As perhaps the UK’s leading new business agency, we always try to stay at the forefront of thinking and practice.

Being ahead of the market means we can get our clients to places other new business agencies can’t, they win and we win. Simples.

We recently updated our original research to see how clients start on their road to selecting a new agency. We were really surprised with findings.

Our original set of statistics from 2012 found  28% of agency selection decisions were based on research from press and online sources

Our new data shows this has increased to 54% when selecting firms. So getting found in this process using inbound and outbound marketing tactics is even more important than before.

See our last blog on this to find out why

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The way people are purchasing services such as management consultancy is changing.

While it used to be about networking and generating referrals, it is now a tougher game.

Immediately asking colleagues and peers for providers who can ‘fix’ problems is becoming about your prospects researching and self-educating about these problems through internet research.  Asking a trusted network for recommendations is being replaced by asking a social network or asking Google.

So what kind of marketing programs now can be created to generate the right kind of fresh leads and qualify them?

We are certainly looking to an expansion or tweaking (not a tearing up) of traditional forms of marketing employed by management consultants, such as events, case studies, direct mail, whitepapers, telemarketing and email marketing for our clients.

In-fact we think the future of marketing management consultancies (and lead generation – let’s face it what is marketing for at the end of the day) looks a bit like this.

Using this model here are some of our key pointers for going beyond the referral in marketing management consultancies

1)      A clear and simple core proposition
If you can’t explain it and the benefits quickly, people won’t invest their time trying to decipher it, they will move on

2)      Understand your market and buying processes

Who buys your service ultimately and does anyone conduct research on their behalf?  Buyer persona and studying past sales processes are helpful for this as is keyword research and competitor audits. Target the right messages and content to the right people based on what you know about them and where they are in your sales funnel

3)      Keep it varied

People want short overviews, deeps dives, studies, tips, videos, graphics, webinars, presentations, case studies, brochures, stats all sorts.  Don’t just post things on your site. Use Brighttalk, Twitter, LinkedIn, Slide Share, YouTube – in fact your website is becoming less important in the overall scheme of things

See some we’ve made earlier here

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Inbound marketing is a new way to market your law firm. Done right it can blend perfectly with the other tactics commonly utilised in legal marketing such as newsletters, email, briefing and events – and greatly enhance their success.

Leads created by inbound marketing tend to be better and ‘close’ quicker and with less effort than others. Sounds good in what can often be a long and frustrating process.

In simple terms, inbound marketing is the art of creating the right kind of content and marketing that content to your existing and prospective clients to get them into and move them through the various stages of the sales cycle.

It gets more complex (doesn’t everything) but by ‘the right kind of content’ I mean the right kind for the part of the sales cycle your prospect is in. Someone who is researching solutions will be looking for different kinds of content to those who are heading into a beauty parade. Likewise someone who knows your law firm will need different content to someone who doesn’t. Content can be video, slides, pdf’s, blog entries, press coverage, infographics with lots of scope for creativity.

The only thing to bear in mind is it has to be useful for enough for a potential client to give you something back – their details, their action and engagement.

Marketing of content needs to be undertaken via a variety of means such social media, webinars, video, email, PPC and SEO.

It really neatly answers the question heard so often “what am I supposed to tweet about” or “when I call this prospective client up, what am I supposed to say”, the answer being have you seen our new piece about …. Thought you might find it useful.

The insights it can provide can also provides real scope to kick of those CRM programs that promised so much and ate up so much investment a few years ago.

Inbound Marketing is a highly measurable technique that can help answer the age old “what contribution have our non-fee earners made this quarter too!

Here’s an example of how we used inbound for law firm marketing.

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As perhaps the UK’s leading new business agency, we always try to stay at the forefront of thinking and practice.

Being ahead of the market means we can get our clients to places other new business agencies can’t, they win and we win. Simples.

We recently conducted some research into how clients select which agencies they want to take a closer look at, ahead of any pitch (we are not really interested in browsers over here at incite).

We spoke with 333 marketers across the UK from the big and beautiful brands and also some less glamorous ones.

One big insight we found was 28% of agency selection decisions were based on research from press and online sources, with online wielding the majority of influence.

This is a huge argument for marketing your agency using content marketing.

