While the B2B community still thrives on word-of-mouth referrals for winning new business, prospective clients – even in the most traditional industries – have learned to turn to digital channels first when they’re looking for someone to solve their problem. Digital channels give open, unobstructed access to what buyers of B2B services prioritize most when judging your fit for their needs – your expertise. This is echoed in our own research. In Hinge Research Institute’s  2023 survey of the marketing practices and priorities of high-growth professional services firms, we found that high-growth firms prioritize making their expertise more visible, and they do it through valuable, educational content.

Why the uber focus on content? Isn’t there enough noise out there, where every firm has a blog and posts on social media? While the digital universe allows us to fake many things, you can’t easily fake expertise. You can certainly try. Just because you have a blog however doesn’t mean your blog is informative. Herein lies the primary set of reasons for why B2B content marketing strategies can fail.

What is a B2B Content Marketing Strategy?

Before I get to those reasons, let me put some definition around what I’m talking about.  A B2B content marketing strategy is an online strategy that elevates thought leadership – the written manifestation of a firm’s expertise – through the routine publication of free, valuable, educational content. This type of educational content is then used to attract new leads, nurture existing leads, and build preference for the firm.

However, content marketing is only as valuable as it is on par with topics that are relevant to a firm’s target clients. When a firm develops content that resonates with what audiences are grappling with most – content that is tightly tied to the challenge that woke the target decision maker up at 4 in the morning, it accomplishes three things:

1. Demonstrates a deep understanding of issues its prospects care about
2. Engages its audience
3. Builds trust

The more often a firm produces relevant content, the more engagement it creates, and the more trusted it becomes. In many cases, leads that are nurtured through content marketing become “converts” to a particular firm’s approach or way of thinking. Sometimes they will even hire a firm they have been following without soliciting competitive bids.

Bottom line: educational content is the new currency of the professional services marketplace. Content marketing is the strategy that turns that content into profits.

When content marketing fails

If content marketing is associated with all things good: profitable, results-oriented marketing that carries a relatively lower level of effort than some traditional marketing, client loyalty and so on, why aren’t more firms on board? Because it’s also associated with a high rate of failure – which in turn yields a high dose of skepticism about whether content marketing is a worthy investment.

With that, I’d like to point to 8 primary reasons that B2B content marketing strategies fail.

1. Content that isn’t relevant to the target audience

The most foundational reason that content fails is when it’s not important or relevant to the target audience. Content won’t perform in the way I described above when it’s written only in the context of what you know and what’s important to you. It’s only when you produce content that intersects what you know with your clients’ key priorities that it can be truly relevant.

A second guiding principle around producing relevant content is discipline. Writing about everything you know won’t cut it either. Rather, think from your audience’s perspective. They’re trying to figure out what you’re an expert in. Just like listing 20 services and even more sub-services in the navigation of your website produces a suboptimal and confusing user experience, when you produce thought leadership about everything under the sun that relates to those multiple services, prospective clients are left wondering, “what does this firm really do?”

Instead, keep a visual in your head much like the figure below. Think about the couple of services that are really critical to your firm’s growth, intersected with the challenges and problems that keep your prospective clients up at night. This exercise will help you uncover some finite set of issues around which you should then produce your thought leadership.

Here are several criteria to consider when choosing your topics:

• Relevance to your customer and your services
• Aim for issues where there is lack of consensus on the solution
• Write on topics that are not likely to go away in the short-term
• Avoid issues that are already “owned” by a competing firm

2. Content that is more promotional than educational in nature

How many times have you come across a firm’s blog, only to find it full of posts about the new office move, latest hires, or direct plugs for their services? To be sure, there is a place and time for all of that promotional content. But buyers of professional services don’t want to be sold or marketed to until they’re ready – so if that’s all they have access to as they come across your firm for the first time, you’re not likely to hear from them again. On the other hand, if in that first impression you wow them with expertise that potentially solves their problems, the experience is game changing.

Absent of educational, relevant thought leadership, a content marketing strategy really isn’t a strategy at all – it’s just a big promotional brochure. By creating a content strategy focused on sharing expertise (as opposed to selling product), you’re encouraging prospective clients to enter into your sales and BD funnel where you can continue to share that expertise and ultimately build enough trust that you turn them into a client.

3. Content that doesn’t take into account how your customer wants to learn.

Speaking of a funnel, winning new business is about creating a journey for prospective clients to follow as they learn about your organization. The challenge to marketers is to know where prospective clients are on their journey. There is no one point of entry, nor is there a singular journey that fits all of your prospective clients.

This is why content strategies done right are so valuable – they are the atomic particles of all your digital marketing efforts. Take a look at the funnel below. Educational thought leadership flows in, across, and throughout the entire sales funnel. It’s the shiny rock that attracts the attention of those who’ve never heard of you, and the glue that keeps them along for the ride, convincing them you’re the solution to their problems.

A key component to consider in your content marketing strategy is research. It is well known that research can help marketing, business development, and senior management teams develop more informed plans and strategies, it can also be used as the foundation for many premium pieces of content to generate more visibility, trust, engagement, and best of all, leads. Research studies, either custom, commissioned studies or data that has been licensed from other groups, can be used throughout your sales and marketing funnel. One single research study has the capability to be broken down into countless pieces and can be shared alongside nearly any other message you broadcast within your strategy.

4. Content that exists only on your website.

For an effective content marketing strategy, you need to do more than just post your content on your website. At minimum, social media channels where your audience is networking should be a home for your articles and blogs. This is important because, according to our research, your buyers check you out on social media as they’re learning about you as a fit for their organization. The more you promote your content via social media, the more prospective clients and referral sources will see it — and over time, come to recognize your organization for its quality content and expertise.

You should also consider pursuing publishing opportunities in digital publications your audiences read – or where your competitors are placed. Having someone else stand behind your expertise goes a long way in convincing your audience that you are worth their time – not to mention the excellent contribution backlinks from published articles can make to your website’s domain authority.

5. Content that customers can’t easily find.

Even the most thoughtfully written and produced content will fail if prospective clients never find it. Therefore, before you produce the actual content, do some research about which keyword phrases mirror your audience’s search activity. By using those keywords in your content’s headlines and body copy, the content will appear higher in their searches.

Remember that when deciding on which keyword phrases to use, you should find ones that are relevant to the topic, and that your organization can rank for. (If you’re new to the process and strategy of selecting keyword phrases, you may want to check out this article.)

6. Content that is random or ad hoc.

One of the biggest transgressors of a B2B content marketing strategy is the randomness with which content gets written. To borrow from the first reason I stated above, you should avoid filling your content funnel with all that you know or even all that you love. Even if Tom is super passionate about topic X, Tom shouldn’t spend company time writing about topic X unless it fits in strategically in the intersection of what your audience cares about and your organization’s growth priorities.

One very practical way to maintain discipline around your strategy is to build an editorial or content marketing calendar. Sounds simple, but not everyone takes this step. Organize thought leadership titles around that finite number of issues you should be known for (again, think about the Venn diagram above), and match those well-researched keywords that you want to – and can be – found for. By creating and adhering to a content calendar, you’ll help your content writers focus their energies strategically.

7. Content that’s inconsistent.

Consistency is vital to credibility, so be sure to develop content standards and styles that you can live with, and then enforce them as new content is created, no matter who in your organization creates it. The content calendar I just mentioned is a big part of helping your firm avoid the “set it and forget it” syndrome.

We commonly get asked the question around how much content needs to be produced. The right rhythm and cadence for your firm will be so dependent on your resources as well as how aggressively you need to track to greater growth and visibility. If you are just starting out, twice a month isn’t awful. On the other hand, if you find the competitive landscape to be formidable, or you are desperately trying to unveil your firm from the cloak of invisibility, you’ll need to produce content more frequently. There is no magic number. The final point I make below on consistently measuring and tracking will help you understand how your audience is receiving your content, which in turn will help you determine the right cadence.

8. Content that’s not being measured.

Finally, content marketing strategies are vulnerable to failure when firms have no measurement of their performance. The figure below illustrates the virtuous cycle of content marketing, in which you continually test your content, measure how it’s performing, learn from what works, and then factor those lessons into the next round of content.

A continuous improvement model for content creation

A common challenge is understanding which metrics to track. We recommend that you monitor several types of metrics.

• Visibility metrics — These will help you gauge how visible you are to your target audience. Common visibility metrics include total website traffic (web traffic rises with increased visibility), social media traffic and attendance at events.
• Expertise metrics — These tell you if your audience is exposed to your thought leadership content (i.e., are you successfully demonstrating your expertise?). Common expertise metrics include blog views, downloads of your premium content, guest posts, webinar attendees and attendance at speaking events.
• Impact metrics— These can include raw (not yet qualified) leads or inquiries, “sales-ready” opportunities and actual proposals submitted. Your firm may describe these stages differently. It does not matter how you define your lead stages as long as you are consistent and capture the full new-business cycle. You’ll also want to track wins, losses, and even higher level metrics such as monthly revenue so that you keep a pulse on how your content strategy is (or isn’t) contributing to the bottom line.

What type of content should be in my B2B content marketing strategy?

We find the most effective approach to content marketing is to provide a wealth of freely available material—no commitment, no registration, no cost. Most of this material will be short-format pieces, such as blog posts and articles.

So how do you get started? What kinds of content can you create?

For most firms, blogging is the easiest and most productive way to get started. Because blog posts can be any length and less polished than, say, a magazine article, they can be produced and published quickly. If commenting is enabled, blog posts also provide a great way to interact with your audience.

But blogs only scratch the surface. Here are some other important content marketing vehicles to consider as you retool your marketing plan:

• Webinars. By themselves, webinars offer a good way to demonstrate your firm’s expertise, educate your audience and cultivate interested leads. If you record your webinars, they can be added to your library of content so that web visitors can view them at any time.
• Articles and white papers. Perhaps the most familiar form of thought leadership, these medium-length pieces are still valuable. Unfortunately, they have a reputation for being dry. So do your best to make them an easy read.
• Social media. Social media, especially LinkedIn and Twitter, can be important channels to speak directly to your audience, answer questions and promote your educational material.
• E-newsletters. Many people prefer to receive educational content by email inbox. In return, you get their email address and the ability to expose them to more of your expert material.
• Ebooks. For the ultimate credibility boost, publish an in-depth study of a topic. Usually, you will want to put something this valuable behind a short registration form.
• Kits and guides. These medium-length pieces make terrific offers on your website, in pay-per-click ads and in email marketing campaigns. Put them behind a registration form so that you can collect leads.

There are many other formats you can use to package information, but these are some of the most popular and most effective.

At Hinge, we freely distribute our research studies, which is arguably the most valuable content we produce. We do so to generate valuable buzz and inbound links. We recommend such longer pieces require registration. That way the reader trades some basic contact information (sometimes little more than their name and email address) for the piece. The reader gets valuable information and you build your list of leads. A fair trade.

Conclusion

Every client, prospective client, and referral source has specific topics they’re interested in and want to learn more about. As they search for answers, they are also looking to find trusted, accessible sources of that information. Creating relevant content addresses this need, and can also help clients vet you as a potential vendor. Still questioning the role of valuable content? Our research shows that even with a referral, 23.5% of prospective clients rule out firms simply because of poor quality content. And, by avoiding these common pitfalls as you’re developing content marketing strategy, your organization can improve how it meets your prospective clients’ need for information on essential topics. More importantly, you will also convey a level of expertise and accessibility that will make them want to do business with you in the future. Best of luck on your journey!

The post Why do B2B Content Marketing Strategies Fail? appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

Unfortunately, more than 90% of that information is now presented to webmasters as simply “(not provided).” So what are webmasters and SEOs to do in this age of unknown and incomplete data?

