United States: Marketing for Professional Service Firms: What You Need to Know – Accounting, Insurance, Financial Services and the Law

Here’s a dirty little secret: Your marketing design firm thinks you’re duller than dirt. And, chances are, you don’t like them much either.  Remember when we were all in school? Remember the "artsy" crowd? Now consider the "business geeks". The people who went on to law school became accountants or, perish the thought, went into insurance. Yep . . . that’s you. You were among those who found business topics . . . interesting . . . fascinating even.

Today you read business books, industry trade publications, Fortune, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal. When you pick up the paper, you head for the business section even before you look at world news. You listen to talk radio and NPR. You watch CNN, Discovery and The History Channel. Yep . . . you’re a business geek alright. Right down to your wing tips and loafers.

The artsy crowd, on the other hand, knows what is on MTV. They know what’s cool and hip. They use a Mac. The chances of them having read anything by Steven Covey or Tom Peters are slim and none. Wingtips . . . out of the question. New accounting regulations . . . you must be kidding. Our "litigious society" . . . something about lawyers. Workers’ Compensation issues or D&O coverage . . . huh?

Fast forward: You’re a managing partner. You want and need to stimulate firm growth. You think that a new brochure will help. You’ve read a lot about "branding". Maybe you should be advertising . . . perhaps in the business journal. You hire a design firm or ad agency.

They tell you that you are right. You like that. They tell you that a new look is in order. New brochure . . . a print ad with a catchy headline . . . new logo and a catchy slogan . . . and, of course, a cool looking Web site. How much? Oh my god.

But, you and your partners readily admit your lack of knowledge on the subject. You’ve been successful thus far, but growth is slowing. Everyone’s busy with billable hours on existing clients. The agency explains how branding will make a significant difference. You cringe, but write the check.

The nightmare begins. You go through 15 iterations on the logo. The tagline, in so many words, says you’re "innovative". You end up having to write much of the brochure yourself, or you end up with copy that explains how your firm was founded in 1982 to provide innovative excellence. The costs keep mounting. Printing brochures: $10,000. Ads in business journal: another $25K. Before you know it you’ve spent $100K.

Most of your partners like their new business cards. Certainly an improvement over the old ones. The brochure’s okay too. You show your new print ads to your friends. They remark on your firm’s presumed success. You like that. Existing clients mention that they like your new Web site. They’re thinking of doing a new one as well. You don’t tell anyone what a nightmare it was developing your new tools. Or that you just spent a hundred grand of money that could have gone to bonuses . . . or hiring a new executive . . . or?

Then it’s back to work. Nothing changes. The ads run, the direct mail mails. The results: none. Perhaps you get a few calls . . . perhaps not. Those who call are middle managers without decision-making power. You meet for  lunch. You hand out your new brochure; suggest that they visit your Web site. Inquire about meeting with the CEO or CFO. Nothing happens.

Turns out the CEO or CFO has chosen a different firm. One who came highly recommended by a friend he or she met at the gym . . . or at a conference . . . or the brother-in-law/next door neighbor/et al.

You get a couple of new clients, but all come from referrals or past clients in new positions or firms. You speak at a conference and pick up a new client there as well. You hire a new partner or producer. He or she brings on a couple of new clients as well. As the year goes by, marketing’s bloom continues to fade. You wonder why other firms are running ads in the business journal. How can it be working for them if it hasn’t done squat for you? (It’s not working for them either, by the way.)

Your ad agency or marketing design firm says that it takes time for branding to produce results. Brand leaders aren’t created overnight. Makes sense. They suggest a new approach: You should write an article for the business journal and, for five grand the journal will print it with the word "advertisement" at the top. You write the article, which is really an ad, pay the price of admission – again, no one calls. Except, perhaps an existing client who saw your photo or name, or a peer who wants to know if it "worked". (It didn’t, by the way.)

At this point, you determine that marketing or advertising or whatever someone chooses to call it doesn’t work for your type of firm. You pick up the best business book on how to grow your firm. It says that networking is the key. That’s what you were doing in the first place.

And it didn’t cost a hundred grand. If this scenario doesn’t resonate with you then you simply haven’t gone through it . . . yet. You will . . . every professional service firm does. That’s why you see new competitors every year running ads in the business journal.

