CRM and other business automation tools typically allow you to personalize the messages you send to your prospects and customers. This is usually done using some sort of field code and mail merge process. You create a template that looks something like this: Dear...
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...
Over on Law.com, Bruce Marcus has an interesting article titled The Difference Between Doing and Managing Marketing (link no longer available). In this article, Mr. Marcus describes some of the progression of the marketing function in law firms and some of the common...
This post is mostly a reminder to myself but may benefit others as well. Not everyone wants to grow their business. Of course I know this intellectually, but, it is easy to assume that everyone does. These assumptions creep into our language and we may not even be...
In this post, a sales and marketing manager for a small tax consultant office asks, "How can I get our tax consultancy noticed?". This post reminded me of a small, but important, mental shift that will improve the effectiveness of marketing your professional...
The May issue of Practical Accountant features an article outlining the struggles professional service firms encounter with their marketing function. The article is based on a survey conducted by the marketing and research firm The Bloom Group. Here are some of the...
This recent article in Website magazine lists their top 5 reasons to write a Press Release as: a way to generate organic traffic link building reputation management attracting bloggers and web 2.0 audience draw traffic from traditional media Granted this is a magazine...
This is a copy of a post I made a year ago, but since I seem to be having this discussion with a lot of folks recently, I thought I would repost it today. Incidentally, the folks at Versage do a much better job of making this argument than I do, so I encourage you to...
The Wall Street Journal has a nice report on the challenges that small business owners face when it comes to advertising. The article discusses alternatives to advertising - word of mouth, using the Internet to generate buzz, etc. The implication seems to be that...
Ok, I need someone to explain this to me. Almost every CRM package that I look at has a report that looks like this: Forecasted Sales x Probability of Closing = Potential Sale or Value of Opportunity x Probability of Closing = Expected Revenue ...