The good news is that search engines are much smarter than they used to be and are able to understand the intent of what a user is searching for, without having to use “exact-match” search results. Because of this, content publishers can focus more on the experience of their readers as opposed to stuffing keywords in content in order to be found in search engines.

That being said, utilizing proper keywords on your website and in your content is still extremely important and can still be useful in achieving greater search engine visibility.

Let’s explore some methods that are still available to webmasters, SEOs, and online marketers that can be extremely helpful in identifying the best keywords for optimizing content.

1. Google Auto-Populate

While you might be thinking how difficult Google is making your life by not providing valuable keyword data, there are still features such as Google’s auto-populate function that can help searchers complete their thoughts while at the same time providing valuable keywords to webmasters. Searchers will often start by typing in a particular query only to end up choosing what Google auto-populates in the search box.

This is the best place to start your research, as you will most likely want to find out what kind of content already exists about the topic you are crafting content around. This is also a useful method for identifying long-tail keyword phrases that may be more difficult to identify in keyword planner tools. Who better to give you suggestions about keyword opportunities than Google?

2. Google Related Searches

Similar to the auto-populate function, Google provides “related searches” at the bottom of most SERPs or “search engine results pages.” This should also be one of the first things you look at when starting keyword research.

Don’t be afraid to search for multiple variations of keywords and keyword phrases. This is also a helpful exercise to start understanding how the search engine is thinking about certain words and what words are being associated with one another.

3. Google Ads Keyword Planner

The Google Ads Keyword Planner is where most webmasters start their more in-depth research. You can start by searching for a new keyword of your choice.

You will then be presented with the average monthly searches, competition, and suggested bid for the keyword you typed in as well as other suggested keywords and phrases. The number of alternative options usually depends on the popularity of the subject.

For example, you will see far more alternative suggestions for “keyword research” than you will for “cogeneration plant engineering.”

Unless you are putting together a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, the only truly useful information presented here are the suggestions and the average monthly searches. The competition is only broken down by low, medium, or high and is most times not a reliable metric for determining how difficult it will be to rank for a particular keyword. Instead, I would recommend Moz’s keyword difficulty and analysis tool for this.

4. Google Search Console

There is a place where the true webmasters live: Google Search Console. This is where you find the top queries that are being searched for as well as the top web pages that are being found via search.

You can find the top queries that have driven traffic to your site over specific periods of time with this tool. You can also see the content that has driven the most traffic to your site over the same amount of time.

5. Google Trends

Google Trends can be useful in choosing the correct variation of a particular keyword. This tool will display the overall “interest over time” of a keyword and also includes a forecast for certain terms.

Interest over time is represented as a number between 0-100 at certain points over time. It reflects how many searches have been done for a particular term relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They don’t represent absolute search volume numbers.

Below is a comparison between the terms “search engine optimization” (blue), “search engine marketing” (red), and “content marketing” (yellow). Notice that “content marketing” has been a more a popular search term than “search engine marketing”.

6. Google Analytics

While most of the keyword data found in the organic section of Google Analytics is labeled as (not provided), there is a section under “Acquisition” that contains your Search Console data if you have linked up both platforms.

It is located under “Search Console” → “Queries.” This information is similar to what you will find in Search Console.

Even with Google hiding most of its keyword data in Google Analytics, there are still many resources that Google offers (for free) that can be extremely useful for webmasters and SEOs to identify relevant keywords for optimizing their content.

Start by using these tools to help identify useful topics and keywords, then create and share great content that appeals to your audience. Remember, if your content is not useful and shareable, it doesn’t matter how many keywords you can identify. The goal, above all else, is to drive traffic to your content and have others naturally share and link to your content.

The post How to Find the Best Keywords for Optimizing Your Website Content appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

Yet we all know that we should do more. They can be an important part of your content marketing strategy. If done well, they can attract new prospects and help close more business.

Here are some of our favorite tips to make the process easier and much more effective.

1. Involve the client very early.

Some clients will shy away from participating and others have firm policies against them. But for many clients, being considered as a case story will be a strong positive.

They can look forward to special treatment and the possibility of increased visibility. This not only helps you gain cooperation, but it also encourages you to collect helpful information about the “before” situation.

2. Identify the client.

This is a huge credibility booster and should be done if at all possible. Yes, there are some circumstances where you cannot for ethical or legal reasons. But for many situations it is possible. And when you can, it is very helpful.

3. Use a quote.

Getting a direct quote from the client is another great way to add believability and credibility to your case story.

Also consider including a quote from the professional in your firm that worked on the client’s project. This helps make the case study seem more tangible and easier to identify with. 

4. Include keywords in the title and body copy.

Conduct keyword analysis of your case story’s topic and include them when you are writing. This will help search engines find the case story and spread the word. Include your identified keyword or keyword phrase both in the title of the case story and 2-3 times in the copy.

Some common keywords include the name of the client’s company and the nature of the service you provided. 

5. Tell a story.

Good stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. They also have a struggle against the odds and a turning point. If it is too easy, there is no tension or suspense. Will it work or not?

While we are not suggesting turning your case stories into literature, a little bit of old-fashion story telling will go a long ways toward increasing reader interest and engagement.

Explain the client’s challenges and why your professional services firm was the right fit for their needs. Describe how you helped the client and try to paint a clear picture of what it’s like to work with your firm. And most importantly, show results and that you were able to deliver on your promises.

6. Use numbers.

Numbers add credibility in a way words just can’t. They can be useful in describing the magnitude of a challenge, the process you used and, of course, the results you achieved. Don’t be concerned if you don’t have perfect documentation. Even a few numbers help.

7. Use imagery.

Often overlooked, this is a great way to communicate a setting or give you a quick feel for a client. While most professional services do not easily lend themselves to a picture of the service (try photographing an audit or a computer program), there are other alternatives.

How about a picture of the client’s facility or their product? Think broader and you will find interesting visual content to spice up your case story.

8. Avoid jargon.

Have mercy on your readers and avoid industry jargon and acronyms. A surprising number of readers will not understand what you are trying to communicate.

Assume you are writing a case story for your aunt to read and you won’t be far off. The key here is to lay the situation out simply and to make your success easy to understand for any reader. Make your case stories easy to skim. Use short sentences, descriptive headings and bullet points.

9. Use video.

This is an increasingly common approach to telling a professional services case story. A professionally produced video can communicate a client’s experience and enthusiasm in a way that words alone cannot.

Video is especially appropriate if you have a high profile client who is excited about your service.

10. Get professional help.

You do not have to do it all alone. Using a professional to write a case story or edit a draft you have written can be a very smart move.

Given the obvious role that case stories can play in your content marketing campaign, it’s essential to get it right. For many firms, a single new client pays for all the case studies you’ll need to write. 

Writing a case story doesn’t have to be so painful. By using some of the tips we’ve outlined here, it can actually be interesting—and very profitable for your firm.

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The post Top 10 Tips For Writing A Case Story appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

While that may sound like a trick question, recent research has produced tangible, practical answers that can help firms make smarter marketing decisions. And a notable theme of these findings is that every professional services firm needs a digital content strategy to address the way modern buyers look for professional advice and services. 

Many traditional, “tried-and-true” marketing techniques (think sponsorships, face-to-face networking events, print advertising, trade shows) no longer generate sufficient results to sustain a growing practice. Even firms that embrace online marketing often do it wrong, wasting precious time and money.

So how should you market your firm? And where should you be spending your marketing budget?

Before we can tackle those questions, we need to understand how buyers behave in today’s market.

A Marketplace in Transition

The way people find and select professional services is changing quickly. And this transition has real implications on how firms like yours should approach marketing. 

For instance, today’s service buyers ask for referrals less often than in the past. In fact, referrals grew only 9% in the last two years when they had previously dropped 16% over the previous five year period. This means that the almighty referral—the holy grail of business development for so many decades—is starting to lose its primacy as the business world evolves. 

Today’s buyers also say they value professional services 33% more. However, the relevancy of these services has dropped by more than 10.5% since 2020. (Data from the Inside the Buyer’s Brain, Fourth Edition research report.)

What’s going on?

As a younger, more tech-comfortable generation moves into companies’ buyer and influencer roles, they bring different behaviors and expectations with them. Accustomed to using Google and social media tools at home, they arrive in the workplace expecting to find valuable, free advice online, as well as an array of easy-to-find buying options. They also use these tools to vet their buying options—reviewing potential vendors’ websites and asking peers in social media for their opinions and experiences. 

The data shows that buyers are increasingly searching online for business-related insights and help—and they do so at a higher rate than just a year before. As digital tools get even better at meeting buyers’ expectations, these trends are likely to continue into the future.

To address changing buyer behavior, firms need to adopt a thoughtful digital content strategy—one that reaches these tech-savvy people at every stage of their buyer journey.

But what exactly do we mean by “digital content strategy”?

What is a Digital Content Marketing Strategy?

A digital content marketing strategy is a plan that helps a business create and distribute digital content to reach new audiences, build greater credibility, generate more leads and achieve its overall strategic marketing objectives. This plan connects firms with the increasing number of potential buyers who are using digital tools and looking online to solve their business challenges. Often, it is part of a larger content marketing strategy, which also includes non-digital tactics, such as public speaking and writing books. 

Digital content can take a wide range of guises, such as blog posts, online articles, webinars, educational videos, online tutorials, courses and podcasts. Because content can be time-consuming to produce, many strategies include only a subset of these options.

A digital content strategy, however, is more than a collection of content pieces. A strategy also dictates what topics the pieces will address, how often they are produced, how they are exposed to the appropriate audiences and how each piece of content can potentially convert the consumer into a business lead.

Why is Digital Content Important?

Today’s buyers are increasingly going online to find their next professional services partner. While in some cases this means they searched online for their problem and Google returned a list of possible vendors, more often than not the path from problem to problem solved is longer and less direct. 

A professional services sale can take months or years to develop. When businesses have less urgent problems, they tend to allocate fewer resources to them—often going online to research the problem and potential solutions. In the process, they encounter websites, blogs and free educational materials that put their problem in context and describe various solutions. Some consumers will find a source of expertise they trust so much that they return again and again for more information and advice. This behavior is the reason a digital content strategy is so effective.

Over time, these returning consumers (we use the word “consumers” rather than “readers” because the content they consume could be text, video or audio) begin to rely on and trust their information source. When the business challenge eventually becomes urgent, one firm will jump immediately to their mind—the firm they have been following for months or years.

Studies by the Hinge Research Institute have shown that the most successful firms usually use a mix of digital and traditional tools in their marketing strategies. Increasingly, however, this mix favors digital techniques. Figure 1 shows that many of the most common traditional marketing techniques have digital equivalents. 

Figure 1. Digital tactics (green) often have traditional marketing counterparts (blue)

High-performing firms are moving toward digital because they understand their buyers. Today, almost 70 percent of buyers say they use digital channels to research their business problems (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Likelihood buyers will use digital or traditional channels to research a business challenge

And they are using digital at similar proportions to evaluate professional services firms so they can make informed decisions (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Likelihood buyers will use digital or traditional channels to evaluate service providers

The implications of these data are huge. An overwhelming percentage of professional services buyers are using digital channels and tools to find their vendor candidates, then using digital tools again to evaluate them. If your firm isn’t visible in these channels—and you aren’t delivering messaging that buyers want to hear—you are going to be at a severe competitive disadvantage.

Digital is the marketing medium of today and tomorrow. Established firms that think nothing has changed are in for a rude shock.

