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Post recession tactics for attracting new clients

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23rd Sep 2009
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To succeed in today’s highly competitive business environment, practices need to take a new approach to marketing, says Nigel Temple of The Marketing Compass.

When it comes to marketing your practice, it’s time to stop pushing so hard. After all, you don’t like being pushed, do you? In the ultra competitive 21st century business environment, the secret to success lies in customer attraction. The people you’re trying to market to are inundated with thousands of marketing messages each day. To keep sane, they put up filters, making it harder than ever to get marketing messages through – hence falling response rates. To get through these filters, growing practices should consider a new approach.

Give to get
The psychology of client attraction is based on the philosophy of ‘give to get’. If you give something to someone, they will probably feel the need to return the favour. This approach will enhance your reputation, generate positive word of mouth and attract more clients.

Produce useful, relevant and up to date information, such as ‘how to’ guides. This information can be published on your website, printed in various forms and submitted to the media. This approach will enhance your reputation, generate positive word of mouth marketing and attract more clients.

There’s no need to use a 'hard sell' approach - this will turn people away. All you have to do is to point people in the direction of the useful material that we have been talking about. For example, an advertisement could say that a free ‘how to’ guide is available if they 'click here'.

This approach will attract more potential clients. Some of them will be in the market to ‘buy’ today. Many, however, will just be browsing. Therefore, the next stage is to tempt them to sign-up to some form of regular communication, such as an e-newsletter, blog or mailing list. In order to do this, provide an incentive in terms of additional packaged information which is relevant to the target market you are communicating with.

Think long-term

Typically, 97% of people in your target market are not ready to buy your product or service at this particular time. To attract more prospects, you need to offer a choice of interesting, helpful information. Think of it in terms of mackerel fishing - the more hooks you have on your line, the more prospective fish you are likely to catch.

Find out what type of information your customers really want. Ask them which areas of your expertise are of interest to them. Offer them the information they have requested. Package it up in creative ways. All of this will make it easy for them to engage with you.

Incidentally, you don't have to give away all of your intellectual property - the point is to demonstrate your knowledge and prove your credibility.

Another idea is to form alliance marketing partnerships (AMPs) with non-competing enterprises, which sell to the same markets as you do. This is a great way of generating new business, as people like to buy from companies who have been recommended to them. By doing this, you’ll find that you begin to build a network of like-minded business people who will be able to connect you with their clients.

Nigel Temple is a marketing consultant, speaker and author specialising in client attraction and small business marketing. He is founder of The Marketing Compass and will be presenting a marketing masterclass on client attraction techniques on 17 November. See his website for more details.

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By slider1066
28th Sep 2009 16:21

Personal Brand Management

Following your piece and another piece on the site with respect to "Top Tips" on Personal Branding, I was advised that I should let you know about the help that is available to Accountants. 

My company, De Leon Ltd (www.deleonprm.com) is a Personal Reputation Management company that works exclusively in the online environment - and predominantly for Partners and Senior Staff Members in the Accounting and Legal profession. 

People do business with people, is how the adage goes and, in the accounting profession, potential business often comes via recommendation or word of mouth and it is often an individual partner or senior staff member that is recommended - rather than the firm they work for.  

Before they call you though, potential clients may be looking to find information about you, your background, your role and your experience in the particular specialism that concerns them. They want to gather some insight as to whether you are someone that they want to do business with. 

What happens when someone "Googles" your name (i.e. your name - not the name of your firm)?

We work on behalf of our clients to ensure that when their personal name is searched, what is found is a portfolio of information which might include articles, press releases, business profiles, photographs, thought leadership, presentations, comments, blogs, etc, about them as an individual – which together, creates a powerful, informative, professional and beneficial impression that reflects how they would wish to be perceived - and helps enhance and/or reinforce the image of the firm that is presented on the corporate web site. 

Whether you call it Personal Reputation Management, or just plain marketing, it is certainly not about being boastful or brash – it is about subtly releasing and placing accurate and helpful information onto the web which conveys an overall image of a talented, successful, knowledgeable and respected Accountant that can make a hugely valuable contribution to a given situation. 

This type of “marketing” offers, in my somewhat partisan view, the very best ROI in accountancy marketing.  What we do for our clients works for them 24/7 and the costs can be amortised over a year.  This means that it costs between just £100 and £200 per month. 

How much is a new client worth?

Philip Westerman, De Leon Personal Reputation Management

[email protected], tel: 0845 2994229

 

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