50 ways for professional services firms to generate more leads

Winning clients isn’t easy. If it was, there wouldn’t be much to separate the best professional services firms from the rest.

Here’s a list of ClientsFirst’s favourite client winning tips – all in one handy place, accessible whenever you need them. Some are quick wins, others take a little more time and effort before they show results.

Whether you’re in financial services, consultancy, the legal sector, accountancy, software or another services sector, these tips are sure to help your marketing team find you new prospective clients.

#6 – Build a ‘specialist’ website

If your firm delivers a niche service, it might be worth building a seperate website addressing this area of the business. For firms that deliver a service that doesn’t link well with the rest of the business’s operations, this is essential.

A separate website will build up another side to your business by giving it a ‘standalone’ status as well as building domain authority in a particular area.

#7 – Develop pillar pages on your website

Pillar pages are currently all the rage in SEO since search engines updated their algorithms to favour topic-based content. They are in-depth, authoritative pages that extensively cover a single subject. They can range from 3,000 to as many as 15,000 words and are written to deliver a comprehensive overview, meaning the reader doesn’t need to leave to page to find more information.

By writing pillar pages, your website builds value with Google, indicating that your website is an ‘expert’ in your niche. For example, the page you’re reading now is a pillar page.

#8 – Undertake user testing on your website

User testing your website will help you figure out if your website is straightforward to navigate and communicates the information your users want. Through user testing you’ll get direct feedback on how real visitors your site.

You don’t necessarily have to go through a third party; you could ask a friend – or anyone willing! –  to do it as long as they don’t work for you and are part of your target demographic. After they have used your website, ask them in detail about any problems they had. This could be something like struggling to find your ‘Contact Us’ page or the absence of any client case studies. Go back to your web developers with the findings.

Another user testing technique is to watch session recordings of your users. You need to invest in some kind of visitor recording and session recording tools to do this, like Hotjar or Mouseflow. This will give you an insight into how visitors see your website. Plus, you’ll be able to see your website through a fresh perspective

#9 – Adopt a Growth Driven Design approach

Growth Driven Design is a revolutionary approach to web design, with a propensity to deliver results and bring measurable business value to clients. Growth Driven Design has three pillars, which show how it can often be superior to traditional methods of web design:

1. It minimises the risk associated with traditional web design. There’s less risk of putting all your eggs in one basket and investing on a website that doesn’t generate growth. It takes a systematic approach and focuses on continuous improvement rather than getting it completely right first time.
2. Your website continually improves. You continually test and learn about your visitors to keep optimising your website. Continuous improvements mean your site has the best chance of reaching peak performance.
3. You use the data your performance data collected on your website to inform and improve your marketing and sales strategies.

#10 – Create a downloadable guide

Following on from the importance of helpful content for SEO, creating an online guide about a query that people who may be interested in your service may have is a great way to attract them to your website.

If you create something informative and substantial enough to warrant them handing over an email address, you can then add them to a mailing list and nurture them with more informative content over time.

#11 – Build buyer profiles

Having accurate buyer profiles is a great way of ensuring that your marketing is hitting the right target. Buyer profiles are fictional representations of your ideal customers. It’s common for a business to have several.

Do this to make sure that your marketing isn’t ‘barking up the wrong tree’.

For instance, a law firm might provide services to many local couples going through a divorce, as well as assistance to people making ‘accidents at work’ claims. They will need to have two seperate profiles to ensure that their marketing is targeted to the appropriate people.

Think about customers who fit into these categories and come up with a persona that encompasses their general traits and challenges they face.

For instance, the imaginary law firm described above might have ‘Ian Injured Factory Worker’ who is generally aged between 30 to 40, worked the same job for all of his life until he was forced to leave because of injury and generally struggles with placing the blame on the unsafe practices of a company he worked for his entire life.

American marketing giant Hubspot have a free buyer profile creation tool. This is a great way to get started.

#12 – Use Google Ads

Not appearing high enough on search engine rankings is a common problem. High competition means that it can be difficult for you to appear in the first page of organic search rankings for your target keywords. If this sounds like a problem that you face, it might be worthwhile investing in some paid ads.

Set up a Google AdWords account and start thinking about the search terms you’d like to target. Remember, effective Google advertising is usually well thought out and involves digital marketing techniques like A/B testing. Ineffective online ads could cost you a lot of money if they convert visitors to leads because Google charges per click.

Choosing to run online ads isn’t a replacement for trying to improve your SEO through producing relevant content and other practices like ‘backlinks’. Rather, it should be seen as supplementary.

#13 – Run social advertising campaigns

Paid social media is an effective way to advertise to potential leads. As long as you target the right audience, it’s incredibly effective.

