it possible for prospects to engage deeply with you before they even meet you.