How to Choose a Business Contacts Database

By Sylvia Montgomery

I recently spoke with a professional services firm executive who had this to say about maintaining his firm’s contact database:

“Every January we say the same thing … this year our firm will focus on routinely cleaning our contact database and not waiting until the end-of-year holiday card season. This year, our firm will implement a data hygiene program that everyone in the firm participates in. Of course, it never happens that way.“

Sound familiar?

As I explained in my last post, entering and validating contacts is tedious business, but the tangible benefits are well worth it. But what if you don’t have a formal database (also called a “house list”)? Or what if you aren’t happy with the tool you use now? Where do you start?

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Using Contests to Cultivate Fans (and Ultimately Customers)

By Beth J. Bates, New Media Special Correspondent

I am a sucker for contests, especially contests that require me to be at a certain place at a certain time. I will admit that I’m uber competitive, so beating out the next guy for a prize, no matter how small, is pretty gratifying.

Recently I’ve participated in several contests held on Facebook and Twitter, and they were really fun and exciting. They not only provided that competitive edge that I love, but also brought fans of a particular brand together. Let me give you a great example of why contests work as part of a social media campaign:

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Counterintuitive Strategy Drives High Growth Professional Services Firms

By Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D.

Last week, we released our new study on High Growth professional services firms. The study identified a group of firms that grow 9 times faster and are 50% more profitable than their peers. Although the research showed that you can spend your way to growth, that’s not how these firms do it. They actually spend slightly less than average on marketing and sales. So how do they pull off this marketing magic trick?

It starts with a counterintuitive strategy: when most professional services firms zig, high growth firms zag.

Generalist or Specialist?
Most professional services firms find themselves expanding their expertise and offering an ever wider range of services to clients. In some ways, they are simply following demand — clients have a wide range of needs, so firms are merely trying to accomodate them. After all, isn’t diversification a good thing?

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Kickstart Your Online Marketing with Three Social Media Tips

By Beth J. Bates, New Media Special Correspondent

I’m a firm believer that planning is critical to the success of any small business marketing campaign. If you’ve already planned your social media campaign, kudos to you. If not, here are a few tips to help you satisfy that need to “do something” without derailing your forthcoming plan.

1. Plan the time to share and engage. It’s easy to set-up a Facebook page or a Twitter profile, but no one gets excited about old, stale posts. If you want to start the year by connecting with your fans you should, but plan resources for maintaining the stream. Set aside a few minutes each morning to converse with your fans or assign a team member to do it throughout the day. But, don’t start something that you can’t maintain.
2. Baby steps. It’s easy to be bedazzled by new exciting social media tools, but stick with what you know. If you have a lot of photos, consider starting a Flickr page. If you are already on Facebook with a personal profile, start a fan page for your business. Start with what you know and assess anything new when you create your campaign strategy. This will save you time and provide more effective engagement with your fans.

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There is a Better Way to Build Your Professional Services Firm

By Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D.

I pondered the title of this post for a while. I was concerned that it might come across as though I had all the answers. In fact, I know building a successful professional services firm can be devilishly difficult. But I do believe we have uncovered some of the answers — and each year we learn a little more.

Yesterday, we released our brand new research study on high performance professional services firms. This is the fourth in a series of studies designed to shed light on how to grow and manage a successful professional services firm. Our latest study provides a number of pointed and practical insights that should be of interest to any service firm executive.

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The Care and Feeding of your Business Contacts Database

By Sylvia Montgomery

When was the last time you gave a hoot about the state of your contact database?  If your professional services firm is like most, it’s probably been a while. If you don’t worry about how your contacts are segmented or how often records are validated, you’re not alone. Contact databases are easy to neglect.

If you are the CEO of your firm, you probably don’t lose much sleep over how your contacts are entered into the database (assuming you have one). You don’t have time to worry about it…. You’ve got a company to run.

On the other hand, if you are responsible for marketing at your firm, you probably recognize the value of maintaining a clean contact database. But the thought of scrubbing a list of hundreds or thousands of names makes you cringe. Given the bandwidth required for such an undertaking, the work never gets done.

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