Marketing Strategies That Put You in the Driver's Seat

Source: Services Marketing Blog

In this blog post, Mike Schultz and John Doerr discuss a concept professional service firms often overlook: The distinction between demand driven and demand driving services. Demand driven services -- such as those of a litigation attorney -- are services that clients don't purchase until a need arises.

Demand driving services enable you to create opportunities and influence clients to purchase services that aren't even on their radar screens. For example, you might offer to analyze a company's telephone and Internet spending and renegotiate its contracts with vendors in exchange for a percentage of the savings.

The key to marketing demand driven services is to position your firm so that potential clients consider you when a need arises. The authors suggest the use of "RAMP" to guide your marketing efforts so that potential clients:

• Recognize your firm,
• Articulate what you do, and how you help people like them solve problems like theirs,
• Memorize you so you have top of mind awareness (TOMA) at the elusive time of need (ETON), and
• Prefer to get help from you versus other sources.

For the complete blog entry, click here.

From Services Marketing Blog, by Mike Schultz, Wellesley Hills Group, www.servicesmarketingblog.com, March 22, 2010, "Who Drives the Demand -- A Critical Concept in Services Marketing Strategy."