Social media advertising can show a great return on investment.

Depending on the nature of your business, there’s a chance that most of your audience will be active on some form of social media platform, be this Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or even Instagram. Target your ads well and they become easily reachable.

Unlike pay per click Google Ads which appear when a searcher types in a relevant search term, social ads work mostly by building exposure. They shouldn’t always explicitly attempt to push your audience closer to the eventual buying decision.

This means that sponsored posts shouldn’t be limited to encouraging your audience to take a meaningful action like buy a product or download a guide. They can be much more subtle and just show something like an informative video or a viral infographic.

#14 – Qualify in and out of leads early

Think about qualifying in leads as soon as you can. As soon as they take some kind of purposeful action make sure they are integrated into your lead nurturing process. Use your buyer profile to identify what lead nurturing strategy best fits the lead.

However, some leads aren’t always worth pursuing.

Qualifying out quickly can seem to some like an illogical step because it means walking away from a prospect when they’re already in the opportunity pipeline.

The the thing is, if you’re wasting time nurturing the wrong leads you are eating up time that could be better spent elsewhere. If you work with the wrong type of clients you won’t be able to provide as good a service as you normally would.

#15 – Develop a lead nurturing programme

While generating leads is important, your marketing and sales won’t generate revenue unless you convert these leads into paying customers.

Lead nurturing is the process of engaging your leads by providing relevant information at each part of the buyer journey. The aim is to develop them until they become clients.

By having a clearly delineated process for lead nurturing, you can fine tune it and apply this proven process time and time again. You might have several different lead nurturing programmes for different types of leads.

#16 – Set up the right marketing and sales KPIs

Having effective KPIs (key performance indicators) allows you to measure your progress against a measurable target. Being able to quantify your sales and marketing performance lets your staff really know how they are doing.

Unless you can measure your performance against a figure, it’s impossible to know if any changes you implement are actually making a differences.

Your KPIs should be linked to a particular business goal, for instance to increase your site visits or improve your landing pages’ conversion rates. It goes without saying, they need to be something you can quantitatively measure.

#17 – Qualify in and out of leads early

Think about qualifying in leads as soon as you can. As soon as they take some kind of purposeful action make sure they are integrated into your lead nurturing process. Use your buyer profile to identify what lead nurturing strategy best fits the lead.

However, some leads aren’t always worth pursuing.

Qualifying out quickly can seem to some like an illogical step because it means walking away from a prospect when they’re already in the opportunity pipeline.

The the thing is, if you’re wasting time nurturing the wrong leads you are eating up time that could be better spent elsewhere. If you work with the wrong type of clients you won’t be able to provide as good a service as you normally would.

#18 – Give away value

Don’t be afraid to give away helpful content. Keeping all your expertise close to your chest doesn’t add much value to your business’s marketing efforts. Giving some away, on the other hand, does.

Give away enough value to help your clients get on track with how your business can improve their lives. However, be careful not to give away too much. You need to keep what gives you the edge over your competitors to yourself, unless you think giving it away will actively grow your business’s operations.

#19 – Consider direct mail

Are all your communications digital? If so, it might be worthwhile going ‘old school’ and getting direct mail as part of your marketing strategy. Make sure that your efforts don’t look like tacky ‘junk mail’. Use your customer data to create bespoke communications that are well worth opening.

#20 – Create a podcast

If your target audience is time poor, using podcasts is a great way to engage with them. Whilst listeners need to take time out of their day to join a webinar, your audience can listen to a podcast while on their way to work or even in the gym.

All you need to get started is a microphone, recording software and a good idea.

If you choose to create a podcast, make sure it’s engaging. For the first few podcasts at least carefully plan what you’re going to say and try not to stray too far off topic.

#21 –Deliver webinars

Live webinars are a highly versatile way of engaging and teaching your audience.

Because they are digital, they are much easier (and cheaper) than seminars to deliver. Not only does it provide you with the opportunity to market your service, it also lets you to create business relationships with prospects because of the engaging Q&A session that conventionally follows webinars.

#22 –Run seminars

A good seminar educates and informs people who attend, positioning your firm as a sector leader. If you run a seminar on a ‘hot’ topic that is currently in the news or a focus for your sector you demonstrate your proficiency in applying your experience to developments in your field.

Alternatively, you could pay an industry figurehead or knowledgeable speaker around the topic to deliver a seminar for you. This shows your desire to keep on top of the latest developments in your area.

Be careful to invite speakers who will give a well-rounded perspective on the subject. Before you invite someone it’s a good idea to take a look at any online seminars they might have previously delivered. Even better, try to attend another event they are speaking in person.

