Professional Services Marketing: How the Best Firms Build Premier Brands, Thriving Lead Generation Engines, and Cultures of Business Development Success, 2nd Edition

16

Marketing Communications and Lead Generation Tactics

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, “Where have I gone wrong?” Then a voice says to me, “This is going to take more than one night.”

—Charles Schulz

Perhaps the easiest thing to do in professional services marketing is spend money. Whether you get any benefit from that investment often depends on three factors:

1. The tactics you employ given your situation and goals

2. How well you employ those tactics

3. Your expectations of what you should get from employing those tactics well

Unfortunately, most firms don't get the benefit they can from their marketing efforts because of avoidable missteps. We know. We've seen millions of dollars swirl down the drain, gone forever, leaving marketing teams to wonder, “Where did we go wrong?”

Figure 16.1 highlights the results of our research on What's Working in Lead Generation concerning what tactics worked for more than 700 different professional services firms. As you can see, not all tactics work for everyone, yet every tactic (even television advertising) works, although sometimes for only a select few.

Figure 16.1 Effectiveness of Lead Generation Methods Used by Participants

The challenge of definitively sorting out which marketing tactics work from those that don't is almost impossible, because what works for one firm in one situation may be wholly inappropriate for another ...