Now, you may be wondering what goes into a digital content strategy? And how do you create one? That’s what we’ll dive into next.

Components of a Digital Content Strategy

Define Your Business Goals

Every business strategy has to start with your goals, and your digital content strategy is no different. And if you don’t have clear goals today, you should ask yourself what you would like to change about your business. Here are a few questions to get you started:

• Do we need more quality leads? 
• Do we want to expand our reach into new geographic markets? Or do we want to build market share in our local area? 
• Is our reputation in need of a boost?
• Do we hope to move away from commodity pricing and charge premium fees for our services? 
• Do we want to evolve our business and become known for a different set of services?
• Are we trying to grow our business? Or do we focus on raising our margins?

Whatever your business goals are, you can use them to orient your strategy and help you decide if a particular decision, technique or tool is going to take you closer to your destination. With these goals in your sights, you’ll also have a better sense of what metrics and outcomes you will need to monitor.

Research Your Audience

To deliver an effective digital content strategy, you’ll need to produce content that your prospective clients actually care about. And aside from mindreading, there is only one reliable way to get inside their heads: conducting research on your audience.

At Hinge, we’ve learned that most firms have little real knowledge of their clients’ changing needs. By conducting research, however, they can learn what issues are important today, what clients are worrying about in the near future and what services they wish you offered. 

Now, not all research is alike. You will need to decide up front what type of research you will conduct to get useful insights. To understand your audience, we would recommend only two types of research:

1. Surveys. The king of quantitative market research. While the paper survey isn’t quite dead, most surveys today are conducted online. Online survey platforms give you the ability to branch your questions depending on how a subject responds, randomize the order of questions, send automated invitations and reminders, and other useful tools. 
2. Interviews. Live interviews are the gold standard of qualitative research for a good reason: they give the interviewer the latitude to ask follow up questions and dig deeper when there is more to learn. Interviewees tend to give more detailed and nuanced answers than they would in a standard text-based survey. While you could conduct interviews in person, it is far more practical to do them by phone (or video conference). 

If you can afford to go the interview route, we encourage you to do so. While more expensive than online surveys, personal interviews generate the highest quality information. But surveys can produce a wealth of useful data, too. For the best of both worlds, use both techniques—you can reach a large sample and extract deep qualitative insights.

Who should you research?

Who should you be talking to in the course of your research? Consider reaching out to these three key audiences:

1. Current clients. Within this group, think about what roles, industries or other segments you need to hear from.
2. Influencers. These are the folks who have critical input into the final selection decision but are not the final decision makers.
3. Referral Sources. These are people who recommend firms to prospective buyers. Keep in mind that they may work in a different industry from your clients (for instance, lawyers often recommend accountants to their clients, and vice versa).

Who should conduct the research?

While you may be tempted to reduce costs by conducting the research yourself, there are good reasons to hire an outside firm or professional researcher to do it for you. First, your clients don’t want to hurt your feelings, so they may be less than honest with you or try to tell you what they think you want to hear. Second, you probably don’t have the skills to get the most from your research. A skilled interviewer can coax a surprising amount of valuable information from a subject, and she knows how to probe for deeper insights when necessary. And third, it takes skill to design a statistically valid questionnaire and make sense of all the data you collect. It is very easy to generate misleading results.

What questions should you ask?

You may decide to cover a range of topics in your research, but there are a few specific topics you should include in your questionnaire:

• What challenges are your clients facing today? And what worries them about the future?
• When they need business-related information, where do they turn? What do they read? What do they watch? What events do they attend?
• What do they look for in a service provider? How do they choose one over another?

Identify the Issues You’ll Own

Producing high-quality content is hard, and you can’t afford to waste your precious time. Instead, you need a strategy to help you decide what to write about. The first place you should look for guidance is your audience research. If you’ve done it right, it should point you toward issues and challenges that interest your target audiences. 

We usually recommend that firms identify two to five big issues that they will write and speak about. The issues can’t be so broad that they lack a focus, but they can’t be so narrow that you will quickly run out of angles to explore, either. If some of your issues—or your take on them—are unconventional or controversial, so much the better. If possible, try to find subjects that aren’t already getting a lot of coverage so that your voice has a chance to be heard. And remember, your issues don’t have to be evergreen. For instance, you may decide to write for a few months on an emerging industry challenge. Once the challenge is resolved or fades from public view, you may decide to move on to other issues.

Here are a few sample issues:

For an architecture firm:

• New Trends in Higher Education Design

For a staffing firm:

• Attracting Top Executive Talent in a Contracting Job Market

For a management consulting firm:

• What Executives Can Learn from the Coronavirus

For an engineering firm:

• Engineering Against Catastrophe

These issues provide plenty of room for a firm to produce dozens of blog posts, articles, and webinars under each. At the same time, they are compact enough ideas that it would be easy for a person to associate them with a specific firm: “Oh, they are the experts in engineering buildings that can withstand hurricanes and earthquakes.”

Dive into Keyword Research and SEO

One of the central tenets of any digital content strategy is making your content findable in online search. To accomplish this, you need at least a basic knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO). (If you are interested, you can find an excellent SEO primer at Moz.) And you need to research a list of SEO keywords that relate to your expert issues (see previous section). You will use them to develop specific topics under each of your issues. In other words, you need to develop your content first for your target audiences, but you need to do this with Google firmly in mind. You will incorporate your keywords (or variations) into your blog post titles, for example, and use them in the body of your text. While keywords are only a small part of SEO, they are a critical component that directly influences what you write and talk about.

Decide How to Package Your Content

As I mentioned earlier, you can produce content in a wide range of formats. But which ones will be right for you? Content falls into two broad categories, and to attract new people and convert them into leads, you will need to address both of them:

1. Flow Content: Short, frequently published content (such as blog posts) is used to attract regular, ongoing traffic to your website. It is open to everyone.
2. Premium Content: More substantive, higher-value downloadable content (such as executive guides or research reports) is used to generate leads. This type of content is usually free but requires a form fill to access it.

Here is a list of some of the more popular content types. Note that some can fall into either content category, depending on their perceived value and how they are positioned.

Flow Content

• Blog Posts
• Webinars
• Podcasts
• eNewsletters
• Tutorials
• Videos

Premium Content

• Executive Guides
• Webinars
• Ebooks
• Research Reports
• White Papers
• Demos
• Videos
• Courses
• Tutorials

At the very least, you will need a blog and one piece of valuable content. That gives you a place to publish your flow content (blog posts) and a piece of premium content you can use to convert your most interested readers into leads (responding to an offer in your blog posts, readers fill out a form to download the content). 

What you do with those leads depends on your strategy. Most firms will follow up with emails promoting other relevant content, encouraging the consumer to stay engaged and return again for more expert content.

Develop a Content Calendar

The most common reason content strategies fail is that people get distracted and never fully implement them. I won’t lie: a digital content strategy takes commitment. And one way to keep yourself honest and stay on track is to lay out a detailed calendar specifying what you will do on any given day. Planning this way allows you to set a rhythm, so you can get in the habit of developing content on certain days, carrying out promotion activities on others, et cetera. 

A calendar also allows you to plan in advance what topics you are going to write or speak about. If you are blogging, for instance, you can plug the exact titles of your blog posts into your calendar—when the time comes to write, you are ready to go.

At Hinge, we use an Excel spreadsheet for our content calendar, but you could use a digital calendar (or even a paper one!) if that’s more convenient for you. Whatever tool you use, don’t skip this critical step. You can only hold yourself accountable if you have a detailed plan to measure your progress against.

Promote Your Content

Once you have produced a piece of content, it’s important to share it with the world. If you employ SEO, you can do this passively—waiting for Google to index your post and—eventually—deliver readers. But you are likely to have more success if you actively promote it, as well. Here are a few ways you can do that:

Email Marketing. Promote your latest post or piece of premium content to your email list. If you don’t have an email list, your digital content strategy will help you build one. Here’s an email marketing guide to get you started.

Social Media. LinkedIn and Twitter are ideal tools to share your latest content with your followers. You can also publish content on the LinkedIn platform to reach new audiences. Check out this LinkedIn guide for more information.

Guest publishing. Look for opportunities to write for outside publications and blogs. Not only can you expose your ideas to new audiences, but you may be able to link back to content on your blog or website. These so-called “backlinks” can give your content a powerful boost in Google.

Measure Your Results

Every strategy should specify how you will measure success. Which metrics you track will depend on what goals and techniques you chose in your strategy. If you are seeking more leads, for instance, you’ll want to track qualified and unqualified leads. You may also track premium content downloads and contact form fills.

If you are trying to build visibility and reach, you might track organic web traffic over time, how many keywords you are ranking for, which keywords rank on the first page of Google, where new prospects are located, how many visitors you get to your blog and other visibility-related metrics.

Your team should review your metrics on a regular basis—weekly or monthly are common cadences. Don’t forget to monitor how closely your team has followed the content calendar. This kind of social pressure is often the best way to keep everyone motivated and on track.

If you notice any problems—a particular tactic isn’t generating acceptable results—don’t hesitate to try something else. That is the ultimate reason you measure your results, after all. No strategy should ever be set in stone.

What’s Your Next Move?

Buyers of professional services are moving quickly and inexorably toward a less personal but more convenient digital marketplace. For many firms, making this transition is difficult and painful—and an alarming number of firms have hardly begun. 

But a digital content strategy can open up myriad new opportunities, too. Firms can use educational content to demonstrate their expertise and build a significant national or international following without ever leaving their hometown. In some cases, prospects will hire a firm based solely on the reputation they cultivated through their content. That’s true power!

If your firm hasn’t yet taken the digital content plunge, there is no better time than now. People are hungry for expertise like yours. And by giving away some of it for free, you can build a loyal following that will bear fruit for years to come.

The post Digital Content Marketing Strategy for Today’s Professional Services Firm appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

In this post, we will review the role of digital marketing in professional services firms’ growth plans and suggest an approach to develop a winning digital strategy for your firm. Let’s start by reviewing some key concepts.

What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?

A digital marketing strategy is a plan for using digital marketing tools and techniques to achieve a firm’s strategic marketing objectives, such as brand building or new business development. Digital marketing strategy is often a part of an overall strategic marketing plan that incorporates both digital and traditional (offline) approaches. Common digital techniques include search engine optimization, digital advertising, email, webinars, social media, websites and mobile apps.

In the growing digital marketing space you will often hear people talk about strategy and techniques interchangeably. While this practice may be fine in the consumer products market, it misses some important distinctions relevant to professional services marketers.

Digital Marketing Strategy vs. Digital Marketing Techniques

Digital marketing strategy is the high-level planning and strategic choices that set the direction for positioning your firm in the marketplace and the key messages you will deliver to your audiences. Your high-level strategy should be the same in both the digital and offline worlds.

Digital marketing techniques are the specific digital platforms and tactics you use to deliver those messages and engage your audiences. An example of a common digital technique is using search engine optimization to draw online traffic to specific sections of your website.

From LinkedIn postings to webinars and podcasts, potential clients are finding new ways to educate themselves and evaluate professional services providers. Digital techniques and tactics are fluid and can change quickly.

Strategy is more stable and covers the long term view.  While a strategy may require minor adjustments along the way, its fundamentals should change little, if at all, in the course of a year. That said, occasionally major disruptions — such as mergers and acquisitions or intensified marketplace competition — can shake up the marketplace and require you to reassess your strategy. But that is the rare exception.

Later in this post when we talk about how to develop your digital marketing strategy we will address both strategy and techniques. Both are important when it comes to producing measurable results with your digital marketing efforts.

