create a digital marketing strategy in a professional services firm

September 5, 2024|Accountants, Kim's Blog, Lawyers, Management Skills, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Web Sites|

It was great to welcome the Optix Solutions team to deliver its first online training session for PM Forum on 4^th September. This new session “Creating a Leading Digital Marketing Strategy” guided delegates through the process of creating and implementing a digital marketing strategy. It comprised three elements: a) digital strategy for business, b) strategic approach and initial planning and c) marketing opportunities, tactics and digital tools. How to create a digital marketing strategy in a professional services firm

The speakers and Optix Solutions

Our speakers were:

Alastair Banks – Founder of Optix Solutions who has spoken previously at PM Forum events. He wrote Five Essential Steps To Include In Your Digital Strategy For 2022 (forbes.com) and commented “Most clients ask about tactics rather than strategy…”

Samantha Smith – Senior Digital Marketing Manager

Jack Warne – Head of Digital

Optix Solutions, based in Exeter, was founded 25 years ago and provides a range of services including digital marketing strategy, digital campaigns, creative, data science and training. It has an impressive client list including: Nvidia, DPT (NHS), The Met Office, HSBC and London Business School. It also works for 15 law firms and several accountancy and consultancy firms including Michelmores and Bishop Fleming. It has won numerous awards including best places to work. Digital Marketing Agency Exeter, Devon | Optix Solutions,

Alastair is presenting a new “Artificial Intelligence in Marketing” session for PM Forum next week AI in Marketing – PM Forum – there are still a few places left (but they’re going fast!)

The delegates

Our delegates were from law firms (including two in Ireland) and accountants with a few from actuarial, economics and tech consultancies. Their roles spanned digital marketing, design and general marketing roles at executive and manager levels.

The delegate aims were to:

Achieve more cohesion in digital marketing activities
Align with the firm’s strategy (both B2B and B2C) and graduate recruitment strategy
Assess and maximise digital marketing activities
Confirm the (small) digital team is on the right path
Learn what others are doing in digital marketing
Broaden knowledge from specialist to general digital marketing topics
Develop career
Obtain a view of best practice
Consider what future changes might be needed

Digital strategy for business overview

A delegate poll on the key aims for digital marketing revealed:

56% Increase brand awareness
22% Generate more leads
22% Improve client retention
0% Enhance operational efficiency

The speakers noted that in other sectors generating leads (short term tactical) often comes higher than brand (long term strategic).

The evolving digital landscape is characterised by rapid technological advancements, shifting client expectations and Increased competition. Current trends include: Consent mode (cookie policy), AI, AR/VR and the growth of influencer marketing. Statistics showed that investment in digital marketing was still growing (13.6% pa).

Firms need to constantly adapt their digital strategy to achieve: client acquisition and retention, operational efficiency (streamline processes, reduce costs, free up time) and data-driven decision making.

There was discussion about the potential impact of Search Generative Experience (SGE). This is a new development where AI results are shown ahead of search results. It is likely to impact web site traffic significantly over the next 12 months. The following article was suggested for a deeper dive: How Search Generative Experience works and why retrieval-augmented generation is our future (searchengineland.com)

A delegate poll asked which digital marketing trend will have biggest impact:

78% AI
11% Personalisation
11% Video marketing

There were no votes for data privacy, micro/nano influences and voice search.

Digital marketing strategy framework

A strategy creates a set of common goals and gives your business a vision for its marketing activity. It helps manage conflicting priorities and manages expectations.

Questions your strategy should answer:

What are the overall aims of our business? (different offices and regions and department)
What sort of website visitor do we want to attract?
What type of lead is more likely to turn into a client?
What can we do to attract that type of lead?
What have we done that’s worked before?
What are we doing that’s bringing the wrong type of lead?

Key components of a digital marketing strategy:

Define direction
Outline competitive advantage
Agree long term vision (one to five years)
Set clear and specific long-term objectives (KPIs)
Define markets, audiences and products
Outline positioning
Agree messaging and tone of voice
Allocate resources
Build a roadmap
Review process

We walked through the Optix Solutions strategy development process:

Discovery – identify the vision
Research – gather knowledge
Strategizing – creative thinking
Planning – create the plan
Launch – comes to fruition

The key digital marketing strategy outputs are:

Situational analysis – where are we now?
Strategy – where do we want to get to and how?
Roadmap – resource, budget and activity planning

These points were illustrated with a law firm case study (private wealth, family, tech, immigration and recruitment). There were comments about Google Display Network (GDN) targeting which allows you to set where or when your ad is shown based on features of your ideal audience. And the need for training for fee-earners on various subjects including LinkedIn to achieve a much broader reach than achieved with Company pages. Amongst the results were a 40% increase in organic traffic in three months.

Delegates joined breakout groups to consider a SWOT analysis. Professional service sector strengths included strong content and up to date research and thought leadership. Weaknesses focused on the challenge of fee-earners preparing differentiated content from a client perspective within brand guidelines, largely due to a lack of awareness of the client journey. Lack of strategic investment was a major threat and the development of a digital strategy was seen as an opportunity.

Strategic approach and initial planning

Conduct a Situational Analysis

A poll on how frequently delegates’ firms conducted situational analyses:

33% Quarterly
22% Annually
33% Rarely or never
11% Only when there’s a problem

It was recommended that a situational analysis (marketing audit) be conducted as part of the initial strategy and then at least annually. The need for analytical tools was mentioned. For example, using Semrush to set up continuous competitor monitoring.