Should you run a seminar, make sure you advertise it well. Ensuring it’s well attended is essential – create a link to a sign-up page on your website and advertise it on all social media portals. Think about sending out an email – or even paper – invitation out to your current and potential clients.

#23 – Identify and develop sector thought leaders

One thing that the rise of blogging and social media has meant for businesses is that it’s easier than ever to raise the profile of staff within your firm.

Identify any members of your staff who have the talent and flair to become an industry thought leader and use your business’s website, blog and social media channels, as well as industry publications to push their work in this area.

What’s more, it’s wise to encourage them to build up their individual profile by posting articles on LinkedIn and even commenting on relevant topics with an ‘expert opinion’ in the press.

The overall aim is to make your staff member the ‘face’ of this topic for your firm. When someone who has seen their work needs a service around their specialist topic, this staff member will be the natural person to call.

#24 – Develop a ‘guest post’ outreach strategy

Another great way of increasing exposure for your business is guest blogging on respected websites. These should be helpful and related to the services you perform. The advantage of doing this is that people will find out about your business, who may not otherwise do so. Guest posting helps position you and your firm as a ‘thought leader’ – an authority on a particular topic.

‘Guest posting’ on websites with a high domain authority in return for a ‘backlink’ to your own page is also a good way to boost your own website’s SEO.

#25 – Develop use of video for client stories

If you don’t have client stories on your website, there’s a chance you’re a step behind your competition.

In professional services, detailed client stories are well established on websites. They are incredibly effective: they build trust and provide a window into your company’s operations.

However, when everyone does this, how can you get ahead? Video could be the next step.

Research shows that people respond much better to visual content because of its immersive nature. Take a look at the client stories on this website. You get a much deeper feel for the lives of their clients and how the firm helped than you would from reading a traditional case study.

#26 – Use video as part of the sales process

Could your sales team be reaching your leads in a more engaging way than emails or phone calls? Yes. By using video.

Adding video to your sales emails is not only a great way to improve your open rate, it also allows your sales team to communicate the benefits of your product in a more personal way. Sales emails and calls have a rather impersonal reputation. Video puts a face behind all your communications.

What’s more, what better way to show your grasp of cutting edge technology than to integrate video in a place where your leads will be accustomed to seeing text. Having said this, getting to grips doesn’t mean spending megabucks.

#27 – Get all your staff with Twitter or Facebook involved on your socials

How comprehensive is your firm’s use of social media? If it’s limited to just one page on Facebook and a single Twitter account, chances are you’re not doing enough.

Nowadays social media is a large part of prospects and clients’ interaction with your business. Having staff with ‘professional’ looking Twitter or Facebook accounts regularly share or retweet company posts is a great way to generate a buzz around the goings on at your business.

Likewise, sharing and retweeting appropriate posts from your staff on your company page creates the sense of a community around your business. In an era where it can pay off to look open, friendly and fun, getting your staff involved on your social media accounts is a great strategy.

If it fits with your brand identity, social media can be a great space to show your non-corporate side.

#28 – Get your employees to support your business on LinkedIn

If they’re not already, make sure that all your staff are on Linkedin. Ideally, you want them posting about your company and connecting with prospects and suppliers. This will massively improve your company’s reach on LinkedIn.

While your employees’ accounts on Linkedin obviously belong to them, there’s nothing wrong with asking them to support your company via the network.

At the minimum try to make sure that they list that they are working for your company on LinkedIn, preferably within one month of starting their job.

#29 – Develop a 1:1 marketing strategy

1:1 (or one to one) marketing is a CRM strategy which emphasises personalised interactions with leads. Personalised interactions from business have been found to foster greater customer loyalty and better return on marketing investment.

Advanced CRMs and marketing software means that marketers can customise communications according to all kinds of things, such as buyer profile. For example, a lead who has downloaded a guide to making a will might respond well to a blog about inheritance tax.

#30  – Develop a sales enablement strategy

In case you don’t know, sales enablement is the process of getting your sales and marketing strategies into alignment so that they are working together to generate sales. Whether you have separate marketing and sales teams, or your ‘sales’ work is done by so-called fee earners, thinking of sales and marketing as complementary rather than distinct is key.ds.

#31 – Merge the sales and marketing function

Marketing and sales teams already have a common goal: to drive company profits through increasing revenue.

In some businesses, there is a case to merge the sales and marketing operations into one single team. This means bringing together sales and marketing operations into a single function that traverses the whole customer journey and life cycle. Rather than just aligning their goals so that they work better together – as in sales enablement – you completely evaporate any distinction between them.

