Are You Wasting Your Money on Marketing?

Source: Crosley+Company

In this article, Gale Crosley asks: “Why waste time and energy on stale tactics when you can strategically select and implement ideas that work?”

Here are some of those stale tactics:

• Firms love to host generic meetings with bankers and lawyers. There are typically no results from these.
• A firm sends out letters to promote a specific service—audits of benefit plans. There is no response and no follow-up.
• A firm creates an elaborate brochure that positions it as a cut above others but does not offer a specific reason for companies to contact it.
• Some firms do research to learn how the market perceives them. They may learn that people see them as reliable and capable. They are not distinguished from their competition, but they take no action.

Here are some ideas that work:

• Write articles. If you can’t write well, hire a professional writer. Use articles as follows:
  • Include them in your newsletters.
  • Put them on your Web site.
  • Send them as follow-ups after presentations to prospects.
  • Later on, after you have demonstrated your articles have value, you can start approaching print media to publish them.
• Target a niche market. You can do this through partnership with an association or a competitor.
• Find prospects with whom you feel comfortable. With Gale Crosley’s help, one CPA learned he liked working with industrial designers. He began attending their conferences, reading about the niche and writing articles for their publications. Not only is his practice growing, but he feels comfortable with these clients, enjoys meeting them, and now loves his work.

For the complete article, click here.

From Crosley+Company, The Business Discipline of Practice Growth, Issue No. 45, Waste Not, Want Not—Is What You Call Marketing Really a Colossal Waste? www.crosleycompany.com.