Digital Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing

Since the advent of digital marketing for the professional services there has been an ongoing debate: which is better, digital or traditional? Over time, it has become clear that this is a false choice. Most professional services firms need a mix of both.

You have some important choices to make. You will need to balance your offline and online presence.

Figure 1. Many traditional marketing techniques (blue) have online counterparts (green).

As Figure 1 illustrates, most traditional offline marketing techniques also have digital analogues. Traditional speaking engagements have a corresponding webinar alternative. There is print and digital advertising. Each marketing approach has advantages and disadvantages.

Figure 2. Strengths and limitations of digital and traditional marketing.

Our research has shown the fastest growing and most profitable firms tend to use a mix of both. But be cautious. Don’t spread yourself so thin that nothing you do has an impact. Dabbling doesn’t work well. Going deeper with fewer techniques typically delivers better results.

When selecting the best tools for your situation, consider which approach is most likely to reach your target audiences. Also take into account the effectiveness and efficiency of your various options. We’ll discuss this selection process below when we cover researching your target audiences and selecting marketing techniques.

How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy

In many ways, the process of developing a digital marketing strategy parallels the process for developing your overall strategic marketing plan or your marketing budgets.

1. Start with your business goals

Strategic marketing, whether digital or traditional, starts with your firm’s strategic goals. What are you trying to achieve? Do you want to grow the firm? Are you trying to gain visibility for your brand? Position the firm for acquisition?

You’ll want to understand which segments of the practice are you targeting with your digital strategy. Most firms have a range of client types that buy a variety of specific services. Which ones are you targeting with your digital strategy? Which segments will be the easiest to reach? Once you have narrowed your choices, it is time to get a deeper understanding of your target audience.

2. Research your target audiences

The next step in preparing a digital marketing strategy is to identify and research your target audiences. The value of this research is evident when you consider that high-growth professional services firms are more likely to perform frequent research as their slow-growth peers.

Your target audiences are the groups of people you need to reach to execute your digital strategy. Here are a few common examples of target audiences:

Potential Clients

This target audience could be further segmented by industry, role or other persona characteristics, if those distinctions are important.

Influencers

Individual influencers, and sometimes a formal selection committee, often advise the final decision maker and can be valuable targets in a digital campaign.

Referral Sources

In some circumstances, referral sources can be so influential that they become de facto decision makers. Industry analysts and influential thought leaders can also pay a pivotal role.

Talent

In many industries, talent shortages can severely impact a firm’s ability to deliver on its promises. This makes potential employees or subcontractors important target audiences. Think of these efforts as building your digital employer brand.

After considering all the possible people you need to reach, you may find that you have more target audiences than you can reasonably address. So how do you prioritize and select audiences?

How do you prioritize audiences?

Many firms conduct research on multiple potential audiences or market segments to help them choose the most responsive markets. We call this Opportunity Research and it goes well beyond simply looking at the growth rate of different segments.

Research questions might explore the competitive environment, potential clients’ buying behavior, your firm’s brand strength within various markets and other factors that might illuminate the likelihood of success within alternative market segments.

Your level of experience with a segment can be important as you prioritize your audiences. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. The firm that believes “everyone” is the right target for its service is at a distinct disadvantage. Its efforts will be spread so thin it will have no impact on anyone.

In most cases the target audiences for your digital marketing strategy will be the same as your overall marketing targets. Once you have identified your target audiences it’s time to learn more about their behavior and digital footprint.

How do you research target audiences?

There are two broad types of research that can help you develop a winning digital strategy. The first approach is called secondary research. In this approach you search for research studies that have already been conducted by another organization. Trade associations or publishers often release studies about specific industries. Similarly, there are many organizations that sell relevant research on market size or trends.

For example, Hinge publishes research on marketing practices for professional services firms that provides useful marketing budget benchmarks and lists the most effective marketing techniques.

The second approach is primary research. In this type of research, you commission an original study of your target audiences. Primary research is more expensive, but it has the advantage of addressing the critical questions that are most relevant to your specific circumstances.

When you combine primary research with high-quality secondary research, you get the best of both worlds: a full, well-informed view of your audiences. This market intelligence dramatically reduces risk and makes marketing more of a science than an expensive guessing game.

3. Develop your digital marketing strategy

An effective digital marketing strategy framework has four key elements. If you have already done this work for your overall marketing strategy, it will likely be very similar for your digital strategy.

Differentiators

What sets your firm or practice apart from your competitors? Often, the research you performed earlier will help you discover differentiators that you may not have been aware of before. For example, you might learn that the unique way you deliver the findings of your assessment is unusually helpful to clients. Alternatively, you might choose a differentiator. For example, you might decide to specialize in a specific industry or type of service.

Market Positioning

The next element of your framework is the market positioning of your firm. How is your firm positioned relative to key competitors? Is your firm the low-cost alternative? Are you the specialists that command top dollar? Your positioning is built upon your differentiators. They are the bricks that build the house that is your market positioning. Your positioning gives your audiences the cohesive and compelling story they need to prefer your firm over your competitors.

Key Messages

What key messages do each of your audiences need to hear? These will likely vary from audience to audience. For instance, potential employees are probably going to be interested in different things than your referral sources. But be careful. Key messages must not contradict each other — and should all be consistent with your firm’s overall market positioning.

Content Strategy

Content is at the heart of most professional services firms’ digital strategy framework. Content is the way you communicate your expertise, build trust and demonstrate to potential clients how you can help them. This is the section of the plan where you specify what issues and topics you will focus on. This content becomes the fuel for social media, webinars, blog posts, emails and other digital marketing techniques.

Once you have documented your overall strategy, it’s time to select the digital marketing techniques and tactics you will use to deliver key messages to your target audiences.

4. Select your digital marketing techniques

Which new digital technique should we try this year? This is where a lot of firms begin their digital marketing planning — and it’s almost always the wrong place to start. Unless you make the effort to understand your business situation, audiences and high level strategy first, you will almost certainly make some counterproductive choices.

Your research into your target audience will tell you which digital platforms your different audiences are already using. Why choose Twitter if no one in your target audience is on it? And do you really want to ignore the platform that 60% of your target audience uses?

Also, different techniques tend to have different levels of efficiency and impact. Our research on high-growth firms shows that some techniques simply work better than others. (We’ll discuss this below in the section on the effectiveness of digital techniques.) When presented with two competing alternative techniques to reach your target audience, you can choose the option that has been empirically shown to deliver more impact.

How often should you publish blogs or offer webinars? What effort will be required from your internal team? What sort of external resources will you need? What about training? How about software or a new website?

Answering these questions often involves wrestling with both your business goals and the resources required to achieve them. Reality has a way of imposing limits, and inevitably you will strike a balance between what you want to achieve and what is possible in your situation.

In today’s professional services firm, marketing is a team sport. No individual or even department can do it all. That means that you need a range of resources to help you execute your plan. The marketing team, billable professionals and outside resources must work together to produce the desired result. Many configurations are possible as long as you have the necessary time and skills at your disposal.

Once you have selected your marketing techniques and have determined their required frequency and level of effort, you can anticipate if you will need any new marketing infrastructure, training or outside support to make the plan a reality. You are also ready to set specific goals and tracking mechanisms.

5. Set specific goals and determine how you will track them

You might think that it makes logical sense to select goals before techniques. But here is the catch. Each technique lends itself to certain tracking mechanisms.

While some high-level goals, such as acquiring ten new clients per month, applies to all of your marketing, other goals, such as getting 20 LinkedIn shares each week, are technique specific — you have to know you will be using LinkedIn before you can set that goal. Modern technology makes some metrics easy to track, so when it makes sense, take advantage of what is readily available to you.

How do you set specific digital marketing goals?

Knowing where to set goals is something of an art form. On one hand, you must take into account the current level of baseline performance. What is reasonable to achieve given your situation?

On the other hand, you must consider what it will take to achieve the business outcome you desire. The level of impact you need from a marketing technique will also influence how much effort it will require. You can’t expect a major impact from a minimal effort.

How do you know what to track?

At a high level there are four areas of tracking that makes sense for most professional services firms. Let’s take a look at each of them.

1. Business Outcomes. Business outcomes are based on the high-level business goals that we explored in the first step of the digital marketing strategy. Revenue growth, number and type of new clients, profitability and new leads are all examples of business outcomes. In many ways, these measures track the success of your digital marketing plan. These metrics can typically be tracked in firms’ financial, CRM or marketing automation systems.
2. Visibility. Most professional services firms want to increase the visibility of their expertise. In our experience, the single most representative measure of visibility is external website traffic. The more people who know of your firm, the more website traffic you will receive. This measure can be further refined by looking at traffic to certain sections of the website. For example, you might monitor traffic to the careers section of your site to track the visibility of your recruiting campaign. Other measures of visibility might include traffic to your social media pages or the growth of your email database. You might even develop an index that incorporates all of these yardsticks.
3. Expertise. Tracking changes in your perceived expertise can be tricky, but it is possible. To do so, you need specific, tangible indicators. For example, you could track how many people download your white papers, view your blog posts (assuming that your blog posts demonstrate your expertise) or attend your speaking events. After all, people who consume your educational content are showing an interest in your expertise, and by quantifying that interest you can get a measure of how much people trust your ideas and perspectives.
4. Implementation. Another variable to track is how well you implement the marketing techniques in your plan. Are the events happening as scheduled? Are your designated articles actually being published? Often, the reason a technique is not working is that it is not being implemented as planned. This kind of information is also very helpful in problem solving and adjusting your implementation.

How do you develop a digital marketing budget?

At this point in the process, you should understand your firm’s business goals, have researched your audience and have developed an overall strategy for your brand. You should also have selected the best techniques to reach your audience so you can deliver appropriate messages at the appropriate frequency using the appropriate resources. In addition, you should have determined how to measure results against your goals.

The next step for many folks is to develop your digital marketing budget based on this detailed plan. On one level, this is a relatively straightforward exercise. You can ask specialized vendors to provide estimates for one-time infrastructure projects such as a website or a new marketing automation platform. But don’t make low cost your primary deciding factor. Many firms have wasted precious resources on “cheap” marketing tools that were woefully ineffective.

Estimating costs for recurring activities, such as blogging or article placement, can be a bit more challenging since many more people may be involved over a longer period of time. For instance, one of the biggest challenges can be tracking down busy subject matter experts and managing their critical role in the marketing process. Estimating costs like these can be tricky.

Once you have collected these cost estimates, you should have an overall spending level that you can benchmark against your industry peers or against high-growth firms. How do they compare?

If you find that they are relatively well aligned, you may be done with your budget. If, however, you find that your budget is significantly lower than the relevant benchmark, look first for missed items. Did you forget something important? Are your costs unrealistically low? Are you planning frequent enough marketing activities to meet your goals? Is the quality of your planned resources adequate to return the desired results?

If your budget comes in much higher than the benchmark, make sure you aren’t double counting some expenses. Next, see if the discrepancy is the result of one-time expenses (such as a research project or a new website). Also, are you are planning reoccurring activities more frequently than you need?

If you find that you need to reduce your budget, try eliminating one whole technique or initiative rather than trimming across the board. In our experience, it is more effective to do fewer things but do them better.

Which Digital Marketing Techniques Are Most Effective?

The effectiveness of a digital marketing technique is related to its level of adoption by your target audience. If your potential clients aren’t on Twitter, why spend resources on it? If your audience does not use it, the technique simply cannot work.

Similarly, if the technique is not used correctly you may not see the impact you seek. Digital marketing is not immune to incompetence. Training and experience do matter.