In a conventional department layout – where there are separate marketing and sales operations – there is potential for disruption when the marketing department hands leads over to the sales team. Completely merging your sales and marketing prevents this.

New roles are being created in organisations referring to ‘Chief Growth Officer’ – a single point of accountability for generating revenue.

#32 – Adopt an ABM approach for your largest corporate accounts

If you handle large corporate accounts, it might be in your interests to take an account based marketing (ABM) perspective. An ABM strategy concentrates sales and marketing resources on a clearly defined set of accounts.

On each account it employs a personalised campaign that resonates with that particular audience. It is an extremely personalised approach which optimises your marketing resource for a particular client.

#33 – Connect offline and online strategies

Nowadays, all marketing campaigns should have some aspect of ‘digital’ in them. Your offline campaigns, be they events, giveaways, seminars or whatever should be strongly promoted across your social channels.

Additionally, your offline and online strategies should work together to reach your audience across well coordinated touchpoints. Your campaigns should tie in together, both online and offline.

#34 – Delight the client – develop the client experience

Delivering the best client experience possible is essential to the operations of any firm. You should work hard to deliver the best results for every single client you deal with.

What mightn’t be so obvious is that delighting clients shouldn’t only be consigned to traditional customer facing situations. In an online age, user experience should be at the forefront of everything you do. You need to work hard to remove as much friction as possible at all customer touchpoints.

Your website should be as easy to navigate as possible and be mindful of ‘annoying’ prospects or leads in your sales and marketing strategy.

#35 – Pitch perfect. Build a relevant and compelling tender process.

When it comes to winning deals or clients, how you pitch counts for a lot. Do you build a new presentation for each lead or do you have a tried and tested structure that gets proven results? We find the best way is to have something that’s more or less ready that you can customise depending on each prospect’s needs

Whatever method you use, here are a few tips to help you on your way to a bullet proof pitch:

1. Add case studies or examples in your pitch. Keep them short and to the point. These are worth their weight in gold and can really bring your service to life.
2. Don’t pretend you can solve all your prospects’ problems. They will see right through you if you try to pitch beyond areas where your business can actually help.
3. Treat pitches like conversation. Traditional pitching doesn’t have the best reputation. It brings to mind images of plaid suits, sales waffle and does little to build relationships. Conversational pitches help you build up a dialogue with your potential clients, which you can build on to show how your service offers a direct solution to their problem.
4. Back up your pitch with hard facts. Facts and statistics carry a lot of weight during a pitch. Utilise them to give your pitch the greatest chance of success.

#36 – Deliver an effective PR strategy

Getting noticed in the media is a great way to build your business’s profile . A good PR strategy is the best way to get yourself a piece of media action.

A cohesive PR strategy will allow you to organise your PR activities and make strategic decisions about the best way to communicate.  It will also help you use stories in your business to draw in your target audience and build brand awareness.

To be effective, you need to have an end game. Without clear goals, your PR game won’t be aligned to your business’s objectives.

#37 – Enhance the client onboarding process

First impressions are hard to change. Onboarding is the period at the start of a client’s journey where you are likely to have more frequent interactions with them than you will later in the journey. Because of this, take the opportunity to leave the best mark you possibly can.

Think about creating a structured onboarding process. This could involve a meeting in your offices or in your home and possibly even an onboarding gift. We’ve seen firms do all kinds of stuff, from sending new clients indoor plants to personalised Lonely Planet travel guides.

There is no better time than onboarding to get across your firm’s key message.

#38 – Have a single view CRM for sales and marketing

Using a single view CRM for both sales and marketing is a great place to start with sales enablement. This makes communication fluid between your dedicated marketing and sales people and ensures that they’re both on the same page. Overall, a single view CRM will increase the visibility and openness in the revenue generation side of your business.

#39 – Create a marketing dashboard

Using a single view CRM for both sales and marketing is a great place to start with sales enablement. This makes communication fluid between your dedicated marketing and sales people and ensures that they’re both on the same page. Overall, a single view CRM will increase the visibility and openness in the revenue generation side of your business.

#40 – Listen to your social signals

Keep an eye on how customers interact with your business on social media. This can provide an insight into how your audience responds to your firm’s marketing. Do your audience react well when you show your business’s ‘fun side’? If so, maybe it would be a good idea to emphasise your business’s non corporate side in your future marketing.

#41 – Split test everything

It’s always best to base your decisions on evidence. When it comes to decisions about your online marketing, the same goes.

A/B testing is the primary form of split testing. Multivariate Split Test, however, are useful for websites that see a high volume of traffic.

A/B testing involves splitting your website traffic in half into two groups, group A and group B. These groups see two different versions of the page, version A and version B, depending on what group they’re in. On each version of the page you can test different factors, like headlines, colours, buttons, website design, calls-to-action and font size.