Now let’s be brutally honest. You read the business journal recently. You read Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company. You watched TV. You received direct mail. Can you remember a single ad? Just one? How about talking frogs belching Budweiser? Sure, but what does that have to do with accounting, insurance or the law? Not a damn thing.

Marketing and advertising for your type of firm simply doesn’t work. And it’s back to business as usual.

Does this scenario happen often? As often as the sun rises in the east. Every time? Every time. Is it inevitable? Does marketing for professional service firms truly not work? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, marketing works. Unless done badly.

The obvious question is why. Professional service firms, it can certainly be assumed are made up of very smart people. Why do their marketing efforts, seemingly so carefully planned and painfully conceived, fail virtually every time?

To understand the answer, we must first understand the first sentence of this treatise: the marketing design firm thinks you are dull. Okay, maybe not "you" personally, but your industry, without question.

Perhaps your firm has expertise in tax planning or auditing. Perhaps you practice labor and employment law. Perhaps your specialty is in employee benefits and D&O liability coverage.

(Starting to sound boring even to you, isn’t it?)

Well, to the people that staff your average design/marketing/ad agency, those topics are so far beyond dull, that you’re speaking a different language when you explain them.

The designers are young . . . very young. They went into design to express their creativity. They love the idea of designing what they consider cutting edge stuff. And their view of what is cutting edge has nothing to do with yours.

They want to work on accounts like Apple Computer, Taco Bell, maybe even a new mountain bike. You know, exciting stuff. The kind of stuff you can tell your friends about and they’ll go ooh and ahh. While these young designers are awaiting these opportunities, they will work on whatever pays the bills. Your firm, for example.

The writer that was hired to pen your firm’s message probably knows little about to whom they are writing. Imagine you trying to write about the latest MTV hit show and you’ll get the idea. As a professional service firm, your audience is comprised of old people in suits. Your audience wears wingtips . . . your design firm wears sandals, assuming they wear shoes at all.

If a given design or marketing firm has no concept of how or why your expertise is engaged – nothing about the process, the benefits, the potential pitfalls – how can they be expected to be able to know what you and your partners have struggled with perhaps for years.

Among other things, marketing requires insight. To develop that insight requires education, experience and specific knowledge. Everyone knows what it’s like to buy a car or a taco, but not just anyone understands what goes into the decision to retain a law firm, engage an accounting firm, select an investment bank or change insurance brokers.

To effectively market a professional service firm, you need to understand intimately what is involved in the sales process. You also need to know how different size firms compete, what changes the field has been through in the last 20 years, what the risks are of bad decisions, etc., etc.

This is not the type of knowledge generally found in a marketing design agency. You’ll be lucky if your average design agency personnel even know any lawyer jokes. They’ll view accountants as "bean counters", investment bankers must be bankers that make investments and insurance brokers cost more than GEICO Direct.

Sure, they’ll be able to create attractive logos and describe your firm as "innovative", but your customers don’t buy your firm’s brand, they buy your firm’s in-depth expertise. Your marketing efforts need to demonstrate that expertise. To do that requires a lot more than would be required to sell a taco.

The next problem involves the concept of branding. Your design firm or agency seemed to make sense when they talked of building a brand. But branding your firm is only the beginning of your journey. Nobody retains a law or accounting firm because of their brand. Senior executives choose a given law, accounting or insurance firm for substantive reasons. Experience, expertise, acumen, price. They may put a firm in the running because they recognize the name, but the selection process involves much more thought than picking up a bottle of ketchup because it’s thicker.

The cold hard truth is that professional service firms achieve their growth one client at a time. Every aspect of their marketing must build the prospect’s confidence until they become convinced that the given firm is right for the job.

That is to say that the decision to engage Deloitte, Gibson or Marsh is not made lightly. Sure their brochures have to look good. And it doesn’t hurt that the prospect recognizes the firm’s name or brand, if you’d like. But, what wins new business is the in-depth experience and expertise of the firm’s partners.

Effectively communicating that in-depth expertise to your target audience requires a very different skill set than is required to communicate the advantages of the new sandwich at a fast food restaurant.

