What are the best ways for me to go about marketing my consulting firm?
Marketing and advertising your business is essential and need not be expensive
If your consulting business has no clients, then you have no consulting business. But you must remember that selling your consulting services is not the same as selling a car or a house. In the case of the car or the house, the customer is probably already in the market for one or both of those products.
Your job, then, becomes harder, because you are marketing your services to people who may not even be aware that they need those services. There are a variety of methods you need to become both familiar and comfortable with in order to begin attracting and keeping clients.
Let’s look at some of the more conventional ones that are being used by many consultants today.
Brochure basics
There are five issues your brochure should address. They are:
- It should clearly convey what your services are.
- It should tell customers why you are the best.
- It should give a few reasons why you should be hired.
- It should include some brief biographical information.
- It should include some information about who your other clients are. Remember testimonials from satisfied clients act as powerful influencers.
That’s it. Keep it simple, but do it right.
Remember, your brochure represents you in the marketplace, so make sure you polish it before you send it into action. Roll out a consistent design into all other printed and digital material.
Your business cards, PowerPoint presentation and sales proposal should reflect the same design style, colour, fonts and images.
Website basics
A website need not be expensive to create, but before you embark on your digital journey you should identify the objectives for your site:
- Digital support tool. Is it a support tool for your marketing efforts, your brochure duplicated online? If so, does this add real value? Are you able to load additional information about your business, your track record or client testimonials? If not, you should evaluate whether you really need a website.
Information/sales tool
Are you expecting to drive traffic to your site via search engines to attract new clients? If so, you will need to follow Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) principles to ensure that search engines such as Google rank your page favourably.
One of the most important elements to make your website search engine friendly is unique and relevant information. Although this content may be time and/or cost intensive upfront, you will be able to use it in other marketing tools such as eNewsletters. Take action.
A further aspect to consider is the desired action you wish for visitors to take once they reach your site. Do you want visitors to complete an enquiry form, download your brochure, call your office or subscribe to your eNewsletter?
Whatever your goal, construct your site navigation, design and prompts in such a way as to guide your user to perform the desired action.
Newsletters
Whatever your consulting field is you should have more than enough information to produce a printed or digital newsletter as a means of attracting potential clients.
If you don’t have the time, or don’t feel comfortable self-publishing your own newsletter, hire a freelance writer and designer to do the job for you. Again, you don’t have to make it an expensive, four-colour, glossy publication. The simpler you keep it, the better.
A good newsletter will sell itself based on the content rather than the splashy design. Newsletters, particularly digital format, are an effective and budget-friendly means of communication.
Advertising
The limits you place on advertising your consulting services will be directly tied to your advertising budget. If you are lucky enough to have a very healthy advertising budget, remember that you don’t have to spend the money on ads just because you have it to spend.
Advertising can be very expensive. Consumers respond more positively to advertising messages that are placed in context, so it may be worth your while to narrow your focus to niched channels.
Depending upon the type of services you offer, it may be necessary to advertise in specialised trade journals, magazines or websites.
Before spending money
Before you spend any money, start looking through professional journals and newspapers relative to the fields you specialise in.
Take some time and examine ads that have been placed by other consultants, and then carefully determine how effective you think their ads may be.
Then design one that suits you best, but be sure to differentiate your service from your competitors’ rather than creating a ‘me-to’ advertisement. Ensure that you clearly communicate a benefit to your target market.
Cold calling
You must do whatever it takes to make cold-calling work and make it easier for yourself. There are a few tricks you can use to make cold-calling a little easier for you:
- Prepare a script ahead of time. Spell out word for word what you expect to say when you get someone on the telephone. Remember, though, that your goal is to get a face-to-face interview and, eventually, a new client. So before you end up stumbling over your sales presentation (either in person or over the telephone), write your script and practice it again and again.
- Be creative in your efforts to reach the decision maker. Most times you will encounter a secretary or administrative assistant who has years of experience turning away cold callers like yourself. But don’t give up! Don’t let any obstacle stand in your way! To avoid being screened by the secretary, try calling before she is on the job. Yes, you may have to call before 08:00 or after 17:00, but at these times, chances are the decision maker you are trying to reach will answer their own telephone.
- Limit your cold calls to just several days each month. And look forward to those days, making sure you put your best effort into the process. That way, not only will it become easier to make those cold calls, but you will find yourself actually looking forward to making them!