Marketing for Professional
Services
Building Blocks for Long
Term Success
The Pyramid Club
April 26, 2019
Splat, Inc.
A DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY

PART ONE:
WHO ARE YOU?

What makes your firm unique?
• Conduct an informal audit, listing core firm strengths. Why do you get hired?
• Reputation & experiences are differentiators in professional service
• Ability to work at scale (size of firm) is another
Are these core brand differentiators reflected in your marketing materials and business
development process?
BRAND AUDIT
TAKING STOCK

BRAND AUDIT: Identity Design & Assessment
Brand Identity
• Logo & color scheme
• All visual identity elements (website, brochures, social
channels, etc.)
• Custom photography is very important for professional
services
• Themeline, mission statement
• Does messaging across all channels promote core identity
elements & differentiators?
• Are we trying to be all things for all people?
TAKING STOCK

GOOD YOU DECIDE
TAKING STOCK

• https://www.elequipomazzanti.com/
• http://www.diehlgroup.com/
• https://cheshirenonprofitlaw.com/
• https://hbkengineering.com/
• https://www.ylaw.ca/
• https://www.arnolditkin.com/
GOOD UNFORTUNATE PRACTICES
• “Borrowed Interest.” Using well-known
geography or symbols to promote an unrelated
service. Examples include Philly firms using
pictures of Center City, the BF bridge, etc.
• Relying on visual clichés such as the scales
of justice, surveying equipment, etc.
• An absence of a positioning statement on the
homepage. What do you do and why do you do
it so well?
• Overstating areas of core competence; trying
to be all things to all clients.
POSITIONING YOUR VALUE ON THE WEB
Tip: As a professional service provider, you’re
really selling two things only: proven ability
and executional capacity.

PART TWO:
AMPLIFYING YOUR BRAND’S MESSAGE

A CONTENT CENTERED
APPROACH
Social
Social Amplifiers
& Listeners
Events
PPC
Paid Amplifiers
Website
Videos
Blogs
Portfolio/
Bios

Audit your existing strategy
• List all tools and tactics
• What kinds of content are you currently producing?
• How are you sharing and amplifying brand messaging?
• What do analytics for website and all social platforms tell
you?
• How is your business development platform supposed to
work? To what degree are you relying on traditional vs non-
traditional lead generation methods?
ASSESSMENT & AUDIENCE RESEARCH:
(Who are we currently reaching?)
TAKING STOCK

Internal Functionality: Is the back end of your site friend or foe in your marketing efforts?
• CMS Design: How easily is new content added?
• Are landing pages easy to make?
• Are SEO tools implemented?
• Meta tags?
• Are URLS sensibly created by the CMS and SEO friendly?
• Are user profiles prioritized and configurable within the CMS? Can multiple parties add
content, with varying levels of access to site?
Visitor - facing functionality
• Is your site prioritized according to marketing objectives?
• Is content easily downloadable and content forms filled out?
Conduct a thorough audit, to align with current goals and objectives
PERFORM A DIGITAL AUDIT
TAKING STOCK

TAKING STOCK 3
NAUGHTY WEB BACKEND NICE WEB BACKEND

• Where are your clients and where do they
congregate on the web? LinkedIn? Twitter?
Instagram? Where?
• Who are the potential intermediaries to
them?
• Are there tools you can be using to identify
either clients or potential amplifiers of your
brand’s messaging?
• Don’t forget to use ‘Old School’ research
techniques - interviews and verbal out-
reach - to find clients
IDENTIFY POTENTIAL “TARGETS” FOR
MESSAGING CONTENT
TAKING STOCK

Small Firm
• A modest but well-conceived web-
site, with ongoing content creation,
if possible
• Custom photography, as budget
permits
• Content creation, as budget and
time allow
• Paid digital advertising, if appropri-
ate
• Paid directories, if appropriate
• Local offline advertising and mar-
keting opportunities (sponsor a little
league team, partner with industry
allies and give a seminar, etc.)
• Target a single social channel that
makes sense and commit to regular
postings
EXECUTE MARKETING PLANS BASED ON CAPABILITY
EXECUTION
Larger Firm
• Everything from the Small Firm list
• A larger, well-conceived website with com-
plete staff and expertise sections, as well
as ongoing areas dedicated to new content
• A robust commitment to content creation,
with a more tactical, SEO oriented ap-
proach
• Event/conference attendance
• A robust commitment to an array of social
media channels. Targeted use of social
listening tools and influencer marketing
• Targeted sponsorship and pro bono offer-
ings
• Paid directories (Justia, FindLaw, Super-
Lawyers, etc)
• Print advertising

CONTENT FOCUSED
Content ideas are fueled by PR initiatives & staff
members. The firm is selling expertise and seeks
to demonstrated their innovation through various
types of content.
VIDEO
ARTICLES/DOWNLOADABLE BROCHURES/OTHER WEB CONTENT
PHOTOS/
COPY SNIPPETS
(Heavily curated LinkedIn feed; links
to video & snippets. Video also used
in proposals.)
(Video promoted through organic
Insta channel; snippets and links)
(Concerted Insta effort sees five-
fold increase in follower count in
2018)
(Corporate LinkedIn account is
largest hub of Social. Curated and
themed, post frequency is approx.
2/day. Firm staff and principals are
encouraged to share; the size of firm
makes this form of amplification
significant.)
(Channel is themed according to
posts related to People, Community
Involvement, Current Events and
Firm Projects== .)

