By Mike Schultz and John Doerr

"There's gold in them thar hills"
Professional services firms are rapidly realizing the need to actively market their services. To make progress in marketing professional services, they have turned to the lists of names that are either somewhere in their accounting systems, locked in the roller decks (or Outlook contact files) of their professional staff, or sitting dormant in their computerized database systems. In effect, the rush is on to gather, input, and market to those names.

A good database and list of names can greatly enhance your success in marketing professional services. If you expect to get a true return from populating your database and mining your data, here are a few basic rules that will help you enhance your chances for marketing success.

1. Aging is only good for wine and cheese - Unlike a fine wine, the older the names in a database are, the less likely they will serve useful professional services marketing and selling purposes. On average 20% of the names in your database become useless each year due to office moves, staffing changes, company mergers, or closures. For email addresses, this number is usually even higher.
   
   This means that after three years, your database names will have about a 40% accuracy rate. For example, if you have accumulated 7,000 names in the last ten years, it's most likely only 2,000 or less of those people are even still at their companies. In direct marketing, "recency" is critical. So before you begin to spend any money, take a look at how old those names really are.
   
   
2. Trite but true: garbage in, garbage out - We have heard it many times before, but it's worth repeating. The effectiveness and value of your database is only as good as the quality of the information you enter into it. Wrong phone numbers, bad email addresses, misspelled company names and duplicate entries do not need to happen, but as they do happen, they make your database less effective.
   
   Make sure everyone realizes the need to be precise in entering information to your list (or have a very good technological or human filter).
   
   
3. Cleanliness is next to usefulness - If you haven't looked at your list cleanliness in a while (anything over a year is a while), updating and cleaning will need to be done. If you are sending out a professional services marketing mailing, consider spending extra money and sending it first class with an address correction request.
   
   The post office will help you clean it by returning the undeliverable mail pieces. If you are fortunate to have a truly large list, there are numerous service bureaus and technology enhancements that can check zip codes, legitimacy of mailing addresses, and find your duplicates for you.
   
   
4. Collect the nuggets: they add up quickly - For every professional services firm there are some key pieces of information that will help you segment and target your list. For example, a large accounting firm specializing in company valuation services may find that the size of their target companies or certain specific industries are key determinants of how likely a prospect will be to do business with them.
   
   If this is the case, work hard to collect those extra pieces of information or have them added to your database. Again, depending upon the size of your list you can manually add this information (just ask your clients for it) or you can overlay this information using services such as Dun & Bradstreet to populate the key information. This extra attention will pay off for you over time with successful professional services marketing efforts.
   
   
5. Rules are rules: follow them - A corollary to the garbage in, garbage out rule above is make sure everyone knows the 'rules' for adding to your database. If each one of your consultants, accountants, or attorneys has access to the database make sure they stick to the rules about 1) actually adding names to the company database 2) collecting and adding all the nuggets you have determined are most helpful, and 3) spelling everyone's names correctly. Do not take "I don't have time" as an excuse.
   
   
6. Someone has to lead - As almost all professional service firms are made up of many smart people who do not always want to stick to a formula or rules, assign someone who will 'own' the database and its success. This person can be an administrative staff member, a junior consultant, or your marketing manager. Make sure they have the authority and the responsibility to keep the database clean, current, and stocked with the right prospects and clients.
   
   
7. Who's in and who's out - To build a database for professional services marketing (or maintain the one you already have) you have to know who you want in it. To start, decide who is in your target market: what industries, what companies, what titles, and what else.
   
   Just adding names that someone brought back on a list from a conference, received from an association membership roster, or got from a brother-in-law will give you a larger number of names, but not necessarily a larger number of prospects. But by clearly identifying who you want in you can start to build a large and useful pool of profitable, new names.
   
   
8. Use it or lose it - If you have done your work properly, you now have a database that's recent, clean, filled with the right information, has the right people, and is ready to be utilized. So do it. Stay in touch with your key clients and prospects frequently. How frequently depends on your services, your prospects, your client base, and other factors.
   
   It also depends on the value you can provide in your mailings (electronic and other). If you can deliver new information or if you have clients who buy in uneven cycles, once a month is probably not too often.
   
   This may sound like a lot, but professional service marketers grossly underestimate how often you can and should contact your customer and prospect base. You will learn from the responses and the reactions of your clients and prospects how often you should mail to them. Just do not be afraid of contacting them; you built this database for a reason. Use it.

Your database can be a source of great success and profits for your professional services firm, and provide the foundation for success in marketing professional services. If you follow some basic practices, you can make sure your database remains a goldmine, and avoid the pitfalls that will send you into 'fools gold' territory.