June 8, 2015 | less than a minute read

Professional Services Marketing Challenges 2015

Passle

Senlin Zhang has released the results of his survey into professional services and solutions marketing: brand, business development, and client relationship.

While the pool of respondents is rather small (23), the results are still an interesting read, outlining the top challenges for instance:

Lack of dedication to business development
Leads not properly nurtured
Marketing strategy not aligned with business objectives
Competence gaps in the current team
Uncoordinated business development efforts

The most effective marketing tools reported are: Client seminars and workshops Speaking engagements Social media Thought leadership literature CEO receptions Out of the five, three are expertise-centric tools, and this is consistent with the importance of building an expert brand image in the universe of professional services and solution providers. Having taken the third place, social media has become more important as a channel for reaching out to target audiences and keeping them around the brand. Who could ignore it in this age, after all. CEO receptions, interestingly, sits at the fifth place, remarking the importance of access to executive sponsors at the client side, and this is particularly true to providers of big-ticket services and solutions.