To create marketing communications programs for professional service firms, you need a firm that

a) Finds the topics involved in accounting, law or insurance as fascinating as you do.

b) Understands these topics at a very deep level.

c) Has the capacity for learning and the ability to conduct and interpret research.

d) Can apply this knowledge to the creative execution of marketing communication efforts.

e) Understands how your firm’s prospects choose to engage your firm.

Consider this example: Yours is a regional accounting firm. You recognize that the new Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which affects public companies, represents an opportunity for growth. You decide that your firm should capitalize on this opportunity and you engage a marketing design firm or agency to help you get the message out.

You explain to the agency’s representative that because of Sarbanes-Oxley, publicly traded companies will now have to use one accounting firm for auditing and a different firm for other services. You explain that this legislation should be a boon for regional accounting firms. You ask the agency’s representative for their "expert" advice on how to capitalize on this opportunity.

The agency’s representative has no idea what you are talking about. If you’re lucky, when he or she returns to their agency, they’ll type Sarbanes-Oxley into Google ®. If you’re lucky, he or she will actually read a couple of the 2 million pages Google has found. If you’re really lucky, he or she will actually understand some of what they read. Then they’ll have to communicate their newly found "knowledge" to an artist and writer who, if you’re lucky, won’t fall asleep during their meeting.

The artist and writer will ask questions. The agency representative won’t be able to answer most of them, but they will promise to find out. They call you and you find yourself teaching a novice about a very complex subject which you have studied for the past 25 years.

The agency produces a print ad and a direct mail package targeting senior executives at publicly traded companies. They buy a list of these executives from a list company like Dunn & Bradstreet. The cost for all of this: $60,000 on average.

You review the creative approach. It looks good and is spelled correctly. It seems that it could be better, but you’re not sure how to improve it, so you make a couple of changes and out it goes. Will it work? Not a chance.

The agency had no chance of succeeding. They don’t understand anything about what they were hired to do. How do senior executives select an accounting firm? How do they view Sarbanes-Oxley? Do they all share similar views on the Act’s impact or do different companies have different views? Why was Sarbanes-Oxley passed? Does the Act contain new legal requirements or does it just increase the penalties and visibility of its violators? The list of questions that your chosen agency can’t answer is as long as your arm and then some.

Creating marketing communications that achieve intended quantifiable results is hard. It is part art and part science. But if your firm is one with a product or service that is widely understood, then the list of agencies capable of handling the assignment would be wide and long as well.

Continuing in our accounting firm example, let’s say your firm was H&R Block. Your service was tax preparation and filing for individuals. Everybody knows what that entails. People want their refunds as early and as large as possible. Any competent agency can handle that assignment.

The impact of Sarbanes-Oxley, however, is quite another kettle of fish. There is no way to grasp the nature of that opportunity as related to regional accounting firms if you’re starting your study of the subject today and your back-ground includes a Bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in Psychology.

(What’s a Firm to Do?)

Obviously, the answer is to be far more selective in your choice of marketing agencies. It’s not an easy task. There are hundreds of agencies out there that will say they can handle a professional service firm, but only a handful truly can.

Look for the specific background and level of education of those who will actually be creating your efforts. Engage them in detailed discussions on the subject matter, the target audience and the expected results. Find out what types of clients similar to your firm they have worked for in the past and call these companies for a reference.

Challenge their assumptions and examples. Never hire an agency after meeting the person who showed up at your firm in a suit. This is the agency’s salesperson or account executive. It is not the person who will be creating your work.

There is no question that marketing works for every type of business or organization. The FBI, IRS, Mayo Clinic, Harvard University, McKinsey & Co., all have successful marketing communication programs. If your firm’s marketing initiatives aren’t producing results, it’s not the fault of marketing as a discipline. It’s how you’re going about it. Don’t give up . . . change your approach.

Assuming you’ve found the right marketing agency to work with, here are some steps to get you started on the road to successful marketing of a professional services firm:

1. View the marketing of your firm as having many small steps. Think of it as a game of inches. Prospects become aware of your firm and its advantages slowly. It is highly unlikely that any single marketing effort will result in a new client engaging your firm.