CONTENT & PAID
‘Content,’ consists of static content on website;
paid advertising and limited social presence on
Insta and Houzz.
PAID
WEB CONTENT
PROJECTS/
COPY SNIPPETS
(Channel is themed according to
posts related to People, Projects,
Observations and Events. They use
branded post typologies.)
(The website itself hosts most
visual content)
(Pay-per-click is managed
professionally and leverages the
reasonably inexpensive cost of PPC,
do to limited competition. PPC has
proven fruitful; generating 2 - 5
projects/year at a $1300 monthly
budget.)
(The lack of organic keyword competition
is driving the creation of sequenced blog
posts, intended to widen gographic scope
and highly keyword researched.)
(A curated, premium
Houzz account raises firm
awareness and generates
occasional leads.)

PPC TRENDS: GOOGLE AD REMARKETING
WHAT IS REMARKETING?
Think of Remarketing as a way to both amplify and
recycle your PPC advertising on the web. Basically, after
a Google ad drives traffic to your website, the source of
that traffic is then noted. As the user peruses the web,
your ad is served to them, repeatedly, as they visit other
sites running Google Ads.
HOW TO ACTIVATE GOOGLE AD REMARKETING?
(Easy to add)
After already advertising on google then add a piece of
google remarketing code to your website so visitors can
get added to your remarketing audiences

Remarketing keeps your brand front-and-center for an extended duration, even when the custom-
er is not thinking of making a purchase. This subtle increase in brand awareness ensures your
potential clients ‘don’t forget...’
• It allows you to stay connected with your target audience, even after they leave your
site
• You are gaining brand exposure and becoming more recognizable to your target audi-
ence, raising trust and making them more likely to purchase from you
• Remarketing ads have much higher click through rates than typical display ads
• You will see better conversion rates when you start to combine remarketing cam-
paigns with additional targeting methods, such as targeting by demographics
WHY IS REMARKETING SO IMPORTANT?
(How it will increase your revenue)

SEO TRENDS: WHAT ABOUT ORGANIC SEO?
WHERE HATH THOU GONE, EASY BUTTON?
Although the days of writing keyword-stuffed copy and watching the traffic roll in
are long gone, professional services marketing was never really ‘about that’ anyway.
These days, the fundamentals of SEO are still VERY important. Quick questions to ask
are:
SEO 2.0?
In many ways, organic SEO has evolved into content-based marketing. Remember, con-
tent marketing came along as a trend when easier means of getting traffic (like key-
word stuffing) ceased working. Although content marketing has additional advantages
- the ability to demonstrate thought leadership, for example - it is still used for traffic
generation.
Link building is one part of traditional organic SEO which is still exceedingly beneficial
within a conent marketing workflow. Combined sometimes with PR efforts, link building
can be the SEO tactic that makes your content initiatives especially successful.
• Is your website responsive and fully-mobile compli-
ant? Should you consider AMP?
• Do pages load quickly? Are images properly com-
pressed?
• Have all basic organic keyword-related needs been
addressed? All Meta tags correctly written, from
the standpoint of research and attention-grabbing
‘calls to action?’

• To bolster brand awareness
• To fuel qualified lead generation
• To foster sign-ups/build database
• To recruit talent
• To offer a glimpse at company cul-
ture via storytelling
• To demonstrate expertise
• Target a single social channel that
makes sense and commit to regular
postings
WHY USE SOCIAL MEDIA?

LinkedIn is where B2B firms are seeing the most results.
Currently, LinkedIn has more than 250 million ACTIVE
members worldwide. It’s rated by B2B content marketers as
the most effective social media and research has found that
80% of B2B social media leads come from LinkedIn.
Senior-level clients that claim “don’t use social media” can
most definitely be found on LinkedIn.
The business nature of the platform and the ability to reach
your target audience means LinkedIn should be a cornerstone
of your firm’s social media efforts.
LinkedIn provides huge possibilities for engagement,
including company page updates, personal publishing and
groups.
Pro tip: Leverage this platform to promote thought leadership
and content marketing, NOT just as a megaphone for firm
awards and other accolades.
LINKEDIN
TOP 3 PLATFORMS
OVER 4,500 FOLLOWERS

Consider Twitter the virtual newsroom of social media
platforms. It’s real-time, news-oriented and second only to
LinkedIn in terms of effectiveness as rated by B2B marketers.
Twitter currently has 305 million active users and is a helpful
channel for connecting with industry influencers, reporters,
publications, associations, teaming partners, prospective
employees, as well as clients and prospects.
Due to the real-time nature of the platform, frequency of use
should be higher than other platforms. With Twitter, its best
to follow the 4-1-1 rule of social media:
• One self-serving, news-oriented tweet
• One thought leadership-oriented tweet
• Four tweets that point to other industry influencer
content, both from experts and periodicals alike.
Additionally, research from Buffer found that tweets that
include an image receive 18% more clicks, 89% more
favorites and 150% more retweets.
TWITTER
OVER 31,2K FOLLOWERS

Instagram is a growing platform for B2B social media
marketing, with 60% of marketers planning to increase
usage in 2019.
Firms who substantially invest time and resources in
photography to tell their client’s stories and showcase the
interesting work they’re doing might find Instagram to be a
great platform.
Similar to Twitter, Instagram is real-time (for now), leverages
hashtags and relies on quick hitting messages to accompany
photos or videos.
Forget about pretty pictures...disrupt Instagram with a new
idea. Solicit the help of influencers (including staff). Think
about themes January: Wood February: Outside In March:
Green Building Materials.
INSTAGRAM
OVER 68,1K FOLLOWERS

INSPIRATIONAL POSTS

INSPIRATIONAL POSTS

Thank You!
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@Daaveey
646.522.2774