EXPERIENCE SETS US APART

Our experience of the particular challenges faced by professionals is applied to get results.

Put simply, professionals offer services that are often intangible. Expertise, experience and technical knowledge is offered as professional advice. Added to which, professional service brands are often built around a core number of recognised players who have built up a reputation. As such, the value of the service lies with the person as much as the advice offered. The result is buyers find it hard to distinguish levels of quality and value.

Our first hand professional services expertise equips us to design effective marketing solutions for a wide range of professionals from large partnerships to small family owned businesses.

Consultancy services include:

Marketing Planning

Crucially, we start with a strategic overview of our client's business to understand their basic marketing mix (product, place, price, people and promotion). This involves a situation analysis of the professional service and investigation of their business plan, current marketing activity and sales behaviour. The outcome of this phase defines the project boundaries and in most cases, leads to the development of a robust marketing strategy with specific marketing action plans that are realistic, practical and measurable for managers and employees.[return to top]

Satisfaction Reviews and Care Programmes

Everything about a professional business should be driven by client or patient care.  Most profit is derived from a small number of clients or patients yet professionals operate with a large database.  As the cost of recruiting new business is considerably more than encouraging repeat or new business from existing clients and patients, many professionals are wasting valuable resources.

Professionals also have another common characteristic. Often our clients don't know who their most profitable buyers are so they can't explain what motivates them or what their client/patient's expectations are of the service. As the buyers of professional services are driven by a range of factors which are constantly changing, getting to the nub of what motivates them is hugely important. Our satisfaction reviews fit the needs of each business ranging from small focus group sessions to large one-to-one interview programmes backed up with quantitative surveys.  And our client care programmes are tailored too to ensure that we focus on fact finding as well as strengthening relationships.[return to top]

Communications Planning

Professionals need to communicate their message effectively in terms of what they say and efficiently in relation to who they say it to. Our focus is on delivering precisely engineered communications that hit the mark for the relevant target audience rather than waste valuable resources.

We have first-hand experience in driving professional service marketing campaigns across the following activities, often as an integrated campaign over the short, medium and long term.

  • Direct Marketing
  • Public Relations
  • Sponsorship
  • Advertising
  • Personal Selling
  • Sales Promotion

Our goal is to set our clients apart from their competitors and we have a track record of creative, cost-effective and winning communications campaigns. [return to top]

Branding and Corporate Identity

Good branding communicates what business you are in and arouses expectations about the service characteristics both tangible and intangible.

Professionals deliver technical advice where the perception of the brand, reputation of the business, and added value, largely resides with the people in the business. This means the brand values have to be true and accurate and consistently evident at all levels of the business.

As professionals operate in a crowded market, those with strong, well tested brands stand out and offer a competitive advantage. Their cultural vision and shared values not only lead to sustainable client relationships, it is linked to the recruitment and retention of the best talent.

We offer a full branding and corporate identity service involving research internally and externally to identify the values that define the business strategy. It includes defining the vision of the brand, marketing audit, competitor research, creating and testing approved concepts, implementation internally leading to a final launch. And it doesn't stop there. We offer ongoing training to ensure the client's investment is protected in the short and long term. [return to top]

Pitching and Tenders

In the current climate, corporate tendering is fiercely competitive.  Many large and medium sized commercial contracts will feel the punch of a detailed procurement-style process in both the public and private sectors.

Businesses now expect a sophisticated return both in terms of written responses and documentation supported by presentations from key team members. It is a specialist area where those with limited experience of tendering are written off despite offering all the ingredients to provide the professional services required.

So we offer direct expertise in tender and pitch research and preparation, written documents and styles, responses and presentation planning and delivery. Whether it is the senior practitioners, mid level managers, or an entire departmental team, we support and coach clients to improve their win-rates. [return to top]