A discovery workshop would facilitate the discussion of goals and use questions to guide the conversation. The 5Cs of marketing was suggested as a framework:

Company
Clients
Competition
Collaborators
Climate

Questions to ask about conversion rates and budgets included: current number of monthly leads, lead to completion conversion rate, average sales value or lifetime value (or average first year value of new client). There were comments about the value of leads for different types of clients (e.g. residential conveyancing clients are often lower value than family and private client and similarly, residential conveyancing clients tend to convert faster than many others).

Delegates raised issues relating to data and integration with digital marketing tools, GA4, CRM systems, business intelligence and sales/opportunity pipeline monitoring. It seems this is particularly an issue for B2B clients in professional services where systems are often not integrated and the sales cycle is long. Many have to resort to manual methods.

On market and competitor analysis:

Conduct a market analysis (market trends, customer behaviour, emerging digital opportunities, define target audience segments)
Perform a competitor analysis Pitching, differentiation and competitor analysis (kimtasso.com)
Inform budget allocation
Continual monitoring

There was a poll on which element was most challenging when defining digital marketing budgets

22% Aligning with business goals
22% Predicting ROI
22% Justifying spend to stakeholders
11% Managing across multiple channels
22% All of above

There was a PPC case study from a law firm where budget allocation, attribution and positioning were issues. The PPC budget was reviewed with the internal team to refine messaging and implement improved business enquiry tracking. This maximised relevant and valuable leads. Other outcomes: cost per conversion reduced by 31%, conversions increased by 63%, conversion rate improved by 25% and engagement rate enhanced by 12%

Define objectives

Optix argued that the three pillars of a successful strategy:

Goals and targets
Marketing opportunities
Budgets

Business goals could cover maintaining and enhancing current level, growth and transformation (e.g .changing brand perceptions). Digital marketing goals needed to support these.

There was a discussion about the differences between: brand building (strategic, broad reach, emotional, memorable) and sales activation (tactical, tight targeting, informative, responsive). The 95:5 rule was relevant here for delegates – only 5% B2B buyers are in market to buy right now.

KPIs are essential to digital strategy to align strategy, measure success and provide clarity for stakeholders. For professional service firms these included: client acquisition, client retention, new clients through digital channels and client satisfaction. The need to consider KPIs across different departments was mentioned – for example, HR for recruitment, client service, IT and compliance.

An article on defining digital KPIs was written by Optix Solution’s Strategy Director Thomas Haynes for Smart Insights Define effective digital marketing KPIs to achieve your goals in 2023 (smartinsights.com)

There was also some discussion about the power of personal brands – individuals combined have a significantly greater reach than their organisation. See also: Why Your Greatest Marketing Asset Is Actually Your People (forbes.com) and How to create and promote your personal brand – Kim Tasso

Leverage a mix of organic, paid and brand digital strategies

A poll asked delegates which digital tactic had been most effective in last year:

13% SEO
13% PPC
25% Content marketing
13% Social media
38% Email

The pros and cons of various digital marketing tactics were explored:

Video
PPC (search)
Content marketing
PPC (remarketing and display)
Social media (organic)
Social media (paid)
SEO
Email marketing
Local SEO
UX (user experience) and CRO (conversion rate optimisation) – a missing piece in many strategies seen by Optix.

Various essential marketing documents were identified within the digital marketing strategy:

Personas
Brand guidelines
Messaging guidelines
Marketing calendar
Channels use strategy (ie SEO, paid media, organic social)

On social media, Alastair recommended the use of Crystal | The Personality Data Platform – DISC Personality Profiles for Any Buyer (crystalknows.com) as a plug in for LinkedIn to obtain personality insights of people to help you tailor your communications. This supports online networking and selling.

Summarising

Final comments included that strategy was as much as about taking stuff out – not just adding it in.

Strategies to secure stakeholder support and investment included:

Align with business goals
Present data driven insights
Showcase competitor activity
Provide clear benefits
Use case studies and examples
Avoid using digital marketing jargon

A final poll asked how confident delegates felt in communicating ROI of digital market to stakeholders?

25% Very
25% Somewhat
38% Not very
13% Not confident at all

A final breakout considered what needed to be done to develop a digital marketing strategy. Key points in the feedback included:

Set objectives
Create a real long-term strategy (with research and discovery)
Develop platforms to collect relevant data
Prioritise relevant KPIs
Create new campaigns
Remember internal communications (especially advocates)
Allocate resources and budgets
Establish governance structures and monitoring

The speakers and Optix Solutions

The delegates

Digital strategy for business overview

Digital marketing strategy framework

Strategic approach and initial planning

Conduct a Situational Analysis

Define objectives

Leverage a mix of organic, paid and brand digital strategies

Summarising

Related digital marketing posts

Tags

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How to create a digital marketing strategy in a professional services firm

The speakers and Optix Solutions

The delegates

Digital strategy for business overview

Digital marketing strategy framework

Strategic approach and initial planning

Conduct a Situational Analysis

Define objectives

Leverage a mix of organic, paid and brand digital strategies

Summarising

Related digital marketing posts

Tags

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