We meet with lots of agencies in the course of our business and we work with a lot too – the number with a solid content marketing strategy in place is pitiful, with agencies usually falling into two camps.

1)      They do it wrong – it isn’t joined up, wide enough and doesn’t deliver leads

2)      They don’t do at all – not enough time or belief

Agencies only need to look at the content marketing industry for clue how to do it right. See our blog about this.

Here are some common mistakes in agency content marketing

1)      We’ve loads of twitter followers - but often these are all students, competitors or suppliers

2)      We write a blog – but it is updated every two months and not search optimised. Content marketing is about consistently and regularly producing relevant content not occasional bursts

3)      No variation in content – marketers want info graphics, detailed white papers, quick overview blog entries, short tips, slide videos, case studies at different stages in the sales process

4)      Content is not optimised for different stages of the sales cycle – you need early, mid and late funnel content – wrong type of content at the wrong time

5)      Content is never seen as it isn’t marketed – you need online PR, paid and organic search, social and discovery strategies for your best pieces and, I’m afraid to say, a small budget for each

6)      No activation strategy – activating content marketing is the difference between good ROI and no return at all – how do you monitor who looks at your content and how do you follow up with them and nurture them – speed is of the essence in this. Leads go cold in minutes and hours, not days and weeks. We’ve blogged about this before too!

Agencies really do suffer from cobbler’s shoes syndrome.  The best people available to write content are tied up with big pitches and big clients, which makes all the above quite understandable really.

Perhaps it’s time to treat content marketing as a specialist discipline (in the same way traditional trade PR is) and outsource it to professionals like us who can get the right strategy in place, link it and activate it.

You can read more about our approach to content marketing here.  Or get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.

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Providing exceptional content that your target audience want or need to access, in the format and at the time they need it (on expectation of a dispute for instance), builds your reputation and aura.

The benefits are simple It means when a need arises yours is the firm they naturally associate with solving their problem(s)

Great content = educated buyer + aura
Aura = firms reputation grows
Educated buyers = shorter sales cycles + more deals closed

Many firms believe they are publishing great content but are they doing so in a way the audience want to consume it? If not it is being wasted.

We recently studied the content of 8 very large international law firms – amazingly only one had a mobile site and not a single one even optimised pdf content for mobile or tablets.

With the ultra-mobile senior executives that can spend millions on fees, a small investment in responsive designed content would surely be worthwhile?

Some recent stats so the scale of the problem.

Among very senior business execs (C-Level earning over 150k pa) tablet ownership is now at 42% (up from 24%) and smartphone ownership is double that of the general population at 76%. Senior execs now often carry Blackberry plus a browser based smartphone – this is driven by BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) where any smartphone is supported and subsidized. They principally use them for email (90% +) and accessing…

Sources: The 2012 Ipsos Media report into media consumption of the Business Elite

Forrester: The Expanding Role Of Mobility In The Workplace, February 2012

So there is a really strong argument to provide content and conduct businesses development and marketing activity via the main social channels.

Even email is not being optimised for mobile and as mentioned around 90% of executives use their mobile device to access email. The email newsletter is a principle marketing and crm tool yet it is completely unsuitable for use on a mobile but more about this later.

So if you are involved in content marketing for professional services you should be analysing where you audience what to consume it.

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There are a few reasons for this.

1)      Size: you are often expecting a prospect or customer to read an awful lot of content so it better be highly relevant to that individual. Most of the time there are some fillers obscuring the really great articles.

2)      Devices: can be read on a mobile? If it doesn’t display properly or is too long, you are alienating the vast majority of senior people.

The answer is to break your content up, release it more regularly, promote it harder and learn from it for instance:

- Drip feed content via responsive email templates, plus twitter and LinkedIn
- Ensure content is SEO optimised
- House content on responsive landing pages or a blog
- Produce regular round-ups of your best content by practice area not newsletters – judge the best by most accessed, shared and commented on
- Analyse, measure and learn
- Collect new prospect data
- Feed into content development and tactical plan

Marketing professional services  through email and email newsletters is still valid but need to evolve and other distribution channels taken into account.

