Tips for Improving Your Marketing

Source: Partner Insights

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article by August Aquila.

Let me share with you the 21 things that I believe will have the biggest long-term impact on your firm. There is no reason you and your partners should not be doing them on a daily basis.

1. Have a face-to-face meeting with at least two to three clients every week.
2. Limit your referral sources to those who actually give you at least one referral per year.
3. Attend at least two business luncheons every month.
4. Use some type of client satisfaction survey.
5. Teach a business start-up course at an adult education program.
6. Join trade and professional associations.
7. Budget your marketing time just like any other client engagement.
8. Get known by the local business press.
9. Listen to your own voice mail.
10. Train your receptionists and secretaries to be helpful.
11. Update your stationery and your business cards.
12. Communicate at least quarterly with your clients.
13. Learn how to sell benefits. Remember what clients are really buying: Peace of mind, improved profitability, etc.
14. Become a famous person. Why should clients look to you to help them improve their business?
15. Use a relationship database.
16. Ask clients and referral sources for help. Let them know you are looking for new clients and would appreciate getting a name or two from them.
17. Keep your eye on the ball. If you try to be too many different things you will not be as effective as you could be.
18. Find yourself a niche.
19. Build relationships.
20. Fire clients that you don't like working with.
21. Market through seminars.

For the complete article, read “21 Basic Marketing Activities to Take to the Bank.”

From Partner Insights, February 2013, Aquila Global Advisors, LLC, http://www.aquilaadvisors.com.