Remember to only change one thing between different versions of the page. If you change more than one you won’t know which change is causing your users to behave differently.

#42 – Gather feedback

No company is perfect. There’s always something you can do to improve. Customer feedback is the best way of working out exactly what.

Analytics and data can only tell you so much. Customer feedback is the best way to find out WHY clients interact with your firm in a certain way.

With feedback you can get a much clearer picture of any customer pain points and also areas where they are left wanting something a little more from your firm.

#43 – Sponsor Events

Want to increase your brand visibility in your local area? Sponsoring an event is a great idea!

Sponsoring a fun local event will show your firm’s thorough commitment to your local area, as well as potentially showing your non-corporate side.

Tying your business to a great event will massively enhance the local perception of your firm. Sports events, charity fundraisers, awards – these are just a few of the local events you could sponsor. Don’t be afraid to get creative with your choice.

What’s more, as your brand will be central to the event, it provides a great networking opportunity. Your name will be on everyone’s minds during the event and, if it’s successful, people will associate your firm with this success.

#44 – Be Different

Professional service firms often compete in highly saturated market places. Then factor in that clients often struggle to comprehend the value of an intangible product and differentiation becomes tough.

Well, tough if you try to distinguish yourself on the product alone.

For services companies, it’s much easier to market yourself as a distinctive brand. An authentic brand that really is different from your competitors.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t constantly strive to improve your actual product so that you provide the best service possible.

Make sure you have strong key messaging that comes across in all touchpoints – from the website to meetings in your offices. This will cement your brand in the memory of those who interact with you.

Have a look at this innovative financial planning website. They really offer something fresh in a sector where many brands market themselves on similar tenets.

#45 – Build a network

This refers to both online and offline networking. If you do it right, networking is a incredibly valuable investment of your time and effort. Making meaningful connections pays dividends in the long run.

You never know just how many opportunities and referrals networking will generate. Be proactive about your strategy and make sure you keep networking. Get out there and establish yourself

#46 – Introduce league tables

A bit of healthy competition goes a long way to driving new growth in professional services. Creating an office league table where your sales team and fee earners can see each others’ performance will inspire your team members to really stretch themselves.

Think about rewarding you members of staff who generate the best figures. You don’t need to hand out massive bonuses – fun prizes like a bottle of champagne or a voucher for a classy restaurant will suffice to get your staff’s head in the game.

Your employees shouldn’t compete just with others in your company or your competitors, they should also compete against their previous efforts. Continually raising the bar and setting loftier goals will help your employees be the best they can. It will stop their growth curve reaching a plateau and your organisation’s performance stagnating.

#47 – Recruit the right people

This point might sound blindingly obvious, but it’s the people who work somewhere that make it work. By having the right people in key marketing and sales roles, your business will be primed to grow to new levels.

The best employees are those who are compatible with your company culture and have the social skills to get on well with and integrate with your existing team. Having said this, a slight amount of friction between employers can really drive the business, through throwing different ideas and ways of working into the mix.

#48 – Work with the right agencies

Who you work with matters almost as much as who works in your own business. When it comes to agencies, you really need to work with those who deliver tangible value for what they charge, not those who are going to sit back and do something out of sync with the rest of your operations in exchange for a large retainer.

This means finding an agency with sector experience, one who really understands your needs and challenges and one who can show they have delivered great results for their existing clients.

Part of the value of agencies comes in their ability to look at your operations with fresh eyes. This means that if you’ve already worked with agency for several years, you need to make sure that things aren’t getting stale. If they are it’s more than worthwhile to look elsewhere.

#49 – Improve the office environment

You don’t want your would-be clients coming down for introductory meeting in a drab, identikit blue and beige office. Poor offices leave a bad taste in visitors’ mouths and – for all they know – this might reflect your business’s operations as a whole.

Your offices should get across what your firm is about. Not only will this make them a better space to hold meetings, a good working environment for your staff will position to deliver their best performance day in and day out.

#50 – Ask clients the killer question!

Ask your existing clients, “What nearly stopped you from buying from us?”

Normally businesses pay most attention to understanding what made their non-clients decide not to buy. As much as any attempt to understand your audience is a welcome step, sometimes your non-clients aren’t the best people to ask. Sometimes you might be better asking your current clients.

This is because they’ve been through your entire sales funnel, are likely familiar with your business and are (hopefully!) a good fit for your service.

People who decided not to buy, on the other hand, might be a mixed bunch. While some would have been genuine prospects, others will have been bad fits for your service. Your current clients are the best people to ask.