What Social Media Can’t Do

By Beth J. Bates, New Media Special Correspondent

Whether your firm is large or small, it’s likely that social media has taken your marketing department (if not your entire company) by storm. To many, social media represents a sort of panacea: “How can we lose with instant connections with millions of potential customers day or night?” Right? Wrong.

Social media does offer creative and effective tactics for connecting and engaging with folks all over the world. But without a plan, it can be a long, bumpy road.

Denise Zimmerman of iMEDIA Connections recently wrote a great post called “7 Things Social Media Can’t Do.” In the post, Denise includes great tips for understanding how social media affects your business, such as:

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Marketing Tools For High Growth Firms

By Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D.

Our recently released study on High Growth professional services firms identified high performers that were growing almost 9 times faster than average firms, were 50% more profitable yet spent less than average on business development. In previous posts we discussed the counterintuitive strategies they employ and their unusually strong client targeting. Now let’s open their marketing tool kit and see how they leverage their limited budgets.

The first thing to note is that the High Growth firms already have a strong advantage even before they start. Because they tend to specialize and have a well defined target client they have fewer people to reach. They also know a lot more about those potential clients, their needs and priorities. The same amount of money spent on reaching 1,000 target prospects goes a lot further than if you are trying to reach 100,000. Further, if know in detail what those 1,000 prospects experience every day and what their priorities are, it is much easier to craft a message that is relevant and compelling.

Here are six tools favored by High Growth firms:

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Client Targeting Drives Growth and Profitability

By Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D.

You’ve heard it a million times before: to build a commanding reputation you need to narrowly target your prospects. But you probably don’t really believe it. After all, if a potential client goes to your website and sees that you specialize in a different type of client, won’t that turn them off? (Answer: yes, it probably will.) So most firms write their target client description to be as broad as possible. It seems safer. But does it really work?

Well, we have an answer to that question and it comes from our new research study, The High Growth Professional Services Firm. These firms grow 9 times faster, are 50% more profitable, yet spend slightly less than average on marketing and sales. How do they do it? As we covered in a recent post, one of the keys is strategy. High growth firms are much more likely to use counterintuitive approaches, such as narrow specialization, and tend to have easily understood, believable differentiators. But that’s only part of the answer.

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How to Avoid Becoming a “Me Too” Professional Services Firm

By Beth J. Bates, New Media Special Correspondent

I want to share a great blog post written recently by Mark Sweeney called “Professional Services Firms: Me Too is not a Marketing Strategy.” Mark does a great job of breaking down the challenges of marketing professional services without falling into the rut of becoming like everyone else in your industry. It’s difficult to find a differentiator when you offer the same services, pricing and personalities as your competitors.

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Study Shows Small Businesses Embracing Social Media

By Beth J. Bates, New Media Special Correspondent

While opinions differ on whether Twitter is a useful business tool, one thing is for certain: small businesses are embracing social media.

A recent study, The State of Small Business Report, by Network Solutions and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business reports “social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12 percent to 24 percent in the last year.” While this statistic may seem surprising, it really makes sense.

The typical small business owner generally has a small marketing budget. Social media enables companies to extend their customer reach with minimal expense. Small businesses need to connect with their customers on a personal level — which social media provides. And with the widespread adoption of social media as a standard tool for communication, it’s very accessible and effective for business.

As with any technology, the report described both positive reactions and concerns about social media.

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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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