Traditional advertising doesn't work for professional service firms. I must read that 3 or 4 times a week. Lately, the advice that follows is "Drop your print advertising and replace it with online, pay per click (PPC) advertising".
Will changing to PPC advertising suddenly get you a flood of new business? I doubt it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of online advertising. I just think this advice (and the typical supporting arguments that accompany it) focus on the wrong problem. Moving to a new medium won't suddenly make bad advertising practices effective.
Traditional advertising doesn't fail because it's old, or on paper, or because there are too many print ads already. Traditional advertising doesn't work for professional service firms because the traditional approach continues to make traditional mistakes.
Here are a few of the common mistakes professional service firms make when creating or purchasing ads:
They try to make the sale directly from the ad. People don't buy professional services just because they see an ad. Rather than try to sell, your ad should contain a strong call to action that will funnel prospects into your education based marketing system.
They fail to narrowly define their target market first and then look for the most appropriate way to reach that audience. This leads to the very expensive "shotgun" approach that tries to spread the message as far and wide as possible, hoping a prospect will happen across it at the time they are ready to buy.
They focus on features and benefits rather than the needs of the customer. Prospects don't care about your cool technology or your great equipment or the cumulative number of years of experience of your entire staff. They want to know that you understand their situation and you can solve their problem(s).
Unless your only goal is to lower your cost per advertising mistake, before you change your advertising tactics, take the time to create your marketing strategy first – then make sure your advertising message and delivery vehicles are aligned with that strategy.
