Our Best SMPS Seminar Recaps
We’ve had the pleasure of presenting at both the SMPS Pacific Regional Conference and the SMPS Southern Regional conference this year. Below is a recap of some tips and tricks we shared to further your marketing and business development efforts.
Staying Top of Mind
How do you stay top of mind with clients in our current disconnected business climate?? It starts with understanding the difference between push and pull marketing, which is all about how you approach your clients. Push marketing means pushing your brand in front of a potential client but pull marketing is all about implementing strategies that draw your clients into your services. Below are a few examples to illustrate each:
In our experience, pull marketing is more meaningful communication and will be more memorable to your clients. The point is to be intentional about your client interactions. People prefer to work with people they KNOW and LIKE, so focus on getting to know your clients beyond the boardroom. One strategy is to create a list of client check-ins set around important dates. Client appreciation is another great way to stay top of mind without asking for something in return. We like sending appreciation gifts to clients outside of the traditional holiday gift-giving time of year. Some of our most popular gifts include local fine dining gift cards, specialty liquor, custom promotional items and plants/flowers/trees.
If you’re looking for more of a business-focused route to stay top of mind, client surveys and association involvement are two effective tools. Sending client surveys is a meaningful exercise that helps assess how firms are doing, obtains valuable feedback and provides great testimonial quotes. Association involvement fosters networking opportunities, and to be even more strategic, know where your clients are involved, personally and professionally, and join those organizations.
Marketing From The Inside Out
Marketing from the inside out starts with growing a strong culture. A solid company cultural foundation transforms employees into brand ambassadors, helps to attract and retain talent, creates firm alignment and positively affects performance. Some simple ways to lay a foundation for a strong company culture include:
Form a Culture Committee to set goals and become the culture champions of the organization
Capture your Firm’s Story by creating traditions, capturing culture photos, cataloging your history and developing a firm timeline
Provide an Intranet (think internal Facebook) to share and gather information, keep staff engaged, and hold the knowledge architecture of the firm
Distribute a regular Internal Newsletter to maintain connectivity by featuring employees, sharing big picture goals and progress and inviting employees to get involved
Encourage Professional Development by providing access to marketing training and involving employees in topic selection
Conduct Employee Surveys, which can be done internally or by a third party, to gather valuable internal feedback and let employees know their opinion is valuable
Invest in cool Swag, which is not just for clients. Employees are proud to support their firms and will make great use of the provided SWAG.
Don’t forget to Celebrate Wins internally!
Want to learn more about client and employee surveys, or how we can help support your marketing efforts? Contact us for more information.