MARKETINg STRATEgIES FoR coNSULTANTS

Looking for effective marketing strategies for consultants? As a consultant, you live and breathe strategy - but is your marketing approach as razor-sharp as your client recommendations? Fear not, this guide breaks down essential steps to help your consultancy stand out and attract more clients. From unifying your team’s voice to leveraging specialisation and integrating inbound and outbound marketing, discover how to outsmart your rivals and achieve sustained consultancy growth.

Unified team voice

A unified team voice is essential for presenting a cohesive and compelling message. Ensuring that the entire organisation understands and can articulate the value proposition, category, and unique mechanism of your consultancy is crucial. This consistency across all touchpoints—such as your website, email signatures, social profiles, and lead magnets—helps create a unified front that builds trust and recognition with potential clients.

Steps to achieve a unified team voice:

1. Clear value proposition: Define what sets your consultancy apart and ensure every team member can communicate this effectively.
2. Consistent messaging: Use the same language across all platforms, ensuring a seamless experience for clients.
3. Regular training: Conduct regular training sessions to keep everyone aligned with the consultancy's core messages and positioning. For maximum impact (and to avoid sounding like a broken record player), consider bringing in external training from a positioning consultancy like ourselves. We'll equip your team with expert guidance and cutting-edge practices, ensuring your consultancy's voice is less 'elevator music' and more 'chart-topping hit’. 

The power of a unified voice cannot be understated. Consistency and clarity throughout all channels, across all assets, and by every team member ensures that whenever someone interacts with your consultancy, they receive the same compelling message.

Leverage specialisation

Specialists command higher fees and trust. It's about being a master of one rather than a jack of all trades. This approach not only boosts your credibility but also makes your consultancy more attractive to potential clients who are looking for expertise in a specific area.

Benefits of specialisation:

• Credibility: Being a specialist in a specific area increases your consultancy's credibility and trustworthiness.
• Higher fees: Specialists can command higher fees due to their enhanced expertise.
• Targeted marketing: Create marketing materials that speak directly to the needs and pain points of your niche audience.

Integrate inbound and outbound marketing

Inbound marketing fuels outbound efforts and vice versa. Producing content that addresses your audience's challenges and using it in outbound campaigns ensures a broader reach and higher engagement. For instance, when you create insightful blog posts, white papers, or videos, these can be referenced in your email campaigns or social media ads, providing value and encouraging engagement.

How to integrate inbound and outbound marketing:

• Content creation and SEO: Develop valuable content that addresses the needs of your target audience and optimise it for search engines to increase visibility.
• Outbound campaigns: Use the assets created through inbound marketing in your outbound efforts, such as email marketing and LinkedIn outreach.
• Engage your audience: Regularly engage with your audience through polls, surveys, and interactive content to understand their challenges and tailor your marketing messages accordingly.

Building relationships through networking events

Attending and participating in networking events is crucial for building relationships and expanding your consultancy’s reach. These events provide opportunities to connect with potential clients, understand industry trends and showcase your expertise.

Networking strategies:

• Be prepared: Have a clear and concise elevator pitch ready that highlights your consultancy’s unique value proposition.
• Engage actively: Participate in discussions, panels, and workshops to increase your visibility and credibility.
• Follow up: After the event, follow up with new contacts to nurture the relationships and explore potential collaborations or client engagements.

Networking events are a goldmine for building relationships and gaining valuable insights into your target market. Make sure to leverage these opportunities to expand your network and enhance your consulting business.

Measurable goals

Setting measurable goals are critical for continuous improvement and success in your consulting business. Establish SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals to track your progress and make data-driven adjustments to your strategies.

Setting measurable goals:

• Define clear objectives: Set SMART goals for your marketing efforts. Learn how to write SMART goals here.
• Track key metrics: Use tools like Google Analytics to monitor website traffic, engagement, and conversion rates.
• Adjust strategies: Regularly review your performance and adjust your strategies based on the insights gained from your analysis.

Achieving sustained growth requires a unified approach, where each element - from a cohesive team voice to targeted specialisation, integrated marketing efforts, strategic networking, and measurable goals - works in harmony. These strategies are interdependent and most effective when deployed together, creating a powerful engine for your consultancy’s growth. 

Ready to see how well your current positioning stands out? Book a Positioning Primer with Matt, where you’ll be prompted to take the Growth Positioning Diagnostic - a tool to assess your positioning strengths and areas for improvement. Discuss your results with Matt on the call, and start crafting a strategy that truly sets you apart.