Your professional services firm can be different

By Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D.

Sometimes it can feel like it is impossible for a professional services firm to be truly different. Simply saying that you have great people or are very dedicated to client satisfaction can ring hollow.

So how can you go about differentiating your firm? What will make it special enough to give you a competitive advantage?

In the professional services marketplace, there are a variety of approaches to this thorny problem. The most straightforward technique is to specialize in a particular type of client or vertical: “We work exclusively with IT companies;” or “We do marketing for credit unions.” You get the drift.

If that option isn’t available, however, you might consider a twist on that approach — specialize in a customer segment that your clients service. Let me give you a example. My partner Aaron Taylor pointed me to a Maryland-based interactive firm called Immersion Active. One look at their website and I knew they had nailed a clear and easy-to-understand differentiator. Here is how they put it:

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New Study Reveals “Extraordinary” Growth in Internet Search

By Aaron Taylor

On Friday, Internet research firm comScore released a report on the continued expansion of Internet search. “The global search market continues to grow at an extraordinary rate,” said comScore EVP Jack Flanagan.

Worldwide search engine use increased an astonishing 46 percent from December 2008 to December 2009. Over the same period searches in the United States increased by over 4 billion — a 22% increase.

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Getting the Most from LinkedIn

By Beth J. Bates, New Media Special Correspondent

The face of LinkedIn has undergone a variety of changes since the last time I blogged about it a year ago. LinkedIn’s development team has added a variety of widgets giving users more functionality. LinkedIn can now be synced with Twitter. The design has experienced a much-needed facelift. But, that just scratches the surface. Let’s break it down.

• The Application Directory adds new content to your profile.
  • Reading List by Amazon.com - enables you to share books you are enjoying.
  • Box.net Files - share files with other LinkedIn users.
  • Polls - this market research tool enables you to collect data from your connections.

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SEO and the Professional Services Firm

By Aaron Taylor

Each month at Hinge, we get a few highly qualified leads from companies that find us through online search. Many of these companies have never heard of us and quite a few are eager to talk to us even though our office is in another part of the country.

So it’s disconcerting how often I hear professional services firm principals tell me they don’t need search engine optimization. “That’s not how clients find us,” they say. “We get most of our business through referrals.” Or sometimes, “prospects only look at our website after they’ve met us.”

Those sentiments, while valid to a point, fail to account for the business opportunities these firms never see: the people — seriously interested people — who use Internet search to locate professional services that are relevant to their needs.

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Digital vs. Traditional Marketing — Which is Best for You?

By Jen Sterling

After 25 years building a reputation for historical preservation, a successful architecture firm wants to reposition itself. They hope to broaden their appeal and offer a wider range of opportunities for their younger architects. This firm wants to maintain its distinguished historical focus, but it would like to broaden its reputation to include contemporary design. Which would server them better — a traditional or digital marketing approach?

Choosing between digital or traditional marketing — or deciding if you have to make a choice at all — depends on your marketing objectives. In the case of this architecture firm, a tension between the attributes of experience and innovation presents itself.

Experience or innovation? Which is better suited to digital marketing?  Which fits more naturally with traditional marketing? In my opinion, neither traditional nor digital marketing has a lock on experience or innovation. A better question might be, which will take them where they want to go?

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Jump Start Your Corporate Blog

By Beth J. Bates, New Media Special Correspondent

I find that the beginning of the year is a good time to review my own blog’s infrastructure, design and functionality. I also think about what I can do to make my posts more interesting, add value for my readers and ultimately drive more traffic to my blog. Here are a few suggestions for jump starting your own corporate blog:

• Use photos. I see many corporate blogs without photos. Images help tell your story and attract readers to your post. Don’t have any photos on hand? You can find great, inexpensive stock photos at iStockphoto.com.
• Content is still king. Every post should provide value to your readers. Having a fresh or provocative perspective will keep readers reading… and coming back. Try to use keyword-rich verbiage to increase your search engine optimization.
• Promote your posts. Use social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to share your favorite posts with the world. Social bookmarking exceptional posts on services like StumbleUpon can drive additional traffic to your blog.

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