Marketing in 2011

What worked, what didn’t and what to do now
by Randy Shattuck, The Shattuck Group

As you reflect back over 2011, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Did you accomplish everything you set out to accomplish at the beginning of the year? Did you hit your growth goals for revenue and profits? Did your client acquisition strategies and tactics work out as you had planned? Did the market adopt at the rate you had hoped the services you introduced or upgraded? Are you happy with your progress?

If you are like so many of the service firm leaders I speak with, the answer to most of these questions is a resounding — no! For the professional services industry, 2011 was tough. While many service firms actually improved profits in 2011 over 2010, many companies did this by working harder for less money, trimming operational budgets and staff, or both.

If you’re feeling less than great about 2011, here’s an alternative perspective — return on luck. Have you heard of this? Jim Collins and Morten Hansen recently completed a nine-year study on extremely successful businesses in modern times. Their findings were quite interesting. Collins and Hansen posit that extremely successful businesses, those who outperform market averages by 10 times, know when to let good luck disrupt their plans and take them in a new direction.

That’s fine for times when good luck is the norm. But what about a period of time when bad luck is the norm — the way many people think of 2011? The authors posit that if you remain a viable business long enough, good luck comes back around. Does this mean that survival should have been your primary goal in 2011? Not necessarily. However, it does mean that if you survived 2011, you have the possibility to really hit your stride in 2012.

How can you do this?

The greatest indicator of future success is past success. So the question becomes: What worked in 2011? Which marketing strategies and tactics increased brand awareness, generated leads, pulled prospects into buying cycles, converted prospects to clients and impacted profitability? While the year has not ended yet and these observations aren’t based on market research (unlike previous articles), I’m seeing five marketing trends stand out from the pack:

1.      Email marketing.

2.      Webinars.

3.      Video.

4.      Thought leadership tools and landing pages.

5.      Sales and marketing automation.

Email marketing

It still rules. Email remains the vehicle by which most service organizations reach out and touch their markets. Most firms use email to notify their markets about new white papers, videos and webinars, and the list goes on. There’s no end in sight for the power of email marketing.

But it’s not all candy and roses. Open rates and click-throughs are harder and harder to sustain every year. With the proliferation of email comes a proliferation of clutter. Users are more likely to ignore, delete or opt out of email campaigns than ever before.  In 2011, service buyers raised the bar even higher on what they deemed to be valuable email content or spam. Which are you sending?

Webinars

This tactic has single-handedly produced more new leads for many organizations than nearly any other marketing tactic. Through webinars, anonymous visitors identify themselves as prospects and enter a buying cycle right away. A great webinar topic combined with educational content aimed at a group of people who are passionate about that topic — well, it can hardly miss.

However, beware of technical glitches and presentation goblins. And this isn’t limited to boring your audience. This year alone I attended two disastrous webinars. In one, a speaker flushed the toilet while his partner spoke. In another, the primary speaker’s phone died after 20 minutes and the webinar ended abruptly with a “technical difficulties” notice on screen. Ouch!

Video

I’ve written about the power of video for a long time. My company began experimenting with online video in 2008 and never looked back. You’ll find videos embedded into nearly every page of the company website. Most successful service firms now use video to communicate and, more important, to connect with their target audiences.

Forbes Insights published an outstanding study on the rise of video in the C-suite. This study shows that powerful decision-makers and influencers spend more time watching videos online than ever. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that video killed the radio star. Remember that song? In other words, video is a whole new ballgame. You never get a second chance to make a good first impression. Almost no other medium allows you to make such a strong (negative or positive) first impression. The Shattuck Group has a video tool kit that shows you how to produce business-class quality videos so you consistently make the right impression on your market.

Thought leadership and landing pages

There is still a voracious appetite for thought leadership pieces such as white papers, guidebooks and other content on topics that matter to decision-makers. These tools are often accessed through landing pages where users download the content in exchange for their contact information. These two tools generate some of the most qualified leads because users progress deeper into a buying cycle before they reach out to a service firm.

Thought leadership itself is actually on its way down, in my opinion. The problem isn’t the lack of thought leaders. Rather, there is too much clutter masquerading as thought leadership. B2B decision-makers don’t have time to sort through the bad advice to get to the good advice. So build a reputation for thought leadership of substance.

Sales and marketing automation

As marketing budgets have gotten tighter and service firm executives have placed more emphasis on client acquisition, sales and marketing automation solutions have emerged as the solution du jour. These tools empower sales and marketing teams to work together more effectively and focus on client acquisition.

Sales and marketing automation solutions, nevertheless, are just emerging for small to medium-sized firms, the size of most service organizations. That means there are still lots of painful lessons being learned. The good news is, the results are very powerful for those with an appetite (and budget) for the cutting edge.

About the author

Randy Shattuck is a senior marketing executive and founder of The Shattuck Group, a full-service marketing firm that specializes in assisting professional services firms. You can reach him at randy@theshattuckgroup.com.