It is always good to recycle good content on your blog. And this post was published way back in 2014 when we had just had ‘The Go-To-Expert‘ published. In this post we look at how to use valuable content to attract clients to you.
Old School Professional Services Marketing was all about networking and relationship building
Now I’m not saying that up-to-date professional services marketing is not about networking and relationship building. Just that there are many more tools available for you to do this. One of these, and in my opinion, an essential tool, is using valuable content to attract clients to you. For example, one of our clients religiously went into LinkedIn most days and posted up something in his newsfeed AND commented on others’ newsfeeds. This resulted in his LinkedIn profile being viewed, on average, over 70 times in a week and he had about 20 people reaching out to him via LinkedIn each week. Not bad for some content marketing via your desk! Let’s face it, one of the things that most of us don’t have the luxury of is lots of free time. After all when you factor in the billable hours targets you are required to hit at manager, senior associate and sometimes partner (particularly if you are in a law firm), it can be nigh on impossible to build up your client portfolio by networking alone. That is why the clued up professionals make their own luck by producing their own content which they spread and distribute. This helps to facilitate any networking or relationship building that you do. Most marketing departments and partners, as long as the material you make is of sufficient quality, will welcome you building your own content.
How do you decide what content to produce?
Whatever content you produce needs to be valuable to your target market. Therefore before you start to produce content you need to narrow down to exactly the types of people that you want to work with.
Then you need to listen to them. So that you understand the world that they operate in, and from THEIR perspective. Sonja Jefferson, co-author of Valuable Content Marketing
Some of the tools to do this are actually very simple, for example:
- talk with your clients (yes, really that simple)
- read their blog post and trade press
- carry around a notebook to jot down thoughts, ideas from conversations (or use something like evernote on your phone)
When you really understand the world your target market operates in from their perspective, then you are ready to write/record/produce valuable content for them.
What sort of valuable content helps you quickly attract clients?
- content which answer the key questions your target market is asking – particularly when you send it to them after a conversation where they have raised this question
- content which showcases your credibility at helping solve a common problem your clients tend to have
- content which helps educate your clients in what is involved in taking the first step in working with you.
- content which has a safe and easy ‘call to action’ which makes it easy for the reader or listener to take the next step in the sales process. (This is rarely, pick up the phone and call me!)
- content which showcases your credibility and helps you get introductions to the right people
How do clued up professionals use this valuable content?
- as part of their keeping-in-touch plan with key influencers, prospects, introducers and clients
- sharing via social media channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and potentially Facebook and Pinterest.
- within their sales process to send to prospects at key decision making points to help them take a decision quicker
- to send to clients to help them either proactively or reactively
- putting on the firm’s social media presence, i.e. youTube channel or the firm’s blog
- by showing people, via sharing their best or most relevant content, they are being introduced to that they are worth talking too
In Summary,
Producing and sharing valuable content should be part of every ambitious professionals suite of marketing tools. In Chapter 5 of ‘The Go-To Expert we examine how to produce valuable content to attract in the right type of clients in a high level of detail. If you have found this blog post useful, then buy your copy of The Go-To Expert to dig into the subject in more detail.
