Sum of Its Parts
Sum of Its Parts
By Kelly O'Brien
I just spent a week at the beach with my
family and, as much as I vowed not to think
about work, stumbled onto a highly relevant
lesson for marketing professional services.
It was actually my mother who inspired this
lesson, thanks to the following beachy quote
she had on the refrigerator:
"Saltwater taffy, for example, does not taste
good. Seagulls are not pleasant birds. Most
people look better in clothes – a lot of
clothes. But it works. The beach is the ultimate
triumph in setting." –from the article, Sea and Be
Seen
What does this have to do with marketing
professional services? A lot. Just like saltwater
taffy, seagulls, and under clothed people,
any one thing done in isolation to market your
professional services won’t work.
When you take the sum of its parts, marketing
works.
Let’s take an easy example: networking.
Done in a vacuum, networking is just a "part."
Without ways to sustain a new contact’s
attention, build their trust, or keep in touch –
the other "parts" of your whole – you spend
far more time and energy drumming up
business than if you had other aspects of your
marketing "machine" doing a lot of the work
for you.
Let’s get specific. The biggest mistake I see is
when people go out, network (or make cold
calls, or send direct mail pieces), is that they
simultaneously scare prospects off with an
anemic poorly-messaged website, no value-
adding resources to build your prospect’s
confidence, and new contacts that vanish
into thin air because there’s no systematic
way to stay in front of them that’s affordable
and effective.
The same "in isolation" principle applies to
other marketing "parts."
* If you invest in telemarketing, but send
new leads to a lousy website (even if you
don’t send them there, they’ll look you
up), you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
* If you’re a master at churning out brilliant
weekly e-newsletters, but haven’t
"packaged" your services into a range of
ways potential clients can buy from you,
you’re missing the point of using an e-zine
as a smart promotional tool.
* If you go to all of the time and effort to
get booked as a speaker, then run
around preparing for and delivering your
talks, you’ll get nothing but a nice ego
boost and applause unless you target the
right audiences and hit them with "What
in it for Me?" messages.
All of that time, money and energy
wasted…but not if you pay attention to the
sum of your parts!
To avoid wasting your resources and to make
the most of your individual marketing efforts,
make sure you have all of these parts working
together:
* Positioning that sets you apart from others
offering a similar service. From your target
audiences’ perspective, what makes you
different? Why should they choose you?
* Packaging in the form of a value-packed
website that you can send new contacts to,
demonstrating your value (again, through their
eyes) and building their confidence in you as a
good solution to their problem.
* Promotion: An easy way to keep-in-touch
with contacts and prospects, even if you’re
using other high-touch tactics, such as follow-
up calls and meetings. The point is that not
every new contact is a ready-buyer when you
first meet. You need to stay on their radar, at
least monthly, so that when they’re ready to
buy, you’re there. A monthly e-newsletter or e-
zine is the perfect vehicle.
* Persuasion: You’ve got to turn contacts into
prospects, prospects into clients, clients into
referrers, and so on. Simply setting up sales
calls and writing proposals won’t do it, though.
As any successful sales person knows, there are
many moving "parts" to master. You’ve got to
know who the decision makers are, what
they’re willing to spend, how buying decisions
get made, how to stay in control of the selling
conversation, and how to ask for referrals, to
name a few.
* Performance is the one "part" most of us in
professional services rely on most – it’s how we
get referrals and maintain (or tarnish) our
reputation in the marketplace. It’s the
marketing part that keeps me on my toes the
most, above any other marketing challenge I
take on, including writing this e-newsletter,
upgrading my website, closing a sale, or giving
a public talk. Why? Because it’s all about
managing and exceeding client expectations,
two very tricky "parts" to master. If this doesn’t
ring a bell with you, then take this quick quiz to
find out what it really takes to master
Performance:
http://www.turningpointemarketing.com/Is_This_For_You.html
In isolation, I’m definitely not a fan of
saltwater taffy, seagulls or bathing suits. But in
the right setting and working all together,
they’re part of the most effective vacation I
can think of. The sum of its parts works. So too
can your marketing.
(c) 2004 TurningPointe Marketing, Inc. All rights reserved.
Marketing educator, Kelly O'Brien, is creator of the "Create a
TurningPointe!" Marketing Bootcamp. To learn more about this step-by-step
program, and to sign up for FREE how-to articles and 20-page marketing
guide, visit http://www.turningpointemarketing.com
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