By John Doerr

The science and art of professional services marketing have come a long way in the last few years. It is no longer impossible to find examples of marketing efforts planned well, executed well, and measured well. Yet, in spite of these great strides, I continue to see the same marketing sins committed over and over again to the detriment of the firms and the people steering the marketing ship.

What’s frustrating about these sins is that they are all made by intelligent people who have the good sense and ability to avoid them.

Marketing Sin #1: Marketing by Consensus

Professional services firms are comprised of extremely competent people who know their area of expertise (law, accounting, engineering) well. After all, they are professionals. But that doesn’t mean that they are marketing professionals.

So why do they feel they are all equal in the marketing decision making process? It is usually because professional service firms are partnerships and partners share. As a result, marketing committees are formed which either produce a camel when a horse is needed or, in too many cases, end up with absolutely nothing.

To avoid this sin, recognize the shortcomings of the committee process and allow a senior person or partner with an ear or eye for marketing to make the decisions…then get out of the way.

Or even better, let the marketing professional whom you have hired do her job. The results can’t be any worse than the $100,000 worth of ads the committee decided to spend to generate “awareness” that resulted in no new business.

Marketing Sin #2: Expecting Marketing to Be a Substitute for Selling

In very simple terms:

• Marketing is for reach. Finding the opportunity to speak to someone who may need your services.
• Selling is for coverage. Turning those opportunities into a new client (or new services with existing clients).

Marketing can be used to generate leads, draw people into the seduction of your services over time, or facilitate sales conversations with new people. Marketing will not actually land you the new client, or create the enduring relationship that is so essential for you to develop longstanding business. But marketing can go a long way to get you there.

Use marketing efforts to find the sales opportunity, and remind everyone that at some point, it’s the professional (not the marketing piece) who will have to close the deal.

Marketing Sin #3: Misallocating Budget and Resources

You don’t go after a mosquito with an elephant gun or conversely chase down an elephant with a water pistol. Yet, time after time, I see professional service firms fail to execute a marketing strategy commensurate with the goal.

If you want to grow by 40-50%, then do enough and spend enough to get there. If your growth objectives are more modest, then calibrate accordingly without wasting your dollars or time. (By the way, the former situation is far more common).

In What’s Working in Lead Generation, published by Wellesley Hills Group and Raintoday.com, we found that 36% of firms that spent 10% or more on marketing grew by 50% or more, whereas only 21% of those spending less grew at that heady rate.

Marketing Sin #4: Not Doing What It Takes to Project Your Brand

Too often, “brand” is dismissed as the latest marketing buzzword when, in fact, it's the crucial element to long-term marketing success, client loyalty, and new client acquisition. Sadly, too few professional service firms recognize its imperativeness. And even if they do, they give it only peripheral attention, or worse—none at all. Shortfalls here abound, but two are especially harmful.

The first is the failure to invest in identifying your market position, and the specific attributes that constitute your brand. Without this fundamental intelligence, your marketing will be haphazard, your market confused, and your return will fall far short of your marketing investment.

The second is the failure to integrate brand messaging into all marketing and sales activities—not consigned to a tagline or sporadic mention in copy.

For brand messaging to have an impact, it needs to consistently permeate every piece of marketing communication—print and electronic—every presentation, every sales conversation. If your firm does not speak in one voice, you will not break through the noise, capture market attention, and emerge as a market leader.

Marketing Sin #5: Poorly Executing the Tactics You Employ

Professional services firms don’t all have departments dedicated to the creation, design, and execution of marketing. Partners and talented company laymen often step into marketing roles as needed.

However, because they are service professionals first, service delivery can supersede marketing. When this happens, it always shows…reworked brochures or thinly disguised sales copy pose as white papers; “monthly” newsletters issued erratically...when time allows.

These inconsistencies and quality lapses undermine brand and project a sloppiness that sullies the perception of your services.  If your funds or time are limited, follow the wisdom of the old adage, “better to be a master of one than a jack of all trades.” A few carefully executed tactics far outweigh a long list of half-hearted attempts.

Marketing Sin #6: Marketing the Chain Instead of the Link

Another common blunder in professional services’ marketing is the insistence on letting everybody know every service you offer with every outreach. The fastest way to shut down prospective (and current) clients’ attention is to barrage them with a long, comprehensive list of your skill sets. A marketing piece designed to do everything, in fact, does nothing.

When I ran a large management training company, I quickly learned this expensive lesson. We spent a great deal of money putting together marketing pieces that featured an inclusive list of our functional areas (financial management, supervision, public speaking, etc.) along with all the various training formats (seminars, books, software, videos. etc.).

The effort failed and failed big. We overwhelmed the market with too many options, and our marketing attempts floundered.

Marketing is effective only when you target your audience, and focus on one service (the “link”) that is couched inside an offer, such as a pilot program or educational event. Once in the door, you can introduce the “chain” of other services that might benefit the prospective client.

Marketing Sin #7: Abandoning your Website

Because so many professional services firms rely on referrals and repeat business in order to sustain and grow their business, many ignore their website’s design and content because, they claim, “nobody finds us through the website.”

This may (or may not) be true for your current base or those prospects who have been routed to you through existing clients. But it is most certainly not true for those looking for a company that has the type of services you offer.

In How Clients Buy: The Benchmark Report On Professional Services Marketing And Selling From The Client Perspective, published by Wellesley Hills Group and Raintoday.com, we found that an overwhelming majority of buyers will not only look at your website before buying, they will also use it as criteria for evaluating whether they should use your services.

Vital elements like out-of-date content, broken links, and poor site navigation reflect poorly on your firm. This image can quickly hijack your odds of being selected as a possible partner, and seriously jeopardize growth from outside your referral base.

The bad news first: These seven sins are common and are all-too-easy to commit. The good news: It is not difficult to exercise the vigilance necessary to climb out of that hellish rung reserved for desperate managers of stalled businesses, and initiate the launch into that celestial space enjoyed by market leaders.