Traditional marketing methods are still around for a reason because they’ve been tried and tested by countless Professional Services organisations and deliver results on multiple levels and multiple occasions.
But they’re traditional. And in today’s rapidly-developing digital era, while there’s still a place for some traditional marketing tactics, the entire marketing dynamic has evolved and taken on a whole new momentum, not to mention, new direction.
While it may feel somewhat unsettling to think about replacing your proven marketing tactics with more digitally-savvy strategies, it’s a move that’s guaranteed to pay off. At the very least, you’ll generate the same type of results as your traditional activity. At the most, your marketing campaigns will fly!
More importantly, embracing new marketing measures will help relieve you from the pressure of single-handedly generating leads by attending networking meetings or relying on your connections for word-of-mouth recommendations. And more important than that, you can actually take some time away from your business, be it a few days or weeks, and when you get back, you’ll find relevant contacts ready to connect with, due to your marketing campaigns still working as hard for you as to when you left them.
Lead generation is constant, and when you’re focused on running your Professional Services company, there’s only so much time you can dedicate to it – even less if you’re off sick or take some annual leave…
And that’s where all those modern-day marketing techniques come in, of which there are many. But for the purposes of this article, we’re going to talk you through four of them:
Lead Generation Tactic 1: SEO
Search Engine Optimisation, SEO for short, works by making you visible to your potential customers on Google and other search engines. There are several ways you can use it to your advantage, such as:
- Using on-site SEO techniques to make sure your site is fully optimised – so that it appears in people’s search results. Developing content for your site that demonstrates your expertise and knowledge will help you rank higher too. The key is having information on your website that’s relevant to what users are searching for, so you appear in their online searches.
- Placing your thought leadership insight or wider content on external, high-ranking websites – in doing so, the backlinks will help boost your website’s authority over time because of their high-performing status being linked to your site.
- Constantly strengthening your SEO presence – in fact, this is something we highly recommend you do. SEO isn’t something you can dip in and out of. The most effective SEO campaigns are refined in line with the latest algorithms and wider search guidance, which is a constant moveable feast.
SEO takes time and commitment, it won’t happen overnight. But it is something that will reward you over time. It can be one of the most effective digital marketing efforts you implement to help increase your lead generation. If you want people to find you and not your competitors, SEO is geared up to make this happen!
Lead Generation Tactic 2: Digital PR
Gone are the days when PR was all about issuing press releases and taking media clippings. While they’re still core tasks for PR professionals, the scale of what’s involved with delivering successful PR campaigns has widened to incorporate digital tactics.
In fact, according to Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller, Digital PR is more critical than technical SEO. Together, they make the dream team!
Implement digital PR alongside other traditional and digital marketing tactics to further increase your company’s online presence. This is achieved through a number of things, such as:
- Using press releases and PR thought leadership articles to generate backlinks to your website
- Generating social media content through your PR outputs and coverage (which also includes driving social media mentions and tagging publications where applicable)
- Creating widespread brand awareness via influencer marketing
Last but not least, following on from John Mueller’s massive endorsement of digital PR, you can turn the thought leadership insight you produce into valuable PR opportunities, to keep your website regularly updated and on search engines’ radars. For more on thought leadership marketing and practical examples of what it involves, read this, ‘Using thought leadership to grow your Professional Services business.’
Lead Generation Tactic 3: Social Media
We couldn’t write an article about lead generation without including social media which, believe it or not, has been around for more than 40 years!
No effective lead generation campaign is complete without social activity. Social media marketing provides businesses with an opportunity to directly engage with the customers they want to reach, but are physically unable to. It also allows you to do the following:
- Build your following – by posting to your social media profiles on a regular basis, providing users with added value using brand new content and refreshing older content, as well as the outputs you produce as part of your SEO and digital PR activity.
- Engage with prospects, existing and new customers – on a much wider level than ever before by linking in with relevant groups and increasing a new reach from the likes of hashtags and other social hooks
- Use social media advertising – linked with PPC below to target your customers and prospects based on a deep and wide range of demographics and behaviours so you can begin conversations with relevant users.
- Make yourself stand out from your competitors – just like SEO, the more you put into social, the greater your results. The more you post on your social channels (with relevant content) the more you’ll be noticed and the more engagement and leads you’ll generate over time. Take a look at this page for more on the fundamentals of social media marketing.
Lead Generation Tactic 4: PPC
PPC, or Pay Per Click in full, is another clever tactic for driving visitors to your website, and it can be used in addition to SEO. With it you can:
- Generate relevant traffic – that converts into leads by developing PPC campaigns that cut to the core of who your ideal customers are and hones in on them based on their pain points and search behaviour.
- Create and optimise – use highly targeted search and display campaigns to maximise your PPC results. Find out more about the benefits of these campaigns here.
- Use targeted keyword strategies – to appeal to the right audience and stop you from attracting visitors from the wrong places, generating a greater return on your investment and reducing clicks (and cost) from those that aren’t potential leads!
- Implement PPC campaigns for a set period of time – they can be implemented so they’re continuously being optimised to make sure that even when you’re not in the office, the potential leads will be there for you to contact when you return. Take a look at this page for more on what PPC involves.
The good news about digital marketing methods, such as SEO, digital PR, social media and PPC, is they can be tailored to your requirements and budget. And, the even better news is, if you set them up correctly and review and refine their performance on an ongoing basis, they will outperform most traditional marketing tactics – and provide you with a steady flow of leads, regardless of if you’re in or out of the office.