Those two cautions aside, some digital marketing techniques enjoy high levels of adoption and impact by the fastest growing professional services firms. According to our ongoing research on high-growth firms, here are the top five digital techniques:

• Keyword research/search engine optimization
• Conducting and publishing original research
• Speaking at targeted conferences or events
• Presenting in educational webinars
• Networking on social media

One thing that is apparent from this list is that most of these techniques are heavily dependent on high quality original content for their success. What types of content work best?

Three types of content seem to have the greatest impact:

• Assessments and/or consultations
• Product or service demonstrations
• Original research

As we discussed earlier, this puts content marketing at the center of most professional services digital strategies.

Content Marketing and Your Digital Strategy

A content marketing strategy is designed to make your expertise more visible by producing and distributing material that is interesting and valuable to your target audience. This content can come in many formats, such as blog posts, articles, white papers, webinars, videos and e-books.

In most cases, your content should be educational, useful or entertaining, rather than promotional or sales-oriented. Educational content gives prospects a taste of your firm’s expertise and what it might be like to work with you (do you come across as authoritative and formal or friendly and approachable?).

Useful, high-value content is the fuel that propels successful SEO, social media and lead generation. And importantly for the professional services, it is a very effective tool to build trust and engagement.

A Final Thought

Digital marketing is changing the way professional services firms go to market. It has made it easier for firms of any size to compete against larger, more established players. And for firms that want to reach new markets, it practically eliminates geographic barriers. Digital marketing gives firms new and exciting ways to communicate their expertise and value proposition to their most prized target clients — and find the specialized talent they need to grow and prosper.

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The post Digital Marketing Strategy for Professional Services appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

Creating a high-impact, lead generating a site can seem like an impossible task, but if you start with these three foundational building blocks you will be well on your way: 1) The support of your firms’ leadership; 2) a talented team to carry it out, and 3) a website design process that will enhance your overall user experience and content strategy and get you to your goal.

In this post, we’re going to focus on the last of these requirements. The first, you will have to find within your firm. The second, you can hire. The third binds the first two together and drives the process forward.

If you are about to embark on a web redesign journey, the road ahead is bound to have a few potholes — a modern high-performance website can be very complex, after all. But with the right process in place, you can avoid the pitfalls and misadventures that plague so many web projects. In this post, we’ll lay out a process that we’ve refined over more than a decade to deliver the website you’ve always wanted, without the angst. And along the way, we’ll share some of the hard lessons we’ve learned.

Informed by research and validated by years of experience and analytics, this is a process that works.

Who Is This For?

This post is for people involved in the planning or execution of a new professional services website, especially the marketers and stakeholders responsible for seeing it through. And it’s for anyone who wants to demystify the website design process and start off on the right foot.

Why Professional Services Websites Are Different

We’ve been a part of many website design processes, spanning many different business configurations —content-driven, B2C, B2B, and web apps. What is different about professional services websites?

With professional services, there’s a fundamental need to convey credibility. Companies buy services from experts they trust. Even strong referrals are not always enough to get you in the door. Our research shows that buyers will check out your website to verify a referral, and will readily discount a referral based on the information they find (or don’t find). Your prospects know they are buying complex service offerings that tend to be big-ticket items and come with considerable risk. They are the opposite of an impulse purchase you might see in the B2C (and sometimes B2B) world.

Since the professional service sales cycle can take a long time — often months or even years, many potential buyers encounter your firm long before they are ready to buy. So your website also needs to address prospects at every stage of the buying process, from initial discovery to imminent sale. In between, a lot of nurturing goes on.

That being said, it is also crucial to speak to the many audiences your site will interact with, all while supporting a unified, firm-wide brand message. For example, you’ll often find that varying service areas need to convey different messages. It is important that a potential client can easily find relevant and timely information and you can achieve this through cross-linking and a thoughtful user experience strategy. Of course, you can’t forget one of the most important audiences for a professional services firm, the prospective employee. Since most firms struggle to keep up with their demand for talent, it makes sense to consider the new hire perspective while designing your website.

Keeping these things in mind will help you develop a dynamic, multi-purpose platform that builds visibility, encourages engagement, and gives you tools to monitor your performance and make adjustments along the way.

Why Website Projects Go Wrong

Before we get into the right way to approach a website design process, it’s instructive to look at what can go wrong.

There are some surprisingly consistent reasons that website projects take a turn for the worse. These reasons apply to firms large and small. Whether you provide accounting, finance, architecture, engineering, technology, or government services, you’ll want to avoid these common pitfalls.

Too many decision-makers

When it comes to making decisions, more is less. The larger the group, the longer it takes to wade through opinions and reach a consensus. If a group is too large, or if it includes individuals with strong opposing opinions, decision-making can grind to a halt, effectively putting an end to the project. A better approach is to assemble a small team of 2-4 people who are empowered by stakeholders to drive the process and make decisions on behalf of the larger group. It’s okay to present your progress to the larger group at two or three key junctures along the way — but on the condition that those are status updates only, not opportunities to change course. 

The “torpedo” team member

This is one of the most common — and potentially devastating — challenges we encounter: a high-ranking leader doesn’t have time to participate in the day-to-day website design process, but they must approve the site before it launches. The problem with this scenario is that when key decision-makers are not part of the process, they have no visibility into the myriad of small decisions that were made along the way. They often bring unrealistic expectations or unexpressed values to the project. Lookout. Here come the torpedoes.

Scope creep

Every firm that sells services is familiar with this. So it should come as no surprise that the same danger lurks in your own website redesign process. That’s why it’s important to clearly define the project’s scope before setting out — and remain disciplined throughout the process. As new ideas arise, think about how they fit the scope of work. You can always plan a second phase of work to incorporate new features. Scope creep, and the unrealistic expectations that fuel it, produce schedule delays, unneeded stress, and embarrassing mistakes.

Unrealistic expectations

We can’t count how many times we’ve heard a client ask for an Amazon-style predictive algorithm or a website like Apple’s. Things that seem simple can be devilishly complicated. So be careful what you wish for. On the flip side of this coin, technology is evolving every day. Some functionality that was once out of reach is now available at a reasonable cost. It doesn’t hurt to ask about cutting-edge technology, but you can’t assume it will always be easy or affordable to implement.

Hidden technical requirements

Documenting a website’s technical requirements can be harder than it seems. In fact, if your website is particularly complex, your web agency might charge you a separate fee to untangle the intricacies of your new site. In the case of simpler sites, however, a careful review of your existing site and a collaborative technical review will uncover the major pieces.

An agency that doesn’t own the process

Unless your firm has an in-house team of marketing and branding experts, designers, and developers, you will be working with an agency partner to guide you through the website design process. If, however, your agency is more concerned with pleasing you than leading your firm through a time-tested process, you are in for a wild ride. The process is critical to the quality and timely delivery of your site. If you find your agency partner bending to your every whim, your website project will quickly lose its way. 

A Website Design Process that Works

So now that you know what to avoid, how do you do this website redesign thing the right way? Before you even reach out to agencies, begin sketching out a roadmap. This will help you think about your site strategically — and find the agency that is the best fit for your firm. Here are some topics you may want to consider:

1. Set high-level goals for your new site. For instance, do you want to:
   • Increase visibility through search engines and relevant social platforms?
   • Build credibility?
   • Attract new talent?
   • Generate leads?
   • Create a platform for thought leadership?
   • Increase traffic?
2. Evaluate your firm’s current website.
   • What’s working and what isn’t?
   • What content will stay, what will go and what needs to be re-written? Don’t ignore deep areas of content, such as blogs & company news.
   • Is your current content optimized for search engines?
   • Conduct an assessment of your thought leadership content.
3. Decide what functionality your firm needs and what its requirements are.
   • Break your technical requirements into two prioritized lists: your “must-haves” and “like to haves.” Examples include CRM Integration, advanced filtering or search functionality, ATS integrations, blog/news/content feeds, and so on. 
4. Plan for sufficient time. 
   • Typical professional services’ website redesign projects take 4-8 months, start to finish. Complex sites for larger organizations can take longer.
5. Set a realistic budget.
   • Most professional services sites cost between $35K and $250K.
6. Plan for content.
   • Even if you aren’t ready now, plan to incorporate a content marketing strategy in the near future. Content marketing is here to stay.
7. Skip the RFP.
   • RFPs actually make it harder to find a good fit. Why? First, you may not know upfront if you are asking the right questions. Most RFPs get them wrong, are overly specific, or overly general.
   • They make it difficult to identify what makes a responding firm unique.
   • You see, RFPs make it hard to evaluate a firm’s intangibles — their personality, true expertise, and other important attributes. Many great firms simply won’t respond to RFPs. Instead of writing an RFP, go out and look for firms that match your needs — agencies that have worked with companies like yours, produce high-quality work, or have been recommended by respected peers and partners.

Choosing an Agency

If you aren’t developing your website in-house, you’ll want to find a great web partner. Take a critical look at their portfolio. Do they understand your industry, or will you need to educate them? Then talk to them. Ask how they keep from going over budget. What is their approach to website design and what role will your new site play in your overall marketing strategy? And ask if they use data, research, or benchmarks to inform their recommendations.

If possible, spend some time with the agency. For an extended project like a website, finding a good cultural fit is just as important as a team’s technical chops. Finally, be sure to call the agency’s references to gather a variety of perspectives on the firm’s expertise and service.

Congratulations! You’ve selected an agency – now what?

Now the real fun begins! Your agency will take your team through a carefully crafted website design process. Each web firm has its own take on this process, but most of these processes are similar to the one we use here at Hinge, outlined below.