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It always amazes me to see the amount of traffic that searches for inbound vs outbound marketing. The amount of blog entries, e-books and slideshare presentation etc. dedicated to it, all eulogising how inbound is a billion times cheaper, faster, smells better and looks younger.

Let’s first examine who is pumping this message out?  Inbound marketing and marketing automation software companies – that’s who. That’s like a turkey blogging on why Christmas is bad.

incite is a business that does both. We also manage early stage sales for our clients so we see the relative merits of both. Which one produces the best leads and which produces the most leads that go onto to close, so we have a slightly more balanced view. In reality our day to day business is a test of Inbound vs Outbound Marketing.

Our view is like beer and crisps they are better together.

We believe it shouldn’t be the case of dropping one for the other, particularly when it comes to targeting mid-sized to large businesses, with a high value product or service. The market is simply too small to leave it to chance.

Lots of businesses including many of our clients are now using outbound marketing techniques to drive interaction with top of funnel content.  Particularly for high investment pieces of content, or search terms are highly competitive.

Some tactics commonly used include buying PPC or display to drive to blogs and whitepapers. Phoning key prospects to alert them to something they wouldn’t want to miss is also valid.

Remember, a yes to content is much easier to get than a yes to a meeting or a firmer commitment. Once your prospect interacts with good relevant content, they are one step closer to buying.

Used at the right stage of the game outbound marketing is a very useful tool and one that enhances inbound so not a case of inbound vs. outbound more of a case of playing them on the same team.

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In the kind of businesses we work with, that is, high value b2b services and products like technology, creative services, law and consultancy it is rare you do business without meeting your prospect (as well as many other members of the committee responsible for buying decisions).

So the logic goes more appointments = more business, well no.

The early stage of a sale involves the prospect researching suppliers and collecting information. They are seeking education. They may not even have a fully formed requirement and put a business case in yet.

This is usually the stage when a prospect will accept a meeting via an inside sales person or external appointment setting agency. Sending a sales person in at this stage is risky. At best it creates a huge amount of work for them. They need to manage this relationship for months or years before the requirement is formalised.  At worst leads closer to closing take priority and contact is lost. The prospects first experience of your business is negative.

So what’s are the tips?

Early stage leads can be managed remotely by specialists who qualify and nurture plus a great content marketing strategy.

Studying how your prospects interact with different pieces of content and the right marketing automation software, will tell you where in the sales cycle they are and then appointment setting activity can be aligned.

Really you want your sales resource focused on later stage funnel. They close more deals are happier and the marketing and sales relationship is a strong one. Also your sales team shoe leather is a lot less worn out. They’ll thank you for it trust me.

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Happen is a management and marketing consultancy who help large global businesses come up with new ideas – sounds a pretty cool way to spend your day! Lots of things you see on the supermarket shelves had their genesis in a Happen project. They are clever folks with great content and we help utilise it to drive and nurture leads via outbound marketing.

We help them drive a significant £ value of new business through outbound marketing -  including outbound email marketing, qualified telesales, lead nurturing and lead management.

We also help build and maintain their global database through ongoing prospect research.

Our outbound marketing programs run across the US, UK and mainland Europe.

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Using inbound and outbound marketing we drive sales leads from multinational global firms for McLane Group. 

McLane Group is a global leadership development and management consultancy. We have helped them to turn their internal thought library into an external facing blog and placed this at the heart of a global content marketing, inbound and outbound marketing strategy.

We drive traffic to content using key b2b social channels twitter and LinkedIn. We also manage search marketing, both paid search and natural search to drive people to relevant blog content. As the content was not originally created for the web we have to ensure it is suitable for search engines.

As well as inbound channels, we also distribute content using a highly sophisticated eCRM strategy based on interaction with published and interacted with content and use our sales agent to follow up based on scoring methodology.The insight we can gain by managing multiple channels, means our outbound email and telephone marketing can be highly efficient and effective – particularly when your main buying points are senior HR and C-Level execs in global multinational businesses.

We manage McLane’s leads qualifying interest quickly and categorising interest. All inbound leads are processed quickly and we manage and nurture all leads, until they are sales ready. Once sales ready they are passed to our client’s consultants to meet, prepare proposals and close. As the charge rate and seniority is high for these consultants it is vital that leads are sales ready.

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