Between the pandemic, lock downs and flagging economy, some Practice Managers may be unsure of how to best market their offering, or whether to continue with their marketing budgets at all. Now’s the time to get serious.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a clear divide in the business environment, causing a scenario best described by the old ‘feast or famine’ analogy.

Some Practices are overwhelmed with the amount of work they have on – these are mostly the advisors and suppliers to those businesses on the frontline of the pandemic, the essential services providers and so on. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those faced with a significant drop in sales revenues as their customers and clients choose to save their discretionary dollars.

It may be tempting to think that, in either of these cases, putting the brakes on your marketing activity would be a savvy move. One of the comments we often hear is: ‘We are just too busy with the clients we have now, we don’t need anymore’. Unfortunately, this view of marketing is too reductive and will cause your business pain in the long-term.

Marketing is much more than acquiring new clients. And, with professional services marketing, it’s more about talking, advising and connecting with your whole book, not just the urgent, must-do-now, clients. 

Keeping the lights on
When things aren’t looking great in the economy, marketing budgets seem like the most sensible things to get cut, but the simple fact is that the Firms/Practices that maintain their position best through long periods of economic turmoil are those that maintain a healthy spend.

And that’s because those Practices are working to maintain a level of connection with their customers, whereas those who don’t find themselves suddenly behind the pack.

However, if Practices don’t keep the brand light burning, the cost of snuffing it out and then trying to reignite it next year will be a costly mistake. This is because as Practices reignite the brand light, they find themselves playing catch up with marketing spend to get ahead.

Professional services marketing goes beyond
Here at Sharpe Marketing, the services we offer go far beyond the traditional and perhaps more transactional nature of marketing services, each of which are ideal for considering to use to tweak up your business activities in a downturn.

That’s because we treat the relationships between you, the professional advisor, and the SME as a strong partnership, one that can be fostered and will create mutual benefit for both parties when treated correctly.

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed or in any way struggling to get the right information in front of your clients at the moment, we’re here to help you get off the hamster wheel. We will ensure you have a good pipeline of work coming from your existing clients, so that you don’t fall into the trap of scrambling to connect, or god forbid, lose clients to practices that are looking further ahead than just a quarter-by-quarter approach.

Connect with us info@sharpemarketing.co.nz
021 819 691