It doesn’t matter how great your consulting brand or services are if people don’t know you exist.
The most difficult part of building your consulting company is building a loyal and growing client base. It’s crucial to have a solid marketing strategy for your consulting firm to reach and engage the right clients.
Keep reading for 4 Awesome Marketing Strategies for Consulting Firms to reach potential clients and take your business to the next level.
1. The Best Marketing Strategies for Consulting Firms Are Consistent with Brand
Always put your best foot forward.
Your customer service, products and services, troubleshooting and client interactions should be consistent with your brand.
You can’t provide great service for one client and not another, or only deliver on every third job you do. You want every client to be satisfied, every time.
This is the fastest and most reliable way to build your brand. People prefer recommendations from others over any other form of marketing. And it plays a major part in the potential customers’ final decision.
The more positive the word of mouth buzz you create, the more clients you’ll attract. You just need to get your clients talking.
2. Online Reviews and Directories
Online reviews can encourage potential clients to learn more about you and give you an edge over the competition.
You get your foot in the door with free advertising from the word of mouth marketing of reviews left on your website, Google, Yelp, automotive online communities, and more.
Great online reviews have the potential of helping your rating for search engine results as well. The more reviews, especially good reviews that you have the more authority you provide to a search engine.
They want to provide the best results for their users. They consider hundreds of factors but your website relevance can be a big one.
Many companies now ask clients to post reviews either through business cards in-store or with links to the review site online.
You can even offer a few hours of free consulting services to get a client in the door, let them see how good you are and gain a loyal customer for the future. A few hours of your time to secure a happy customer and gain a positive review could be well worth it in the long run.
Be tactful but don’t be afraid to reach out and ask a satisfied customer for a review to help you reach and entice potential customers to give you a try.
Provide a link to where customers can leave a review on all your consulting firm promotional materials. This reminds the customer to write a review after you’re done.
3. Engaging with Clients and Expanding Your Reach
Think outside the box. The world wide web has given us the incredible possibility of reaching a global audience. This is particularly exciting for consultants because technology can help you share your expertise from anywhere.
Find ways to engage clients and reach potential customers through social media, promotions, blogs and online communities.
Promoting your business through answering questions in forums or webinars, free strategy sessions, other promotions on your website and social media can attract you a lot of attention while driving traffic to your site.
Educational and inspiring posting on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter can drive traffic to your site.
Creative, funny and/or informative posts can expand your reach by others sharing it with their friends and followers.
Daily helpful hints on what you do best and your areas of expertise can help others recognize you’re knowledge and help you be known as the consultant to go to.
When customers leave reviews or comments ensure that you respond thankfully and quickly. This can help build your reputation and improve customer relationships.
4. Network and Blog
The more you narrow your network in a niche business industry and blog about your area of expertise, the more you’ll be able to position your consulting firm as a big fish in small pond versus small fish in big pond.
A blog is an excellent way to demonstrate your knowledge, attract visitors to your site and get ranked higher in search engine results.
Connect with other industry professionals and network with them by providing guest posts on their blogs, backlinking to their sites and offering specific posts on your consulting area of expertise.
Blogging, offering guest posts and networking within your target industry can help build your brand and get recognized as an authority in your area.
Don’t Be Shy Toot Your Own Horn
In today’s world, you can’t be shy about trying to drum up business. You have to toot your own horn, brag about your accomplishments and sell your services with the way you interact online.
A majority of business is conducted in online without ever meeting face-to-face. When you sell yourself without the benefit of face to face contact so you need to make sure your online persona and business reputation is as reliable and beneficial as your real life one.
For more marketing strategies for consulting firms or other awesome tips of your business check out the rest of our blog.
