Professional Services Marketing

by Mike Schultz & John Doerr

How the best firms build premier brands, thriving lead generation engines, and cultures of business development success.

View on Amazon.co.uk

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Our Thoughts

We were originally pointed in the direction of Professional Services Marketing by Susie Holland and Tim Haveron-Jones over on the PSMG LinkedIn Group. As a first go for the Book Club, we weren’t disappointed.

Schulz and Doerr have spent years advising global professional services firms on marketing strategy and it shows in the first hand experience and primary research they cite to support their advice.

Of course, we read the book through web design and digital marketing goggles and certain sections resonated more than others. Here are our top five take-aways from this book:

1. Pay Attention to the Website

In chapter 16 Schultz and Doerr provide a useful appraisal of all the marketing communication and lead generation tactics used by law firms. As a digital agency, we are obviously biased towards online channels, but Schultz and Doerr agree that the firm’s website is massively important.

Every one of your prospect or recruits looks and your website. Guaranteed. If they’re serious about hiring or joining your firm they’ll really look at your website. McMurdo in Schultz & Doerr (2009) pp.110

There’s no other marketing channel that touches as many people as the firm’s main website. Given how measurable digital marketing can be we’re not surprised that:

For most firms, far and away most of the effort should be spent making their websites as good as they possibly can be. SCHULTZ & DOERR (2009) pp.230

2. Graphic Design is a Tool

Schultz and Doerr have a pretty interesting take on graphic design:

Your corporate identity and graphic design define what league you’re in. Schultz & Doerr (2009) pp.229

It’s certainly true that firms that don’t look the part have a harder time holding on to a market position. As well as showing the world what league you’re in, it can also can also indicate where you’re heading. Brands can be aspirational too and firms that are looking to move up through the ranks ought to dress accordingly.

Design is important, but there are pitfalls too:

All too often we see firm getting caught up in the visible and sexy part of the marketing process (design, copy) that they forget about the important-but-mundane part (lead and revenue generation).Schultz & Doerr (2009) pp.192

In our business, we’ve seen hundreds of websites that although smart to look at, fail to produce a single enquiry. We suspect that it’s because professionals take design very personally. They see it as a reflection of themselves in a way that someone working in, say, consumer packaged goods, probably wouldn’t. Too much debate over minor design details can kill a project before it gets to the stage where it can deliver results.

Appropriate design is extremely important, but we must remember that, in design, perfection doesn’t really exist. Good enough is often OK and driving revenue is what really matters.

3. Find Inspiration Outside the Legal Sector

In can sometimes feel as if the whole legal sector moves as a whole. Each firm looking only as far as it’s next competitor to ensure that they are keeping-up. We’ve long felt that firms should look outside their own industry for inspirational ways to build brand and develop services. We even wrote about it back in 2009. Schultz and Doerr seem to agree:

If you want you marketing strategy to never reach beyond average, make sure you look only at your own industry and competition… being late to the game is a great component of a terrible marketing strategy. SCHULTZ & DOERR (2009) pp.35

4. Value Offers in Marketing

The chapter on value and offers is probably worth the cover price alone. Schultz and Doerr describe the problems we all face in marketing service which are by their nature intangible. They argue that delivering value directly in the sales and marketing process can help to overcome the uncertainty and perceived risk associated with buying professional services.

The marketing and sales process is a preview for prospects of what it is like to work with you. If you want to be seen as a valuable provider, offer value directly in your lead generation and sales effort. Schultz & Doerr (2009) pp.260

We think this a great way to evaluate whether a particular tactic or message is worth pursuing. It’s also the reason that modern digital tactics like blog and social networking are gaining momentum. They provide prospects with a preview of the very people they might end up working with.

5. The Standard Business Plan

Many marketers struggle because their firm’s leaders haven’t provided a written business plan from which to base their marketing planning. Schultz and Doerr suggest that this doesn’t necessarily have to be a block to successful marketing and describe the standard business plan for professional service firms. On strategy they say:

At many professional services firms, strategy boils down to selecting a set of industries to target, services (or practice areas) to offer, and geographies to serve. SCHULTZ & DOERR (2009) pp.19

From this we can produce a standard set of operating objectives:

General direction for the year, depending in the firm’s stage of growth, consists of strengthening the quality of services delivered, improving operational efficiencies… improving marketplace visibility, and perhaps offering new services here and there. SCHULTZ & DOERR (2009) pp.19

Clearly, it is a much easier task to flesh out the specifics of the standard plan for your firm than to try and coerce senior managers to produce a written business plan for you when their priorities may lie elsewhere.

This is the first of our Book Club posts. We hope it will become a valuable resource and make a useful contribution to understanding of digital marketing in law firms, both within our firm and the community at large.

Please let us know what you think. We welcome praise and constructive criticism with equal enthusiasm. Feel free to contact us, or post in the comments below.

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