1. Project discovery
   • This initial meeting should include all decision-makers.
   • You will be asked to clearly define your goals for the website.
   • Discuss the site’s technical requirements and identify any next steps. Consider third-party integrations, such as CRM, marketing automation, HR systems, intranets, or other internal systems.
   • Discuss aesthetic preferences and style guidelines (if any).
   • Discuss content, messaging, and SEO goals.
   • Discuss analytics. (Be prepared to share your analytics login credentials and research with the agency team before the kickoff.)
2. Competitive landscape
   • Identify key competitors’ websites so that the design team can take your site in a different visual direction.
   • Review their user experience.
   • Review their service and markets breakdown.
3. Develop a new site architecture (or site map)
   • Aim to keep your site structure and navigation simple and easy to follow. Don’t make visitors guess what a navigation button means or where it will take them.
   • Consider adding a blog if you don’t have one. Expert content is the engine that drives new traffic and leads.
   • Consider adding a library or resources section. This section will house valuable content you use to engage visitors and build your list.
   • Lock the site map down before starting the design.
4. Develop a creative brief
   • Identify what elements will appear on key pages, beginning with the homepage.
   • Articulate the creative direction the site should take.
   • Describe creative or functional characteristics you would like to avoid.
5. Begin the writing process early
   • The more live text the designers can work with, the more “real” the design concepts will feel — and the easier it will be to evaluate them. This means the writer will need to get working on key pieces of text right away.
   • Start with the homepage. Pay particular attention to headlines that express your positioning and key messages.
   • It’s important that your team evaluate the messaging and design elements together. That way you can get the full user experience.
6. Design 2-3 initial approaches
   • Different agencies take different approaches to establish a site’s initial design direction. Some begin with wireframes to map out each page type before filling in the details. Others present mood boards to establish the project’s aesthetic boundaries. Still, other agencies will tackle the homepage first, using it as a visual reference for the rest of the site. In addition, some agencies will design a subpage or two at this point, as well.
   • Ideally, your agency will be able to provide objective data to support key design decisions. For example, they may have learned from your Google Analytics that a majority of visitors look at your leadership pages — and as a result, the agency may recommend that you feature key people on your homepage.
   • If you are presented with multiple design concepts, one should push the limits a bit and challenge you to take a more daring approach. The other concept(s) can be more conservative — though avoid common clichés. No matter what, each approach should differentiate your firm visually.
7. Select a design approach
   • If the design team has done its job and listened to you, you should have at least one visual approach that feels about right. Even if you aren’t 100% happy with it yet, select that design as the basis for future revisions. Of course, if all of the concepts miss the mark, you may need to go back to the drawing board. Just be prepared to provide specific feedback the team can use to develop a new approach.
   • Don’t get too caught up on imagery at this point — it can always change. Instead, consider the merits of the design as a whole.
   • In most cases, you should be able to get to an overall design approval within 1 or 2 rounds of revisions.
8. Design the remaining page layouts
   • Unless you have particularly complicated pages (such as a shopping cart or custom learning management system), the rest of the layouts usually go fairly quickly.
   • Review key features such as filters and tagging mechanisms to make sure you are including/providing feedback on any relevant information needed.  
   • This is the time to approve imagery for your pages. Be sure to work closely with your design team, because finding the right images (especially if you are relying on stock photos) can be a time-consuming exercise. If you are commissioning custom photos or illustrations, you should be able to approve the images as they are produced.
   • Your web development team should be engaged at this point, as well. They can identify aspects of the designs that might pose practical challenges — before they go to code.
9. Finalize responsive layouts
   • Optimizing your website for mobile devices is essential in today’s on-the-go marketplace. And that means employing responsive design — a development technique that uses a single set of code to adapt your website to many different devices and browser widths. To deliver the best user experience, your design team should present designs that show how different pages will appear on a phone and tablet.
   • To provide a good experience on a phone, page elements may be presented in a different order than on a desktop layout, may be simplified, or may be eliminated altogether.
   • Typically, your site navigation will take a different form (often collapsed into a “hamburger” menu) on mobile devices.
10. Develop site
    • It’s most efficient to send all files to development at once — when all styles, designs, and requirements are solidified and approved. This makes it easier to catch inconsistencies and reduces development time.
11. Test site
    • Get multiple teams involved, including developers, designers, and individuals who know nothing about the site.
    • Begin testing early — even before the site is completed. Then give yourself a full week or more to test the finished site before launch.
    • Pay special attention to the content. It’s easy to overlook embarrassing typos, formatting problems, and broken links.
    • Keep an ongoing log of bugs — bugs are a natural part of the process. There are bound to be some even after the site launches. The team should be prepared to squash them right away.
12. Launch site
    • If possible, consider a soft launch. This means launching the site without fanfare at first to give you and visitors a chance to find and report potentially embarrassing bugs. Then after a week or two, once everything seems to be working as expected, you can formally announce your new site to your list.

Other Important Considerations

So that’s the website design and development process in a nutshell. Here are a few more things to think about as you plan a website redesign.

Do your keyword research before writing the content

While it’s possible to shoehorn keywords into a web page after it’s been written, you’ll get much better results if the writer has the keywords upfront. The resulting copy will read more naturally — and it will be a better reading experience.

Plan for security

We’ve seen many professional services websites get hacked. The results can be embarrassing or outright damaging. Most of these situations, however, can be prevented with little foresight and care. Make sure your agency takes security seriously and has a plan to secure your site against malicious attacks. If nothing else, be sure to use secure passwords and keep your website software up to date.

Plan for speed

Site load speed affects both your users’ experience and your site’s visibility in search engine results. In fact, Google explicitly favors sites that load quickly, and it is backing new mobile speed-enhancing technologies like AMP. Factors that affect site speed include the size (in bytes) of your images, video, javascript (and other client-side scripts), and server speed, to name just a few. A CDN (Content Delivery Network) can improve the load speed of almost any site, and many excellent free options, such as CloudFlare, are available. The size of your page code can also affect speed, so make sure your development team has the discipline and experience to write clean, compact code.

Redesigning your website should be an exciting and fun experience. Unfortunately, many web projects often go off the rails at predictable points. It doesn’t have to be that way.

For the best experience — and a final product that will make you proud — keep the following points in mind:

1. Assemble a small team that can make executive decisions
2. Follow a proven website design process like the one outlined in this post
3. Allow your agency or design team to lead the process
4. Communicate well and often
5. If you aren’t doing the work yourself, choose an agency that is qualified, understands your industry and is a good cultural fit

Your website is your most valuable marketing tool. At your next redesign, make the most of this opportunity to connect with and engage your future prospects, partners, and employees online. Having a great process in place will not only bypass many of the most common web design obstacles, but it will also deliver a better website, too.

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Further, many professionals still hold the mistaken belief that the only way to generate new client leads is through referrals and networking. Hello… the world is changing! A new model of business development is already generating significant flows of qualified leads for many professional services firms. 

What is Online Lead Generation?

Online lead generation is a collection of online tactics designed to draw interest and ultimately business development conversations to your business. There are a vast number of online tactics that your team can deploy, many of which we will cover in this post. The key to effective online lead generation is a deep understanding of your target audience’s interests and more importantly, pain points. When those are fully understood, it becomes more clear which strategies you should focus on.

Online Lead Generation Techniques that Work

Like traditional lead generation, the new model is founded on demonstrating expertise and building trusting relationships — but these goals are accomplished online. While online marketing will continue to evolve, here are ten proven lead generation techniques that are working for professional services firms today.

1) Search Engine Optimization

Many potential clients want to learn how to solve the challenges they face. If a prospect is even remotely computer literate (and these days what executive doesn’t have a computer or a smart phone?) one of the first things they do is Google their question, problem or issue. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) gives you the tools to match qualified clients with your online content. And if you play your cards right, you’ll end up on their short list when they are looking to purchase services.

2) Pay Per Click Advertising

Another proven way to get on your prospects’ radar is to buy your way onto search engine results pages for relevant keywords. This technique gives you greater control over the keywords with which you want to be associated. As the name implies you only pay when someone clicks on your link. Many times, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) leads are of higher quality because the potential client is often searching for a specific solution. In addition, PPC is completely trackable and typically less expensive than traditional print advertising. That’s an attractive combination.

3) Lead Generating Website

Most professional services websites are not designed to generate leads. As a matter of fact many are almost “anti-lead generators.” Jargon-filled, firm-centric website abound in the professional services — and they are completely passive and unhelpful. If visitors do not understand what you do or what problems you can solve for them, they will go elsewhere. Contrast this with a lead generating website that is designed to make it easy for clients to understand your value proposition, download valuable information and request a proposal. The impact on online lead generation can be dramatic.

4) Online Networking

I could have called this technique “social media,” but I wanted to make a point. The essence of social media is not which platform you choose. It’s the quality and reach of the networking you do. While the style of interaction may vary greatly from Twitter to LinkedIn to Facebook, it is still about making the right connections with the right people. Online networking can produce the reputation and referrals associated with traditional business networking. Expect to get results in proportion to the level of your investment of time and attention.

5) Webinars

A webinar is the online equivalent of a seminar or other educational event. The lead generating webinar is typically offered free of charge. Because it requires registration, you can collect basic information on a session’s attendees. Like its offline cousin, a webinar should be educational — not a thinly-veiled sales pitch. The key to a successful webinar is to select topics that are of great interest and value to your ideal target client. Over time, attendees come to trust your firm and will be likely to consider you when they have a relevant need.

6) Industry Research Reports

A proven online lead generating strategy is to offer executive summaries or full research reports on the industries you serve. You benefit in two ways. First, these documents are an excellent lead generator. Second, they boost your credibility and strengthen you online brand. Be sure your research topics are of exceptional interest to your target client group. In addition, these research studies can be an excellent vehicle for partnering with a trade association or a noncompeting firm to reduce your marketing cost and increase your credibility.

7) Online Marketing Videos

Video is everywhere today, and for good reason. It is an ideal marketing medium for professional services firms. Nothing builds credibility like a flagship client explaining how your firm solved their problem. It’s almost like automating the referral process. Video can be used to present your firm, explain complex services or introduce your team. In each of these roles, video can play an important lead generating and lead nurturing function.

8) White Papers or e-Books

One of the most common online lead generating techniques, white papers can establish credibility and generate qualified leads. You can offer the white paper on your website (either available free or behind a registration screen), or you can distribute it through third-party services. White papers also make great pay-per-click offers. A variation on the white paper is the e-book. Typically longer than a white paper, it serves a similar function. If you e-book goes into great depth on a subject, it can generate a great deal of buzz and establish your reputation.

9) E-newsletter

If your e-newsletter offers high-quality, educational content, you can generate a significant number of new leads when people sign up. And your e-newsletter is a great way to nurture the existing leads on your list. Many firms also use e-newsletters to announce new services and make specific offers. To build your subscriber list, offer a free e-newsletter subscription on your website or in your email signature block. Just remember, the better your content, the more people will read it and remember  you — and the less likely it will be deemed spam.

10) Blogging

I left blogging for last because of its unique role in online lead generation. To be honest, blogs don’t generate a lot of direct leads. But blogging is probably the most effective driver of leads to your website. Because a blog allows you to create a wide range of keyword-laden content that can be found in the search engines, it can draw a lot of qualified prospects to your website (this assumes that you host your blog on your website — which I strongly recommend). You can further promote your blog posts on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Without a blog, your SEO efforts will be handicapped.

These ten online lead generation techniques alone could become the cornerstone of a robust marketing plan. Add in traditional marketing tactics, such as face-to-face networking and tradeshow marketing (if appropriate), and you have a formidable strategy for building preference in the marketplace. Online marketing and traditional marketing make a powerful combination.

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For a sign of the times, just look at the explosive growth of LinkedIn. To date, there are over 849 million LinkedIn members, compared to 467 million users in October of 2016. More and more of professional life is moving online – and the professional services world is no exception. Increasingly, the firms that succeed are the ones that learn to leverage online marketing effectively.

So what are ten of the top advantages of online marketing, and how can you bring those benefits to your firm?

Before we explore the strengths of online marketing, we have an important question to answer.

What is online marketing?

Online marketing is the use of a diverse and evolving set of Internet based digital techniques to reach targeted audiences. These techniques include (but are not limited to) content marketing, social media, websites, search engine optimization, online video, email marketing, paid search, and more.

Many of these tools work best together: for example, publishing educational content on your firm’s blog and then sharing it to start a conversation on social media. Perhaps your blog post uses a YouTube video to illustrate a key point. If it’s successful, this piece might help drive up your website’s ranking for Google searches on the topic.

As you can see, effective online marketing is really a complex ecosystem of techniques that can help your firm achieve greater visibility and credibility. But let’s get even more specific. What are some of the most important advantages of online marketing for professional services firms today?

Advantages of Online Marketing

1. Online marketing gives you many ways to demonstrate and build expertise.

For professional services buyers, the single most important factor in selecting a provider is expertise. Often, the challenge lies not in acquiring the requisite talent, but projecting that expertise to the marketplace.

The web is such a powerful platform because it allows you to use content to get your message across and demonstrate expertise in topics relevant to your target audience. You can accomplish this offline as well, but online tools make it much easier to reach a wide and relevant audience. Blogging, social media, and webinars all allow you to educate your audience on topics that matter to them, illustrating your expertise in the process.

2. You can use online marketing to establish and build relationships more effectively.

Online marketing allows you to create new relationships in a targeted way that simply wasn’t possible twenty years ago. Email marketing, keyword phrase targeting, and other strategies can help you target a tailored message with laser precision to, say, the CIOs of the hundred largest businesses in your industry.

Beyond targeting messages, you can use LinkedIn Groups to network and converse with other industry leaders in an ongoing way. Online tools allow you to both meet new clients, colleagues, and influencers and strengthen relationships with those you already know.

