Professional services and business solution providers
For businesses in the HR, recruitment, finance, legal or consulting sectors, a robust marketing strategy is vital for maintaining reputation and retaining clients.
Why marketing strategy matters
A defined marketing strategy will help you build client and partner relationships, communicate the right value proposition and rationalise your marketing activity against your business goals.
The neccessity of a strategic approach
The way successful professional services firms market themselves has changed significantly.
Referral networks have limited potential
You may have experienced it yourself; with prospective clients increasingly control their own buyer journey, going online and doing their research, professional service providers can no longer rely solely on networking and connections to achieve their goals.
Client expectations – and competition – have risen
Businesses are looking for more from suppliers and partners, including greater transparency, values alignment and specialist expertise to address their own growing challenges. A marketing strategy that stands out and addresses the changing needs of clients has never been more important.
Signs you have a non-strategic approach
You’re ‘buffet marketing’: choosing too many things and with too much variety for it to work.
You’re not taking action: despite having lots of ideas and good intentions, you’re not sure how or what to progress.
You’re relying on your gut: making decisions on instinct rather than evidence and metrics to make decisions on where to invest resources.
Decisions are difficult: What to do? Where to invest? Without a structure and clear goals, decisions around marketing aren’t as straightforward as they should be. Trying to get buy-in from stakeholders is also challenging.
You have questions: you’re seeing the published articles and webpages, but are they working? Is your budget being wasted or put to the wrong tactics?
%
SMEs have a marketing action plan
%
SMEs don't generate sufficient leads
%
Average marketing budget wasted
The benefits of a marketing strategy
Clarity and focus
By defining your ideal client persona you’ll be able to focus on how to reach, nurture and retain them. Your growth won’t be limited by referrals and you’ll maximise the return on your investment.
Trust and visibility
A documented strategy will set out the brand and thought leadership approach you need to build your reputation and relationships while also ensuring you stay compliant and values-aligned.
Competitive positioning
By articulating the value of the intangible and the value that unites your services in terms of being unique, relevant and credible, you’ll be better able to build a competitive and sustainable position in the market.
Easier decisions
SMEs can generate valuable insights from existing client data, open source data or low cost market research which can be used to inform decisions on pricing, product and promotion.
Greater efficiency
An audience-centred marketing action plan will help you align your teams and improve your processes. This keeps the focus on the big picture and makes sure you’re investing in the right marketing activities.
Goal-aligned growth
By quantifying your marketing objectives and connecting them to your business goals, a marketing strategy will highlight what you need to measure when to adjust things to keep you on track.
How Glew can help
Strategy review workshops
Glew can work collaboratively with you to audit your current marketing approach and client journey and develop a clear and feasible action plan for you to take forwards. This is a popular option for smaller businesses who want to do a stocktake and develop a simple structured plan aligned to their goals.
Marketing strategy set-up
If you want a more comprehensive document, Glew can develop or revise a marketing strategy into a report and implementation plan for you or a junior marketing employee to follow. This might be a good option for you if you’re not in a position to recruit a senior marketing person.
Flexible strategic consultancy
If you already have a marketing team you might find there are times when there’s too much for them to action, or that they need some strategic marketing guidance. In this situations. Glew can provide flexible support, joining on to your team.
Market research
Glew can help you design, run and analyse cost-effective market research on your existing clients or target markets via survey, interview, focus groups. As well as providing valuable insights to inform your marketing strategy or launch of a new service or in a new market, research can be used to measure brand awareness and sentiment or develop valuable articles and whitepapers.
Client personas
Drawing on your insights and wider open source data, Glew can develop target personas to inform your marketing tactics, bring internal teams on board and support any agencies you work with when making selection choices for adverts or media buying.
Marketing implementation
Whether you have a campaign or event to organise, a website or rebrand to manage, Glew can help you gain maximal value from it by developing a strategic brief, liaising with suppliers and project-managing the process. And, if you need a dashboard to showcase your results, create it for you.
Case studies
Cerebral Palsy Cymru
Supporting a children’s charity to increase engagement, reach and income Who Early intervention is essential for babies and children who have or who are at high risk of having cerebral palsy. I had the pleasure of working with Cerebral Palsy Cymru ahead of the opening...
FNF
Bridging the strategic marketing gap for a UK charity with global goals Who The Florence Nightingale Foundation (FNF) is a UK-based charity which supports the leadership development of nurses and midwives. In the 87 years they’ve been running, FNF’s programmes have...
Ogi
A sustainable insights strategy for an ambitious tech firm Who Fast-growing Welsh broadband and telephone provider Ogi saw an opportunity in Glew’s market research and insights services to help them develop the structure and rich insights they needed to drive tactical...
Lubas Medical
Who - the client Lubas Medical Ltd. provide medical training and medical staff across the UK and internationally. Over the past 20+ years, the company has built a robust brand and clientele; its Sports Trauma course was the first of its kind, and they are the...
Evans Pharmacy
Who - the client The trend towards healthier living and the Welsh Government’s commitment to fund more pharmacy services presented Evans Pharmacy with an ideal opportunity to review its brand position and establish a more integrated marketing strategy. Why Glew? Aware...
“Georgie’s work has allowed us to add value to the service we provide over and above what a mainstream recruitment firm does. It’s also been good to have her external perspective on the business and guidance to ensure we’re doing things right. Georgie is conscientious in all she does and very easy to work with. We would definitely recommend her marketing consultancy to other businesses.”
Ita McNeil-Jones, Director
“Georgie was a great help in focusing our strategy and giving us a structure to work with. Since our marketing assistant has had the focused schedule, we’ve really gained traction. The number of web visitors has consistently increased and our online sales since the start of the year have also increased significantly.”
Chris Lubas, Director
“The Franchise Marketing Guide that Georgie produced has been a great help. One of our fastest growing franchisees spoke at our recent AGM to inspire other franchisees. Describing it as ‘a fantastic tool’ she explained how she followed the guide step-by-step to set up and promote her first classes; she was fully booked by the time she launched. She then repeated the process in a new area with the same success.”
Emma Morgan, Founder and Director
“We’re delighted with Georgie’s work. She is extremely knowledgeable and skilled in several fields and got to grips very quickly with the complexities of what we’re trying to achieve.
“Georgie has added real value to the team, consistently exceeding expectations. She is a people person, likeable and a strong communicator who is sensitive to how to get the right results from others.”
Sarah Vining, Head of Brand and Engagement
Glew-ed Blog
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