Professional services business like accountants, attorney, business consultants, financial services companies and design firms build their reputations on the talent and experience of their people. The buying process for professional services has some unique characteristics. A professional services sale usually has a longer buying cycle, a higher deal value and more people are involved in the purchase decision than a product sale. Sales results are usually measured quarterly or annually rather than monthly due to the longer sales cycles. When using inbound marketing to sell professional services, it's important to keep these things in mind as you sync your sales process to your customer's buying process.
Yes, your customers do use search engines and social media when they buy professional services.
One of the things I often hear from owners of professional services firms is that inbound marketing doesn't apply to them: "our customers don't buy that way." With all due respect, they're dead wrong. According to marketing automation software provider Marketo, a staggering 93% of B2B buyers use search engine queries to begin their buying process! And the Corporate Executive Board found that purchasers complete 57% of their buying process before ever contacting potential suppliers.
What does this mean to your professional services company? Simple - if buyers don't find you when they're conducting pre-purchase research, you're toast. Customer referrals and upselling are still vitally important to professional services firms; cold-calling is not. Think about the odds of cold-calling in the buying environment described above. In order to make a sale with cold-calling, you need to find a prospect that is in the the early stages of their pre-purchase research to even have a chance at a sale. If you call them when they're not engaged in their buying process or after they've completed their research, you're an annoyance. Rather than depending on these miniscule odds, you're better off getting found when they're conducting research online and influencing their buying decision by providing them with relevant information that speaks to their pain points.
Inbound marketing for professional services is a marathon, not a sprint.
With long buying cycles and extensive pre-purchase research as characteristics of the professional services buying process, it's important to structure your inbound marketing accordingly. You're not going to write a few blog posts and wait for the leads to come pouring in. You need to consistently create educational content like blog posts, videos and eBooks to develop domain authority with Google that will drive pre-purchase researchers to your site. You need to be active on social media to increase your reach and develop a reputation as a thought leader within your industry. Simply put, you need to be in it for the long haul. The longer you wait to get started, the farther you fall behind your competitors. Here are 2 resources that will give you an idea of what to expect in terms of investment and return on an inbound marketing program:
How Long Does It Take Inbound Marketing To Work
How To Track ROI From Inbound Marketing
Use content marketing to demonstrate your thought leadership
Thought leadership is crucial to the success of a professional services firm. Buyers are looking for business consultants with a broad range of expertise and innovative thought. How do you demonstrate thought leadership to buyers conducting pre-purchase research? By publishing blog articles, presentations, videos and webinars that show your mastery of your industry and demonstrate your ability to solve the buyer's problems. Google likes consistent production of new content on your area of expertise. Every time you publish a blog article, you create a new website page that Google will index. This, in turn, increases the likelihood that you'll show up in search results when potential buyers conduct research. We recommend that professional services firms blog once a week, at minimum.
It's also important to produce premium content like eBooks, case studies and whitepapers that go deeper than your blog articles on a particular subject. If you put these premium content offers behind a landing page that requires the exchange of contact information in return for the eBook, you can nurture the lead with additional information as they move through their buying process.
Content marketing takes a lot of work! To be successful, you need to be consistent and persistent with your content creation. Repurposing existing content and outsourcing content production to an inbound marketing agency help you keep up with the unending demand for new content. If you outsource some of your content production, your role will shift from that of a content producer to that of an editor. No one knows better than you how to best communicate your unique value proposition to potential buyers.
Summary
Inbound marketing is an excellent way for professional services firms to demonstrate thought leadership and sync with your customer's buying process. Unless you have a well-established business that is able to generate enough business from referrals to meet revenue targets, it is an essential tool to grow your business. We've touched on a few ways you can use inbound marketing to grow your business in this article. If you'd like to discuss how inbound marketing can help you grow your business in greater detail, please schedule a free, no-obligation consultation.
