Someone at a conference mentions lead scoring software. A marketing consultant tells you it's essential for "modern sales." You look it up and find demos of platforms that track every click, assign point values to every page visit, and automatically rank your...
One of my goals for Rebar is to keep our marketing services relevant and responsive to needs of professional service firms like yours. I make a habit of soliciting feedback from customers, prospects, and strategic partners to make sure we are addressing their real...
Implementing a system for marketing professional services is not about creating a checklist of to-do items and then moving in a linear fashion through the list, checking off one item at a time. It’s not a “set it and forget it” type of process. Rather, it is an...
Over on Marketo’s B2B Marketing blog, Maria Pergolino has a good post about Benefits of Online Surveys for B2B Marketers. As I’ve written here before, I believe that professional service firms can make good use of online surveys, but they should supplement, rather...
Most professional service firms rely heavily on referrals to grow their business. Having a systematic process for requesting, giving, and following up on referrals is essential if you want to consistently receive quality referrals. When designed and used properly,...
Leyl Master Black has an interesting article on Mashable.com that asks Should You Outsource Your Social Media Efforts? (note - The article is no longer available on Mashable.) Leyl poses four questions to consider when deciding whether or not to outsource your social...
Creating a strong follow-up system is another key to success when implementing a marketing system in a professional service firm. I include lead nurturing in the broader category of a follow-up system. Lead nurturing is essential, but other types of follow-up are just...
We hear a lot these days about the important role content plays in marketing today. In fact, marketing professionals are often advised to “think like publishers”. But what types of marketing content should professional service firms be creating? Rather than trying to...
As a recovering CPA and a “systems guy”, I like metrics. Metrics can be helpful in helping us understand what’s happening in a system and may even help us set priorities and make decisions. But sometimes, we can go a little crazy with them. Sometimes, I think we have...
Is it just me, or is this type of messaging, targeted at professional service firms, popping up with greater frequency? “… fierce completion, reduced budgets, and new technologies make it easier than ever for competitors to take your customers. Therefore, your...