Partner Article

Reputation matters

Professional services firms face a number of key challenges when it comes to developing and implementing their marketing strategies. Samantha Davidson, managing director of full service strategic marketing company Horizonworks, explains how these can be met head-on.

Professional services firms, whether they work in law or finance, are often long established, and part of the fabric of their local business communities. In other cases, they are the new kids on the block, offering what they perceive to be a fresh approach.

However, they all face a similar challenge when it comes to marketing, in that they don’t offer a ‘product’ in the traditional sense. Hot shot legal advice or guidance on tax affairs can’t be packaged in glitzy wrapping paper. Nor can it be bought off a supermarket shelf.

What they do offer is the expertise of their staff, the concept that whatever your issues or problems – be they financial or legal, domestic or commercial – you and your business are in safe hands.

So any marketing strategy for a professional services firm must focus on engendering a sense of trust in the firm among its clients and prospective clients – and both affirming and building its reputation in its target market sectors.

This can be achieved through a range of methods, but evidence is an important component: testimonials and case studies, for instance can be used to illustrate how a firm’s services can benefit clients. Partners and key staff are often respected authorities in their fields – whether that’s tax law, succession planning, divorce or asset management. Promoting them as experts, via regional and national consumer press, and trade publications, builds both their profile and trust in their professional standing.

At Horizonworks we have worked with a number of professional services firms, creating strategies tailored to them and using tactics appropriate to their markets.

Take David Gray Solicitors LLP for instance. The North East-based full service law firm has, over its 30 years, built up a formidable reputation within the legal services market, with a top tier classification in the Chambers UK Directory and the Legal 500. The company wanted to promote itself as a leading law firm in its fields and target its key markets of Newcastle and South Shields.

We developed a refreshed brand David Gray Solicitors, which was designed to capture the company’s values and relate to both private and business clients, and this activity was integrated with a long-term promotional campaign, using advertorials and news articles, to raise its profile via specific regional media channels, including The Journal and Shields Gazette.

Another example of our work in the professional services field is our on-going campaign for bespoke discretionary investment management practice Vertem Asset Management. The firm, which is headquartered in Newcastle, employed Horizonworks to develop and implement its PR and marketing strategy and to raise its profile regionally and nationally – we’ve achieved this through a number of methods, including securing advice articles, authored by its investment managers in leading North East newspapers and business publications, creating and managing advertising campaigns, and producing e-marketing material for the firm.

For firms who have gone under a larger corporate umbrella, it can be a challenge to present themselves as a local company offering a personal service - even if they have retained their long-standing clients and have a loyal customer base.

Obviously, being part of a larger, national group can have its advantages, but it can also dilute the brand and de-emphasise the values of well-established firms.

Recently Horizonworks undertook a re-branding exercise for South Shields-based PGS Law (formerly Patterson Glenton and Stracey) to coincide with its move away from the Quality Solicitors franchise. Our work focused on positioning PGS Law as a leading independent North East law firm, with strong roots in the region (the company dates back more than 135 years) but with a contemporary outlook. The results of this rebrand – which include a new website (www.pgslaw.co.uk) capture a confident firm proud of its past and looking forward to a bright future.

These are just some of the examples of how Horizonworks can take professional services firms from strategy to delivery, reinforcing their already hard-won reputations, and providing the architecture for future growth.

We are experts in building trust – and the companies we’ve worked with have trusted us to do just that.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Horizonworks .