2. Set reasonable, specific and measurable objectives for each marketing effort. All marketing should incorporate the disciplines of "direct marketing". That is to say that if you are running an ad, it should contain an "offer" designed to compel the prospect to respond. Include the phone number and/or e-mail information needed to respond.

The perceived value of your offer will have the biggest impact on how many responses you receive. For example, if you’re marketing an accounting firm, perhaps one of your "offers" is a White Paper on how new legislation impacts the prospect’s business. Insurance brokerage firms might offer a step-by-step guide to reducing Workers’ Compensation premiums.

Be very specific about what you want the prospect reading your ad or other marketing effort to do, and what will happen once he or she takes that step. For example: Call 1-800-555-1212 or e-mail us at thefirm.com and we’ll send you a complimentary copy of our White Paper: "What Your Company Must Know About… "

3. Find your niche or niches. What industries does your firm know better than others? Design your marketing efforts to target these industries exclusively and specifically. If your firm knows healthcare, automotive and/or retail intimately, target your marketing efforts to prospects in those industry classifications. Don’t try to use marketing to break into a new industry or area of specialization, at least not until you have perfected your marketing abilities. Getting results to marketing efforts is hard enough. Design your efforts to play to your strengths.

For example, let’s say you practice Employment Law. You could no doubt handle clients in any industry, but a large percentage of your career has been spent with clients in retail businesses. As a result, you know what retailers commonly face related to employment laws and what they need to do to address their specific issues.

Perhaps retailers as a group have problems interpreting Wage and Hour legal requirements. By focusing your marketing efforts on other retailers, you can:

• Write copy that resonates with the reader immediately.

• Target your efforts precisely to senior executives in the retail industry.

• Leverage your existing clients and track record specific to solving the problems faced by retailers.

• Create an offer that will have clear value to the prospect. An example might be: The Simplified Guide to Wage and Hour Laws for Retailers.

4. Before you begin, write a letter. That’s right, a letter. Sit down at your desk in the early morning when you have no distractions. Imagine yourself meeting an executive in one of your niche industries, "retail", to continue the previous example. Picture the two of you sitting next to each other at a luncheon during the Retail Executives Conference. The retail executive introduces herself and you realize that your firm would be an ideal fit for hers.

Imagine what you would say to that executive over lunch. How would you begin? What key points would you make? What would you suggest as a next step? Would you offer to send that executive something? What is your single, overriding communications objective (SOCO), or in simple terms, what single point would you want that executive to remember the day after meeting you? How would you close the conversation? How long would you talk in order to make your key points? How would you demonstrate your firm’s specific retail industry knowledge?

Once you’re having this conversation in your mind, write a letter to that imaginary executive. Imagine that, instead of having the opportunity to chat over lunch, she asked that you "send them something". What would you say in the letter? How would you begin? What key points would you make? How would you close? What reason would you give for that executive to meet with you face to face?

The letter doesn’t have to be "perfect". You may never even send it out in its current form. What the letter will do is:

• Force you to commit to paper exactly why your firm is special as specifically related to the retail industry.

• Prioritize which points need to be conveyed to this niche and in what order.

• Provide very valuable input to your marketing agency’s creative team.

5. Don’t let your marketing agency begin work without an agreed to marketing action plan that at a minimum includes:

a) A Situation Analysis – This section of a marketing plan demonstrates that the agency understands what your firm specializes in and what challenges and/or opportunities are to be addressed by marketing efforts. Make sure this analysis is accurate, comprehensive and insightful.

Think of it like the astronauts on Apollo 13 returning from the moon. If their calculations were off by only centimeters, the resulting trajectory would miss the Earth by tens of thousands of miles. If the Situation Analysis the agency prepares is "a little off", the work that results from it will very likely miss the intended mark as well.

b) A SWOT Analysis – This basic business tool is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are "internal" to your firm. Opportunities and threats are "external". Like the Situation Analysis, by having your agency complete this analysis, you will see at what level they under-stand what your firm does and is up against.

c) Clearly Stated Objectives – Objectives must be specific and measurable. To say the objective for a given marketing effort is to "Increase brand awareness" is worthless. How will anyone know if and/or when this type of objective has been achieved? And, even if it was thought to have been achieved, what is its relationship to firm growth, which is, of course, the ultimate goal.

