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An A to Z of professional services marketing: what topics to cover?

Nigel Clark, Global Head of Marketing and Communications at SLR Consulting, frequently sees advice from serial bloggers about the benefits of writing regularly. Having tackled two books to date (see below), he thought he would take on the challenge in 2020 of writing a regular post and cover his pick of the A to Z of professional services marketing. Every week or two, he will attempt a letter in turn. Thankfully marketing is a very broad church, so there is no shortage of options, so in his first post he is seeking advice on what topics to cover. Listed below are ones he can think of and highlighted those he believes will provide a good balance across the A to Z spectrum. If you can think of a better selection or topics he's missed then please let him know.

My target audience for these posts are marketers looking to develop their knowledge and understanding of what it takes to thrive in marketing for a professional services firm. I hope it will build up into a useful resource, but recognise it will be all the stronger if others add in their thoughts and comments to each post. And of course I am happy for people to disagree with my views and put forward an alternative perspective. In addition, if anyone feels so strongly about a topic that they’d like to write a guest post for any of the letters then just let me know.

The first post, probably A for Advertising, will be out next week.

Here’s my selection to date (my preference in bold ):

A – Advertising / account management / AI

B – Business development / bids / brand / behaviour change

C – Clients / campaigns / CRM / content / conversations / commerciality / communication / co-creation / collaboration / competition / culture / CSR / change management

D – Differentiation / data / digital / disruption / diversity

E – Employer brand / engagement / experience

F – Finance (& Marketing) / feedback

G - Growth

H – HR (& Marketing) / high performing teams

I – Innovation / intelligence / international / insights

J – (Client) journey / justification

K – Knowledge management / KPIs

L – Leadership / listening / LinkedIn / loyalty

M – Management / mobile / MBD / metrics

N – New Service/Product Development

O – Opportunity pipeline / objectives

P – Products vs Services / planning / PR / Proposal management / Pricing / 5 or 7 Ps / project management / profitability / prospects / prototyping

Q – Qualifications / quality / qualitative vs quantitative / questioning

R – Relationships / research / RoI / reputation

S – Social selling / strategy / segmentation / sales / skills

T – Thought leadership

U – Understanding clients

V – Value-added / VR / voice / vision

W – Websites / web metrics / win-loss / webinars

X – eXpertise / eXperience

Y – (brand) You

Z – zero cost marketing / Gen Z

Personal bio

I’ve worked in, taught and written about professional services marketing for more than 20 years. I am currently the Global Head of Marketing and Communications for SLR Consulting, an environmental consulting and advisory firm. I’m also a non-Executive Director for PSMG, an international membership organisation for marketers in the professional services, and a Course Director for Cambridge Marketing College, the only marketing college to offer a professional services pathway to the Chartered Institute of Marketing qualification

I am the lead editor and author of the Professional Services Marketing Handbook and co-author of the Professional Services Leadership Handbook, both published by Kogan Page.

 
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