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No question about it, the marketing of professional services can be a frustrating way to earn a living. This holds true whether you’re an employee of a professional firm or a “hired gun.” Common complaints are (a) egomaniacal clients, (b) unreasonable expectations that often flow from “a.” and (c) a paucity of solid content.
I had the opportunity last week to visit with a friend from college whom I had not seen in 25+ years. We had a nice visit in his Park Avenue office, learned that our companies employ roughly the same number of people, and that we market in very much the same way.
Just a few years ago, the word “engagement” meant diamond rings to most of us. Today, that word represents a sort of business to business marketing nirvana: the ability to develop an ongoing, mutually beneficial dialogue with your clients, customers and prospects.
Anyone who spends time doing marketing communications for professional services firms will recognize some of these disasters in waiting. PR professionals can be ridiculed for making some classic rookie faux pas, like mass emailing reporters, not knowing what they’re pitching and to whom they’re pitching – you get the gist.
While the holiday season is behind us there is one more annual tradition to prepare for: the game of musical chairs in the finance industry. Most Wall Street firms pay annual bonuses to employees either at or shortly after the end of the year. Anticipation of these payments, which may account for the majority of total compensation, tends to cause employees to time their job hunts to minimize the amount of bonus money they leave behind with a former employer.
New legislation currently in the Senate creates a new agency that will police mortgages, credit cards, personal loans and home appraisals resulting in significant new liabilities for credit card and other consumer lending marketers— and their communications firms could be put in the line of fire, too.
So we’ve come to our last week in the office of 2009, and we’re going out in style! Please find below the headlines in the banking, bankruptcy, healthcare and retail sectors to kick off your week. See you in 2010!
In today’s “knowledge economy,” most of us are in the business of selling ideas. Whether your industry is banking, insurance, advisory services, consulting, engineering/architecture, pharmaceuticals or medical equipment, chances are your customers care as much about how you think and what you know (i.e., ideas, insights) as they do about the features/functions of what you sell. In this environment, successful marketing means smart thought leadership (e.g., books, studies, analyses, blog posts, articles).
Breaking out of your Thanksgiving-induced tryptophan coma yet? If not, we are confident that this morning’s exciting news headlines will! It’s Monday – “Cyber Monday” in fact, for those in the Retail sector – so it’s time again for our weekly preview of this week’s headlines in the B2B sectors we work in the most. Last week we focused on banking, healthcare and markets; this week we’re going to several other corners of the business world: management, real estate and of course – retail.
To coin ESPN is it Monday yet? Yes it is and to start the week off we have a round-up of the latest and greatest news in the banking, management and bankruptcy sectors. Enjoy!
