The best marketing strategies start with human behavior. After all, if you don’t understand your potential clients, no amount of content creation, ad spend or social media engagement will lead to growth. To really connect with people, you need to understand what they want and what drives them to respond to your marketing messaging and choose to engage your firm.
With that in mind, here are three simple yet powerful strategies for your firm’s marketing that speak to the fundamentals of human behavior and lead to better results.
Always be the guide
One mistake many firms make in their marketing messaging is to position themselves as the hero of the story. For example, visit a handful of accounting firm websites, and you’ll find things like,
“We’re the premier advisory firm providing accounting, tax and consulting services throughout the region.”
“Over the past two decades, we’ve seen remarkable growth in our firm and our service offerings.”
“As one of the Top 100 Firms in the country, we’ve been recognized in all aspects of our business through awards such as Best Places to Work and the Excellence in Business Award.”
Centering your client as the hero, rather than the firm, is a subtle yet powerful shift that will better connect with potential clients. It demonstrates that you understand their struggles and are the right firm to provide the services they need.
Put yourself in the client’s shoes: When you visit a firm’s website, would the fact that the firm has been in business for 50 years, has two dozen offices and 130 employees make you want to hire them? Or would messages like these appeal more:
“Take control of your numbers, clearly see your financial picture and make the right decisions for your company.”
“Unleash your company’s earning potential with strategic accounting and advisory services.”
“Take your business to the next level with accountants and advisors who partner with you to grow your business.”
Show empathy (you understand your clients’ problems) and authority (you’ve helped solve those kinds of problems before), and you’ll see greater results.
Give client a three-step process
You know that to take your clients from struggle to success involves a million steps. But clients don’t need to know all of that right now. In fact, sharing every single step with potential clients will scare them off.
Instead of adding to their stress, help them see how easy you can make their life with a three-step process. For example, for our growth consulting services, the three-step process is:
- Schedule a discovery call to discuss your goals and growth needs.
- We’ll create a clear business development and marketing roadmap for your firm.
- Follow your new roadmap to grow your firm.
When you simplify the process, prospective clients will feel like doing business with you is easy, and they’ll want to work with you.
Create a clear call to action
What action do you want potential clients to take after visiting your website’s home page or reading a blog post or email? Often, firms don’t include any call to action at the end of a blog or email or on their web pages. If they do, it’s just a “Contact Us” button or link. It’s vague and, more often than not, ineffective because clients don’t know what will happen after they fill out a contact form.
Instead, consider one of the following CTAs:
- Transitional CTA. A transitional CTA provides prospects with a piece of valuable information that helps them become a smarter buyer, establishes empathy and communicates your authority. This is useful for prospects who aren’t fully ready to engage with your firm but are looking for more information about the services you provide. A transitional CTA can be a value-added PDF, a checklist or a case study highlighting how your services helped solve another client’s problem. The value of the content must be high enough to convince prospects to provide their contact information in exchange for getting it.
- Direct CTA. A direct CTA is the one step you really want prospects to take to begin working with you. Usually, it can be the first step of your three-step process, such as a button that says “Schedule a discovery call.” Repeat your direct CTA two or three times on every page of your website and in every marketing email or blog post.
People love clarity, so make it clear what action you want them to take, and you’ll start converting visitors and readers into leads.
Developing a marketing strategy and messaging is more complex than many people realize. Once you understand human behavior and why people make buying decisions, you’ll see examples of firms going about it the wrong way everywhere you look.
The next time you update your firm’s website, write a blog post or email or post on social media, use this article as a checklist to ensure your message is as effective as possible. I believe you’ll see better results from all your marketing efforts.
