Marketing Hub
The Consulting Business Marketing Hub
You've arrived at the Marketing Hub. Its a subsection of our blog (Insights) where we've put together all of the articles and resources relevant to the key topics of:
Look through the content in the sections below to find the articles and resources that you need most right now.
Developing your Marketing Strategy & Marketing Plan
The first marketing mistake nearly every business makes is to dive straight into deploying marketing tactics. They engage a lead gen. company, or Linkedin experts, or they build a website, or they go networking, and so on. Sure, it's "marketing" activity, but you know what they say about busy fools.
If you want your marketing investments to be fruitful, you need to start with a Marketing Strategy, followed by a Marketing Plan.
The articles here provide advice, guidance and templates for developing your marketing strategy and building out your marketing plan. Start with the Featured Post at the top, or dive straight into a topic in the list below that best matches your immediate needs.
Choosing and optimising marketing channels
There are so many different marketing channels you can deploy to generate leads for your firm that it can be overwhelming. What compounds this issue is that marketers spend more time arguing amongst themselves as to which tactics are right than they do working 'on' marketing and finding out for themselves.
The reality is that every single marketing channel can be proven to work. What you must determine - through doing - is which channels and tactics are right for your business right now. You'll also want to deploy multiple channels at the same time as you can seldom rely on just one. Unfortunately, most established consultancies become over-reliant on a single channel - typically that will be networking or partnering with a vendor.
There's no other choice now - you need to be omni-channel. The articles below provide advice and guidance, based on our experiences, on using specific marketing channels to generate leads for your consulting business. Start with the Featured Post at the top, or dive straight into a topic in the list below that best matches your immediate needs.
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52 Ways to Market Your Consulting Business
Most consulting business owners say to me that their number one challenge is getting more clients.And to get more clients means you need to get noticed. You need to get
Books on marketing
The below are some great books on marketing that are worthy of a read.
Permission Marketing
That other bald guy in marketing, Seth Godin, has written a number of great books. This one is fundamental to my marketing model - The Pyramid of Trust.
The Irresistible Consultant's Guide to Winning Clients
This is a great book by David A. Fields, and on which I wrote an in-depth review here.
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook
Vaynerchuck, or Gary Vee to his loyal followers, is very much a Marmite character now days. But that's not a bad thing - it's as important to repel the wrong audience as it is to attract the right one!
I don't always agree with what he says, but I certainly do agree with the principles of this book. Again, this book was influential in the development of my marketing approach - The Pyramid of Trust.
Ask
Contrary to what many people seem to think, Marketing is not about telling people about you and your services. It's about asking them what they need - what their challenges are - and then giving answers.
Author, Ryan Levesque, gives great advice on how to do just that.
F-cking Good Content
There are few people as unashamedly themselves as Kelsall.
As you can see from the book title, Kelsall doesn't mince his words. if you're easily offended, then look elsewhere.
If you're not offended, then dive in as this is a great, short book.
Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen
Miller's company is of the same name as his book, Story Brand. What's important about his approach is how you put your prospects front and centre.
His information on website homepage layout is very useful as it echoes how you need to predefine your prospects journey.
Finally, what Miller knows is that it's all about the prospect, not you and your firm.
Becoming THE Expert
If you don't want to remain reliant on repeat business and referrals, then you need to become a thought leader. This is the basis of marketing any consulting business.
What Hayes book does it to make it clear that you need to become THE expert in your niche.
There are some valuable insights in this book.
Competing on Thought Leadership
Unfortunately, chances are you won't be the first who wants to be a thought leader in your niche.
In his book, Buday goes right back to beginning of thought leadership through to the current day.
He explores challenging topics like how to create breakthrough ideas and how to attract the right audiences.
A good read when you're ready to go deep on thought leadership.
If only marketing a consulting business was easy!
If I had a pound for every time I've been pitched lead generation services on Linkedin, I'd be a rich man by now! Often these so-called experts promise you a volume of leads that makes no sense, for example, like 30 leads a week.
The problem for most consultancies is that they only focus on marketing when they need sales. That's far too late, and it leads to temptation to accept the silly offers of 30 leads a week!
Marketing consulting services is very different to most other services. The 'product' that you're selling is intangible. Often, it's even undefinable as you may not know exactly what it will look like from the outset. Try selling services like that through cold calling!
Successfully marketing your consulting services can be overwhelming!
At The B2B Marketer we know what it takes to successfully market consulting services to mid-sized and large organisations. That's because, before we were marketers, it's precisely what we did! On this website you'll find lots of information and guidance that's steeped in practical, real-world implementation.
Where to next?
There are two further hubs on this website dedicated to helping you through the challenges of running a consulting business - namely, Growth and Marketing. You can access those hubs via the buttons below.