Conversely, don’t buy into objectives like: To increase firm revenue by 20% in 2003. It may sound specific and measurable, but it is so broad that it provides no direction as to how that growth will occur. You and your partners could have written this type of an objective without anyone’s help. The fact that your agency put it in writing is meaningless… and a bad sign.

To continue with our Employment Law/Retail Specialization example, one objective might be stated as: "To grow the firm’s Retail Client base by 10 new clients within the defined target segment criteria in calendar year 2003."

"10 new clients." "Defined target segment criteria" could be elsewhere defined as being "Retailers with over $50 million in annual sales within stated geography by 5-digit SIC code. By when? By December 31, 2003. That’s an objective. Achieve it and you win. Don’t, and you lose.

And remember that each objective requires money and resources to be achieved. Limit the number of objectives to three or even fewer. You can’t achieve everything you may want to in one year.

d) What’s the Strategy? Following each objective should be a statement describing the strategy that will be employed in reaching that objective. The strategy needs to provide the answer to "how"?

How will we attract the new retail clients to the firm? There are many "right" answers to this question, some certainly more appropriate than others. But, the answer is NEVER: "By using direct mail and print ads targeting executives at selected retailers." Never, never, never.

Direct mail and print ads are not a "strategy", they are tactics, or communications mediums, if you’d prefer. If your agency answers the question of strategy with a description of tactics, run – do not walk – out the door. You are headed for disaster. You’d be better off just writing the agency a $20,000 check for nothing, than to proceed down a path costing $100,000 certain to fail.

The Strategy describing how will you attract the 10 Retail Clients within the stated timeframe might include:

• Capitalize on the firm’s specific retail industry experience as related to the new regulatory requirements contained within FASB180.

Or…

• Provide the retail marketplace with a low-cost solution to compliance issues.

Or…

• Partner with other firms with significant complimentary retail clients to introduce the firm’s specific solutions to retailer issues.

Today, your strategy MUST fall into one of two areas. You have to be either:

• Cheaper, or

• Different

WalMart is "cheaper". Nordstrom is "different". And, those in the middle are history.

e) Next up in the plan should appear "Tactics". This section should provide a listing of exactly which tactics, or communications mediums the agency is recommending to carry the strategy and achieve the objective. There are literally thousands of tactics that could potentially be employed, but your agency should be able to, among other things, demonstrate their understanding of how new clients come to engage your firm through the tactics they recommend.

For example, one of your firm’s objectives is to attract 10 new Retail Clients, as previously stated. The chosen strategy is to showcase the firm’s depth of specialization as related to recently enacted regulations or legislation. What tactics should be employed and which should not?

How about a new brochure? It depends. Why do you want one? How will it be used? How will it differ or be superior to your existing brochure? How long will it take to produce? Time is money, after all. And, what will it cost? (Money is money, after all.)

Where else could that money be spent? If you create and produce a new brochure, will that mean that you can’t afford to do something else?

(A couple of years ago, I consulted with an executive who specialized in providing solutions for hospitals. He was targeting 20 hospitals and hoped to win the accounts of four or five of them by year’s end. He was considering a new brochure to assist him in his efforts. He was about to spend roughly $20,000 to create and produce the piece.

I only had to ask one question: With $20,000, you could offer to give each hospital a $1,000 donation in exchange for the CFO giving you just an hour or so of his or her time. 20 hospitals = $20,000. Which did he think would produce more results: the brochure or the $1,000 check?)

Perhaps he could, with his extensive expertise specific to hospitals, write and publish an article in Hospital Executives Magazine, or author a White Paper on a hot topic in the hospital industry. Then send the article or paper along with a letter to each hospital executive that offered the $1,000 donation in exchange for a meeting on the important subject. Follow-up with a phone call and ask his existing clients and strategic partners to refer their contacts that might be interested.

Did it work? I don’t know. But will it work better than a new brochure? What do you think?

The tactics in our law firm/retail example might include:

• The development of a monthly broadcast e-mail sent to attorneys within the firm and to partner firms that continually informs those receiving it about the new regulations and how they affect retail clients.