3. You can target specific verticals or niches using online marketing.

Just as you can build relationships in a targeted way, online marketing empowers you to target a highly specific vertical or niche, delivering your message to a wide audience that needs your services. You can do this relatively inexpensively by targeting keywords in educational blog posts, or participating in groups or industry hashtags on social media. Online marketing allows you to zero in on a niche easily and efficiently.

4. Online marketing isn’t tied to geography or time zone.

Online marketing techniques can be used in an asynchronous way, meaning your audience doesn’t have to be constrained by geography. To meet a potential client or contact in person, you have to be able to travel and synchronize your schedules, with all of the expenses that this can entail.

Speaking at industry events, for example, can be a powerful way to build your reputation, and is often worthwhile – but it’s also a major effort that can significantly disrupt an entire day (or multiple days). Giving a webinar to a similar or larger crowd, however, may take no more than an hour out of your day at the office.

Another advantage of this asynchronicity is that it empowers your audience to engage with your message on their own terms. They can learn about your expertise at their own pace through your blog or social media presence, and when they’re ready to explore your services, they know where to find you.

5. Online marketing is less expensive to use.

With online marketing, there are no travel costs, and you don’t have to pay for printing to distribute materials. Server costs, by contrast, are relatively low.

Some of your advertising costs can be replaced by online marketing tools, as well – and these online tools usually “pull more weight” by integrating with the rest of your online marketing program. Guest posts on industry blogs or publications, for example, can drive traffic to your site, build your reputation, and fuel conversation on social media.

6. The Internet is the most common way people check out your firm.

In fact, we conducted a survey of over 1,000 buyers of professional services for a more complete understanding of how purchasers check sellers out in today’s marketplace. We found that the second most common way professional services buyers check out firms is online.

7. Online marketing allows you to be everywhere your clients look.

Today, it’s important for you to be where your potential clients are looking. More and more, that means your firm needs a robust and diversified presence online. From our research, we found that purchasers are looking for experts online in a number of ways, including in search engines, by reading online reviews, on social media, through webinars, and more.

Maybe your clients tend to ask their peers about the strongest firms in your field – but once they’ve learned a bit about you, if they search for you online, you have to be easy to find. If you don’t have an online marketing component, potential clients will go looking for more information about you – and they won’t find you.

8. You can use online marketing to reach influencers and “invisible” prospects.

There are many people who influence the selection process, even if they might not be the final decision-makers. Some of these individuals may be professionals within your target firms, while others may be well-respected industry figures.

By the same token, you may have unrecognized or “invisible” prospects out there of whom you’re simply not aware. You likely know that certain firms would be good matches for your service, but there are usually others who are equally promising matches – they’re just geographically distant from you, or don’t participate in the same industry events, or you just haven’t crossed paths.

By using content marketing, they can find you, even if you don’t find them. Posting blog posts on a particular set of challenges or opportunities – and including the right keyword phrases so search engines pick up on them – allows you to “plant a flag” in the topic, helping the right audiences find your work and your firm.

9. Firms that generate leads online achieve greater profits.

Our in-depth studies of lead generation strategies for professional services firms has found that firms with online marketing programs are more profitable, on average, than those that do not.

Until about twenty percent of leads are generated online, profitability stays more or less the same. But after twenty percent, profitability begins to rise steadily along with the percentage of leads generated online.

10. Firms that generate leads online achieve faster growth.

Similarly, our research shows firms that generate leads online grow at a faster rate.

We found that firms’ growth rates rise along with the proportion of leads generated online, up until the point where forty percent or more of leads originate online. Firms that generated between forty and fifty-nine percent of leads online grew at four times the rate of those with no online leads.

Conclusion

Online marketing provides a suite of powerful tools to help grow your firm’s reach and reputation – and ultimately, your firm itself. By fully leveraging the advantages of online marketing through tools such as content marketing, social media, email marketing, online video, and more, you can create a powerful lead-generating machine that puts your firm on the path to greater profitability and success.

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And just like that, all firms conducted their business online. Now you need to make it easy for remote buyers to find you. Our research has shown, again and again, that implementing search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most effective ways to draw website visitors and build an audience. Yet it’s also the least understood, most underutilized, and most abused of all digital marketing techniques.

• What is SEO?
• What are the two parts of SEO?
• What is earned media?
• What is digital PR?
• Why are digital PR and earned media crucial to SEO?
• What earned media strategies will give your search engine rankings a boost?

What is SEO? 

SEO is the practice of drawing more visitors to your website by moving up the search engine results pages (SERPs). This means when your target audience does a web search on Google, Bing, Duckduckgo, or any other search engine, your webpage will be listed at or near the top of the search results. For example, if you’re an expert in operationalizing diversity, equity, and inclusion, an effective SEO strategy will help you appear on the first, if not one of the first few, results pages each time your target audience searches on “how to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion,” “best practices in DEI,” or “how to promote DEI in the workplace.” 

I love some of the things I see from digital pr, it’s a shame it often gets bucketed with the spammy kind of link building. It’s just as critical as tech SEO, probably more so in many cases.” — John Mueller, Google

SEO consists of two parts: on-page SEO and off-page SEO. 

What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO refers to creating content and optimizing web pages so that search engines will associate your content with your target audience’s search phrases and rank it as one of the most relevant. Most people associate SEO with on-page SEO. While important, you also need third-party websites and platforms to corroborate your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (EAT). This is where off-page SEO comes in. 

What is off-page SEO?

Off-page SEO are the range of tactics to ratchet up your website’s SEO rankings through the endorsement, expressed or implied, of third parties. Also known as “off-site SEO,” these tactics are implemented online and off. Online, they focus on obtaining backlinks to your website and mentions of your brand on external websites and platforms. Offline they involve, but aren’t exclusive to, mentions of your brand in print, on the radio, and through word of mouth. Online mentions and backlinks signal your authority to search engines. Greater authority translates to higher SEO rankings. Whether online or offline, obtaining this type of third-party credibility is known as earned media. 

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What is earned media? 

Earned media is attention you garner from the public and the media that you haven’t paid for. Before the world wide web, earned media meant unpaid publicity on print, TV, or radio, as well as word of mouth. Since the web’s invention and predominance, the term has included online mentions you haven’t paid for, including:

• Social media mentions or shares of your content (which some call “shared media”)
• Articles you’ve written for online publications 
• Articles featuring you, your business, your analysis, opinions, links to your website.
• Online/offline reviews and recommendations
• Search engine results pages (SERPs) where you show up–yes, that’s earned media

…and more

Earned media is no longer just about giving people and firms third-party credibility. With its expansion to the web, it also validates websites. 

You can generate earned media through digital PR. 

What is Digital PR?

Digital PR is a strategy using digital techniques for obtaining mentions and placements in external websites and platforms to grow your online presence and authority. Far more than link-building in professional services, it’s geared to raise an expert’s profile as a thought leader by tying their brand to the news, trends, and developments in their field. Referred to in some circles as thought leadership PR, it can include pitching your analysis, opinions, and insights to editors looking for guest contributors, journalists needing quotes and soundbites for their stories, research and ranking organizations helping buyers make informed decisions, and podcast hosts on the hunt for guest experts. Reading further you’ll learn that your key relationships in thought leadership PR aren’t limited to those with editors, journalists, and bloggers. They include other thought leaders.

Why are Digital PR and Earned Media Crucial for SEO?

Off-page SEO as a search engine ranking factor is more important than most people think. Google’s John Mueller recently said, “I love some of the things I see from digital pr, it’s a shame it often gets bucketed with the spammy kind of link building. It’s just as critical as tech SEO, probably more so in many cases.” Moz’s Search Engine Ranking Factors study corroborates digital PR’s importance: “Off-site SEO-related factors likely carry more than 50% of the [Google] ranking factor weight.” 

When online reviews, articles, and social media shares mention you, link back to your site, or both, they can signal to search engines a vote of confidence in your EAT, prompting the virtuous cycle of pushing you up the SERPs, channeling even more traffic to your website, which raises you higher up the SERPs. Note that even linkless positive brand mentions–also known as “implied links”– count towards EAT. 

If appearances in other websites and social media platforms can establish your thought leadership, why not beef up your LinkedIn profile rather than invest time and resources in a website? You can’t build authority without first establishing relevance online. Journalists, bloggers, and event producers look up an expert’s thought leadership trail and audience reach. Having a website where you regularly blog and share your ideas and insights is the perfect place to establish that trail and grow an audience. This is how owned media becomes the engine that drives earned media.

7 effective earned media strategies to boost SEO rankings

There are quite a few earned media strategies businesses can use to boost their rankings. But, for the purpose of building credibility as a thought leader through third parties, the following are the most effective. 

Strategy #1: Bolster your website with good content

Helpful, keyword-enriched content that dives into the what’s, why’s and how’s of topics enjoy more views, shares, and links. They also draw the attention of journalists and editors.

Example of earned media through owned media:

When Environmental Health & Engineering, Inc. (EH&E) published an insightful, optimized blog article on pandemic commissioning, it drew many views, including that of the editor of a global industry association, who requested that the authors contribute a guest article on the same topic. 

Strategy #2: Share your insights with the media

More often than not, the media won’t come to you. You’ll need to reach out and convince them you’re a worthy source or contributor. 

One way to share your insights is through guest blogging.

What is guest blogging?

Guest blogging is the practice of writing one or more guest articles for an online publication or another organization’s website. Also known as guest posting, it shows search engines and your audience that you’ve won the confidence of your industry’s trusted sources of information. You can learn more about getting media placements in the article on strategies for improving your SEO with guest blogging. 

Moreover, guest blogging can help you rank higher for very competitive keywords if you contribute to an article for a publication with a higher domain authority than your own website. 

Example of earned media through guest blogging:

Lee Frederiksen is a regular contributor to Accounting Today and AccountingWeb. Karl Feldman often contributes to Construction Executive and Elizabeth Harr to Washington Technology. These publications have long histories and large audiences. By writing articles for high-profile industry publications like these, Hinge’s visible experts are able target higher volume, extremely competitive keywords, and reach into a more expansive audience.

Not everyone has time to write an article, least of all experts who frequently blog. The less time-consuming option is to send journalists timely, insightful soundbites they can include in articles they’re already working on or plan to. We call this technique “newsjacking.”

What is newsjacking? 

The term newsjacking describes the process of commenting on breaking news for publicity. Newsjacking can be particularly efficient, as it offers the chance for multiple journalists to pick up your comment. 

Newsjacking is simple, but requires some prep work to get started.

How to newsjack

There are four steps to newsjacking. First, set up an alert for breaking news related to your area of expertise. If you’re an expert in infection control, you’ll want to set up an alert for infection control. Alerts will serve two purposes: notify you when news on your topic hits the headlines, and help you track which journalists are writing about it. 

Second, write out your key messages ahead of time. Questions to ask yourself are:

• What’s my angle on this topic?
• Why is it newsworthy?
• How is my angle different and better than what they’ll likely receive from someone else?
• What soundbites can I use to make my point?
• What stats, infographics, and images can I share to make my point?

Third, edit your comments down to 200 words or less. And fourth, when the news breaks, send your comments to the journalists you’ve been tracking.

Example of earned media through newsjacking:

A cybersecurity firm’s website traffic soared when its experts ramped up delivering comments to journalists whose beat covered cybersecurity and journalists who were looking for cybersecurity sources to answer their questions for a story they were writing. By proactively sending comments to both groups of journalists the firms experts increased their media pickups to an average of three per week, leading to more online brand mentions and backlinks, which in turn ushered more traffic to their website.

