A Strong Marketing Plan: The Small Firm's Best Friend
With all of the challenges small firms face today, marketing of the practice can get lost in the shuffle. If you asked what the three most important issues are to small firms, very few if any would mention marketing as one. Is it because marketing isn’t important to small firms?
Absolutely not, and small firms need to look at their marketing efforts as one of the cornerstones of building their practice. Strong marketing helps firms to understand their clients and market better, which allows them to better serve current clients and attract new business.
Where do small firms start? They should always begin with a marketing plan. This plan should include an overall firm vision for the future, a mission statement on what the firm wants to provide, core values of the firm, and specific strategic marketing objectives. Build the meat of the plan based off of the strategic marketing objectives. Determine what initiatives must be done and who is responsible to achieve each of the objectives that have been laid out. Firms need due dates and must hold themselves accountable to complete each objective. The plan is the basis for all marketing efforts.
Understanding your current client base and potential market to determine a targeted niche is vital in your firm’s marketing efforts. How did your clients come to do business with us? Why have they continued to work with us? How long have they been clients? What is the average life-time value of our clients? What kind of businesses are we attracting? Are our clients proving us with referrals? These are a few questions that will help your firm better understand your target niche of clientele. This will focus your efforts on attracting the clients you want.
One of the biggest failures for small firms in terms of marketing is that many times they fail to stay the course. Firms must regularly go back to the plan to see if they are on track or need to make adjustments. Don’t create a comprehensive plan at the beginning of the year and then not touch it again for 12 months. A strong marketing plan should be flowing and flexible so that needed changes can be made. Marketing is not black and white, but with good research of current clients and the market, firms should be able to utilize their marketing to grow.