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Hoo boy! Today’s professional services firm marketers have a lot to think about:
- AI is everywhere, but harnessing AI’s true potential isn’t easy.
- The marketplace is mired in uncertainty, so figuring out what to do next can feel like a guessing game.
- Competition is fierce, and it’s flying at you from all sides—resource-rich market leaders, ambitious mid-majors and startups with pesky new ideas.
Then there’s the pace of change. As marketing becomes increasingly tied to technology, the field is becoming more and more technical. You need a veritable army of experts to handle the dozens of disciplines required to carry out a modern marketing program.
Take the new field of AI search optimization, for example. Because the mechanics of search are hidden from us (or we are even fed misleading information), and because those mechanics are always evolving, AI search experts have to determine what is going on by looking at empirical evidence (see this 6-minute video for a summary of some recent research). Clearly, it takes an AI search specialist to keep abreast of the latest findings or conduct their own tests—and determine whether or not those findings should change the way their services are delivered.
Wrangling a large team of internal and external specialists isn’t easy. Communicating regularly with each is important. That means lots of meetings, schedules and analytics to review.
Pile on top of this the ongoing tasks of keeping the website up to date, prodding subject matter experts to write blog posts and articles, reporting to the management team and, oh, retaining your sanity.
Nobody said marketing was easy. And despite the promise of amazing technology, it’s not likely to get easier any time soon.
Marketers are so focused on implementing their sophisticated multichannel marketing strategy that they often overlook one critical question:
What makes us different or better than anybody else?
In theory, at least, you can optimize your marketing machine to perfection so that it reaches precisely the right people at exactly the right time. But if they don’t perceive you as any different from all the other options, all that effort will be wasted. Your conversion rates will be low. And failing to recognize where the problem really lies, you will try to fix the part of the machine that isn’t broken.
In short, your brilliant technical marketing will be torpedoed by your uninspired positioning.
How do you determine if your positioning is working?
An engineer would say, “Let’s A/B test it.” But that’s actually very hard. You can certainly test specific messages—say, headlines in an online ad. And that can provide some useful surface-level insight into positioning.
But it doesn’t really provide the context you need to truly position your firm. Positioning is more than what you say about yourself. It’s what you are, the services you offer, who you serve and who you don’t serve, how people perceive you and, importantly, how this whole cast of characteristics stacks up against your competitors.
For that, you need to conduct research on your target audience. When you talk to your clients you learn some pretty interesting things. Like why they chose you over other firms, why they stick with you and what they think of your competitors. If you do your research right, they will also reveal your strengths and weaknesses. Your best clients are more than happy to share this information because they believe in you and want you to succeed.
All of that intel should inform your positioning, including the messages you use to communicate it.
There are several signs that your positioning is working:
- People immediately grasp what you do
- Prospects already understand your value proposition when they reach out to you
- Buyers are less price sensitive because you offer more perceived value
- Referral sources can easily describe and differentiate your firm
- It is easy for anyone in your firm to explain what you do
So ask yourself: Is your firm so focused on the mechanics of modern marketing that you are missing the big, compelling story that will inspire your buyers?