Strategy #3: Speaking engagements

Our study on Visible Experts^® (VEs) shows that speaking engagements are the best way to grow an expert’s reputation, because events are one of the channels buyers frequently use to find the experts they need. 

Here’s how speaking engagements impact your SEO. First, submissions require a URL of your organization (another reason why you need a website) and content that shows proof of your expertise (a boon for your blog and external publications). Every time event producers review your submission, they visit your site, review your content, and browse any externally published work. Second, once you’ve been picked as a speaker, the event promotions will mention your name and firm, perhaps link back to your site, and provide a topic description that reinforces your EAT. Third, at the event itself and afterwards, those who’ve attended, -or couldn’t make it to -your session, will likely visit your website and read your blog and resources. Fourth, those same people will probably talk about you and trigger even more website visits. Fifth, journalists you’ve engaged at the event might include you in an article, which they and their readers will share on social media. These are just a few of the many ways events can expand your audience reach.

Example of earned media through speaking engagements:

A/E/C firm Schnackel Engineers improved brand awareness and website traffic by pitching their experts to various podcasts and events. They were featured in the BD+C podcast The Weekly and were accepted to speak at the AGC IT Conference and the ENR Conference. In addition to these speaking engagements, they published articles in FMJ and Facilities.net.

Strategy #4: Social media mentions

When people like your content, they’ll share it with their networks. Besides links to articles, people like to share infographics and intriguing statistics accompanied with a concise, easy-to-absorb explanation. 

But there’s more to social media as a multi-use phenomenon–it’s another channel for commenting meaningfully on your topics.

Examples of earned media through social media mentions:

Remember that list of journalists you’re tracking for newsjacking? If you follow them on social media, you can share their article along with your expert commentary. On LinkedIn, you can tag them and their networks will gain visibility of your expert comments, which readers will share if your posts help them feel like they’re “in the know” of something valuable.

Strategy #5: Referrals and recommendations

Referrals and recommendations, the most popular marketing techniques used by VEs, are considered the third most impactful, after writing books and speaking engagements. Although these referrals and recommendations aren’t always online, they invariably result in more website traffic. 

Strategy #6: Work with influencers

Who are the recognized individuals and organizations in your industry? What relationships have you built with them? Our research on VEs underscore the importance of nurturing those relationships. Almost one in five experts (17.2%) report that other VEs bring them new business opportunities, help advance their reputations (16.2%), and provide introductions to other VEs (also 16.2%).

They can also share their audience with you. Many VEs are regular bloggers, and a growing number host their own podcast. And no matter how they keep their audience engaged, you can always fill gaps in their content. A guest appearance or a guest article can give your reputation and your website’s reputation with search engines a nice bump.

Example of earned media through work with influencers:

Hinge has published a book titled The Visible Expert. The book details the careers and techniques of thought leaders within the professional services. By engaging in mutually beneficial book promotions with these industry experts, Hinge helps expand the experts’ audience reach as much as they’re able to expand Hinge’s.

Strategy #7: Partnership marketing

Partnership marketing is the practice of collaborating with another firm that targets your audience but offers services that complement or minimally overlap with yours. Think of it as a way to close any gaps in your content while building visibility and profitability. Any time you collaborate on, say, a book on a signature topic, co-host a webinar, conduct research, or exchange blogs, yours and your partner’s promotions will generate publicity and shepherd more visitors to your site. This is the reason partnerships are one of the top five digital strategies of high growth firms. 

Examples of earned media through partnership marketing:

Writing articles for your partner’s site while publishing your partner’s articles on your website is one of the quickest ways to satisfy your partner’s and your need for more and better content while reaching each other’s audience. The key is to develop original content that is distinct from any you’ve written for your own website. Otherwise, your guest article could undermine your onsite SEO strategy. 

Another example is to co-present at a webinar or in-person event. By drawing on the expertise of two firms rather than just one, collaborative presentations are a great way to develop distinct, original, and more impactful content. By bridging at least two areas of expertise, both firms are able to address issues in unique ways.

The impact of off-page SEO

COVID has turned your buyers into remote buyers, and your website into the most important tool for engaging them. SEO has become one of the most important strategies for firms to survive or thrive in a largely digital marketplace. But as businesses of all stripes flex their SEO muscles, you’ll need to level up by combining robust on-page with off-page SEO strategies. The digital PR and earned media strategies we’ve outlined will help you build on, and complement, the achievements of technical SEO tactics, generate more leads, and win more business.

If you’re still not convinced of the impact of off-page SEO, consider this: When EH&E began to receive more media attention, their website traffic grew four times.

This is how relationships that build reputations drive results. 

The post 7 Digital PR and Earned Media Strategies that Give Your SEO a Boost appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

The greek goddess Atalanta plans to take a run to the end of a certain well-beaten path. Well before she can reach the end of the path she must make it to the halfway point. But before she makes it to the halfway point she must make it to the quarter of the way point! And before that, she needs to make it to the eighth of the way point. And before that the sixteenth of the way point…

Here we sink into the dilemma: How does the Atalanta ever reach her destination? How does she even begin?

Many B2B marketers find themselves in a predicament similar to Atalanta’s. They are fully aware that their firm ought to be producing relevant content as a marketing strategy, but they’re stuck on the starting line wondering how to even get started.

Fortunately, mathematics has an explanation for Zeno’s paradox. And the frustrated marketer can, too—by reframing and looking at it through the lens of content relevance.

But before we discuss some strategies to help you increase the relevance of your content, it’s important that we understand how the marketplace is changing and why it matters more than ever to focus on content relevance.

Relevancy is on the Rise

The trouble at hand is that competition is increasing for professional services firms. In fact, in the Hinge Research Institute’s last four High Growth Studies, increased competition in the marketplace has been named a leading threat faced by the fastest growing firms. 

And there is more data to back up this sentiment. According to Hinge Research Institute’s third edition of its Inside the Buyer’s Brain study:

• Visibility of professional services firms is up 41.7%
• Professional services firms have improved their reputations by 10.8
• Buyer loyalty has sunk to a historic low, down nearly 2%

But among these findings, one of the most staggering changes is in how the relevancy of services provided by professional services firms has increased. In Figure 1, we see that more than ever, today’s buyers are looking for firms that can solve their biggest problems—and they believe that professional services firms like yours can solve them.

The most successful, professional services firms are not only improving their marketing, they are improving the relevancy of their services. The question now becomes how can we demonstrate our relevant expertise to prospective clients through great content.

Prioritizing Content Relevance Is the Way Forward

Whether you are publishing a series of blog posts, conducting a new webinar, or creating a gated piece of content, you are now working in the most competitive content landscape of all time. 

Every day, thousands of marketers from around the world are releasing or republishing new content and striving to gain their prospects’ attention. With so much competition there are certainly strategies that will not work—chief among them the all too common practice of producing ad-hoc content. 

So what should be the northstar for marketers in charge of developing new content? If we are to believe the research (and we at Hinge, certainly fall into this category) it is content relevance.

As professional services firms strive to become ever more relevant in their service delivery, it is the marketer’s responsibility to maintain pace. By leveraging your firm’s differentiators, special expertise or marketing positioning in your content, you will only make you more credible to your readers. And in a world that is widely oversaturated with content, only the highly relevant content will last.

4 Strategies for Increasing Content Relevance

For marketers working together with their team and their firm’s experts, we’ve made the case that content relevance should be your top priority. So what strategies can you implement to increase the likelihood that your content will be perceived as relevant. Here we discuss four different strategies:

Strategy 1: Conduct custom research on your clients

Any longtime reader of Hinge’s work will know that researching your target audience is often our recommended starting place for setting your marketing strategy. Interviewing and surveying your current and past clients can be a way to authentically capture what is unique about your firm.

“How did the client find your firm?”

“What tipped the scale when the client selected you as their service provider?”

“How did your firm solve their issues?”

Analyzing the answers to questions like these can yield helpful insights that can be applied by your marketing team. From a strategic standpoint, client research is invaluable in the process of refining your positioning and messaging. When it comes to content relevance, understanding how your current clients found you, what they valued, and what additional problems you could solve for them can give you a baseline idea for the kinds of issues and topics you could write or speak about in your next content campaign. It’s likely other potential clients are out there looking for the same level of support you provided to the clients you’ve worked with. Now it’s time to prove it with some strong messaging and great content.

To learn more about conducting research on target audiences, download Hinge’s free Professional Services Guide to Research.

Strategy 2: Learn through keyword research

Another avenue you can use to increase content relevance is keyword research. According to Inside the Buyer’s Brain, three out of the top ways potential buyers search for work-related topics is by consuming digital content. The top option among these is of course conducting a general web search. 

While professionals are still willing to ask their peers and colleagues for a recommendation, the very next thing they’re likely to do is turn to Google. Will you be found when they do?

Regular keyword research that intersects with your content creation plan is a surefire way to increase the visibility of your content and improve the likelihood that it will be relevant. 

In keyword research one of the main pieces of information you’re looking for is the keyword volume. Low volume? Clearly less prospects are searching for that term. The sweet spot is when you can match a keyword opportunity with a keyword with higher volume. Find these keywords and center your written content around them to increase the volume of quality traffic to your website.

And do you want to hear something amusing? It was through keyword research that our team identified “content relevance” as a topic to write about! So we practice what we preach.

Read this article to learn more about B2B SEO best practices!

Strategy 3: Repurpose content across many mediums

Repurposing, repackaging, and rewriting content is one of the most efficient ways to increase content relevance. This all starts with what we accept to be common knowledge that different people learn in different ways.

If you have gone through the exercise of identifying and producing a piece of content that has proven to be relevant, it should be one of your top contenders for expansion or repurposing. What are some examples? Here are a few:

• Take a relevant blog post and rewrite it align with specific industries you serve
• Go deeper on a topic and create a downloadable guide
• Turn a popular topic and begin conducting original research on it
• Produce video blogs as companion pieces to your top performing written content
• Host a webinar on your most relevant topic

Even if a piece of content is relevant for a potential buyer, there’s a chance they may miss it. If you’re confident that a particular issue or topic is resonating with your audience, then double-down on that topic and ensure that it gets as wide a reach as possible.

Strategy 4: Use research as content

For our fourth strategy we see everything converge into a single powerful entity. Namely, leveraging the power of conducting your own original research and baking it into every layer of content you produce.

We mentioned above how fierce the competition is in the world of content marketing. So what’s one way to stand out and make sure that the relevancy of your content is indisputable? Conduct custom research, sponsor or license key research reports, or co-sponsor a webinar with a research firm based on a piece of research.

When you leverage research, you are staking a claim of expertise on a particular topic. From there, you can begin to fill out a diverse content calendar all sourced from that commissioned, sponsored, licensed or presented piece of research. See below in Figure 2 just how many ways one piece of research can be utilized in a single marketing campaign.

From live and on-demand webinars that engage attendees and drive conversions to a series of keyword optimized blog posts which highlight different angles of the study and bring more visibility to your firm, custom or licensed research studies can inspire your content creators more ammunition to make excellent content.

The Time to Take the First Step is Now

As more and more professional services firms increase the quality of their digital content, it will be the ones who are the most relevant to their buyers’ issues that come out on top. Researching your clients, understanding their problems, and introducing them to your expertise is the path forward. 

Your firm may need to implement new marketing techniques and strategies to accomplish this goal, such as market research, keyword research, and an exercise in repurposing content into different mediums. The key is to experiment and test new ideas. Avoid falling into the rhythms of how you’ve always done things. You can always become more relevant. 

The post 4 Strategies to Increase Content Relevance and Reignite Your B2B Content Marketing Plan appeared first on Hinge Marketing.