How to use marketing to win the business you want

Our podcast series in partnership with ACCA looks at how to grow your practice through data driven marketing.

We dive into five podcasts on how to use marketing to win the business you want, whether you should become a specialist firm with a niche focus, how to create a marketing strategy and plan for your practice, how marketing can help overcome the price objection, and how to market your firm on a budget.

This week we look at how to use marketing to win the business you want, listen to the podcast here.

Marketing is all about getting more leads, more enquiries, more clients, right? Well, you’re not wrong. In marketing, casting as wide a net as possible will ensure you reach a wide audience to promote your ethos and your services.

With our expertise, our clients usually see an increase in monthly visits to their websites by an average of 400-600, translating into between 10 to 20 new enquiries a month.

This might not seem much to the untrained eye (it is as far as commercial websites go), but what matters just as much as the quantity of enquiries is how our clients’ marketing is specially crafted to catch the right type of leads.

After all, what’s the point in getting 100 enquiries if only two of them are from people who will actually purchase your services?

So, are you currently getting the business that you want?

The objective of marketing

Beyond winning new business and boosting profits, marketing is all about control. Control of how you present yourself and your brand to the market. Control of what you’re known for. And control of who you do and don’t want to get through your doors.

On getting the right client, the reasons for that vary from practice to practice. You might want to work within a specific industry or with businesses of a certain size or sector. It could be that your expertise lies in a specific field that you can only offer to a very niche market.

Or, if you’re a generalised firm with a wide geographical outlook, it could be as simple looking for a type of work and client that you find more comfortable.

Whatever the reason, marketing gives you the power to specifically target who you want to work with.

Once you’re getting your ideal client through the door, the benefits can snowball. For instance, you might get positive reviews from them, which would feed back into your branding as an expert for that type of client, enticing more of the same types of prospects to contact you.

Or clients with connections within your preferred industry, impressed with your service, might spread the word of your firm to their contacts in that sector.

How to attract the clients you want

First, you need to know who your ideal client is exactly. Understand their hopes, dreams and fears. What social media do they use? What’s important to them and how do they prefer to do things?

Next, consider your branding. What do you stand for? What’s your message and how are you relatable? Not only will this help you stand out from the crowd, but attract the attention of people and businesses that have the same ideals as you.

The better match you and your client are, the greater the likelihood they’ll do business with you and stick with you for the long run. And clients who offer lifetime value are worth their weight in gold.

A good website communicates who you are and what you do for your audience, letting visitors know at a glance if you’re the right fit for them

It should also be pulling leads in with good search engine optimisation in your copywriting and headings, while enticing people to click through to your services with strong call to actions.

Next, think about content. That means blogging, social media posts, videos and/or podcasts – whatever you have the time and expertise to do – and how those pieces of content point them in the direction of a certain service you offer.

Content solving problems or answering common questions should draw in a crowd if done properly, so think about the questions your ideal client will be searching for to get them on your website as well.

Long-form guides and eBooks are especially useful for this – just don’t forget to put them behind a data capture screen so you can collect email addresses for your marketing campaign.

Top tip: build links

Those are the absolute musts for a marketing campaign, but to really get those ideal clients, you should think about partnering with trade associations and media sites that your ideal client might frequent.

In practice, that could mean writing content for them to share with their audience under your byline, or talking at an event hosted by them.

Simply having some contacts to hand to give to clients, such as the number of a legal adviser or specialist tax adviser that you’ve worked with before, can go a long way in terms of client retention and satisfaction.

Partnerships are hard work to cultivate, and it can take time to see one translate into greater leads and enquiries. You’ll also have to be ready for a lot of conversations with would-be partners that ultimately go nowhere. But if you stick to it, you’ll be visible to the exact type of client that you want.

Reach out to us on 0117 915 0420 to talk more about how marketing can get you the clients you want.

Listen to the podcast here.