• The creation of a White Paper on the subject that can be published, posted on-line, e-mailed in PDF for-mat, included in any direct mail effort or used as an offer in an ad, etc.

• The hosting of a firm seminar on the subject either alone, or in conjunction with a partner firm.

• The issuing of a Press Release containing the description of the problem and the unique solutions your firm has provided to a specific, high-visibility client.

• The creation of a Web page devoted to the specific issues.

• The sending of a monthly bulletin to prospective clients that offers real insight and provides real tools that can provide a solution.

• Yes… a new brochure might be in order.

• Creation of a slide presentation used in face to face presentation.

• The development of a documentary film on DVD that showcases your firm’s expertise along side your clients who offer testimony to your firm’s success.

• And more… much more.

Should you do all of them? Only if you have unlimited resources, which you don’t… so, no. Which ones should you employ? That’s your agency’s job to recommend, but it’s your job to assess their recommenda-tions. If the agency recommendations seem off target, too costly or otherwise out-of-sync with your firm’s experience, proceed no further. Remember, it’s 10 new clients by December 31, 2003… or everyone loses.

f) Target Market Segmentation – Another section of the plan your agency prepares should clearly explain how your target audiences would be selected. All retailers? Retailers over a certain size? Number of stores? Number of employees? Percentage of part-time employees? Company CFOs? CEOs? Other executives? Publicly traded or privately held?

Make certain that the agency knows whom it’s talking to in each effort. The message and medium used to reach the CFO of a Fortune 100 company is very different than what might be used to reach the VP of Human Resources at a family-owned regional chain of clothing stores.

g) Budget and Timeframe for Implementation – Don’t even think about getting started without a solid, mutual understanding about the budget and the timing. Make the agency commit to what their plan will cost. Compare that cost to the monetary contribution of achieving the objective. If the agency estimate is $100,000 and 10 new retail clients would represent $1 million in annual revenue, assuming your margin is 20%, you will be spending $100,000 to realize a $200,000 return before taxes. There’s more to the financial analysis than that, of course, but sometimes even a quick look at the numbers can prevent disaster down the road. The timeframe the agency presents should be as specific as the objectives. When will work begin on a given tactical initiative? When will it be completed and when will it reach the marketplace? Not: "In the 1st quarter", but when exactly?

h) Controls and Monitoring – How will everyone involved know what’s working, what’s not and what’s being adjusted or eliminated? And who will make decisions on changes in direction when the need becomes apparent? The plan should specify who would monitor and provide reports on progress and results both on the agency side and at your firm. When and how often will this group meet? As a guideline, monitoring should occur at least monthly and reporting probably quarterly.

6. Market Research and Competitive Analysis. Before you approve the agency to proceed, make sure that they have checked out the competition and done some level of industry/market research. The extent to which this work is required depends on the specifics of the work involved, but if your agency doesn’t know what your com-petition is doing, there’s reason for alarm.

If you do determine that there would be benefit to more extensive market research, make sure that your agency is qualified to conduct such research. Market Research is a science. You can earn a doctorate in the field. Research conducted or analyzed by amateurs is almost always worse than no research at all.

7. Communicate with your agency honestly, openly and bluntly. If you like the work, say so. If there are parts you don’t find appropriate, say so, and clearly state the reasons behind your view. Don’t beat around the bush or be worried about bruising egos. Egos have no place in marketing communications. You’re not creating "art". You’re creating communications efforts designed to achieve a specific result. Period. (There’s no crying in baseball.)

There’s no time to waste, so get moving…

If you’re thinking that you should be doing more to market your professional service firm, then you should be. You know when you see that growth is slowing. You know what’s likely to come down the road. Stop "considering" and get moving.

Follow the steps provided and proceed with caution until you find the right agency with which to work. There are a lot of agencies out there that, in these lean times, are pursuing clients that they would never have considered pursuing in the boom years of the 1990s.

When an agency says they’re expert at marketing for professional service firms, don’t take their word for it. Dig deeper and make them prove it. Whether they can or can’t, you’ll be infinitely better off to find that out before you start. 

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.