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The
Marketplace MasterTM
is a monthly email publication on professional service
marketing from Expertise Marketing, LLC.
The
Latest Study on Professional Services Marketing
I am very excited to announce the availability of my
latest study report, conducted in partnership with Larry
Bodine Marketing. This time, at the urging of our research
advisors, including Marakon
Associates, Ernst &
Young, Rockwell
Group, CBRE and
Korn/Ferry among
others, our focus was measuring the effectiveness of
marketing and business development.
We
had more than 375 respondents from around the globe,
and their responses helped us identify, for
the first time, a verified link between a firm's measurement
of its marketing and BD initiatives and its competitive
effectiveness. The findings are backed up by
18 case studies that paint a picture of professional
service firms' deliberate strides toward more formal
accountability for marketing and selling.
If
you ever wanted ammunition to take to your colleagues
about why your firm needs to measure its marketplace
efforts, what to measure, and how to do it, this is
it.
Below
you’ll find a discussion of the benchmarking portion
of the study, as well as an opportunity to download
a subset
of the results. You may also download the complete
results and case study, which are available for
purchase.
Suzanne
Lowe
Author, Marketplace Masters: How Professional Service
Firms Compete to Win
President, Expertise Marketing, LLC
Spotlight on Benchmarking - Findings from New Research
on Increasing Marketing Effectiveness at Professional
Firms
Throughout
our study, Increasing
Marketing Effectiveness at Professional Firms,
respondents frequently claimed that measurement faces
significant barriers within their professional service
firms. Objections we saw included: it is difficult (especially
in a continuously changing services environment!), too
costly and too time consuming.
| Professional
firms that said they were extremely effective
used three client-focused metrics in combination
with each other.
- Growing
client revenue: “Did you grow revenue
with your client or not?”
- Moving
the phases of a sale through a pipeline: “Did
you close the sale or not?”
- Listening
to the client: “Did you listen to your
client or not?”
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Rubbish,
I say.
These
remarks merely indicate how misunderstood measurement
is. I’m pleased to say that our study finally
provides a verified link for professional service
firms between their eventual competitive success and
the act of measuring.
The
perception that measurement is challenging, however,
is real, and must be overcome. We found measurement
could be less difficult if professional service marketers
measured marketing and business development initiatives
with metrics that are unequivocally objective
and obvious, clearly identified with clients,
and feature very tangible outcomes. We call these measurement
methods “Client Metrics.”
Our
study report features reams of examples, analysis and
data that support this basic point: measure the stuff
you can’t ignore and that matters the most.
One
of the key findings of our study is that benchmarking
is not well-understood and is sparingly applied in professional
services marketing.
Let’s
consider the background behind this finding.
- Measurements — First, most
professional service firms have yet to really get
a good handle on the actual raw measurements
they could use in their marketing and business development
programs. I’m talking here about things like
revenue numbers, number of leads generated, number
of proposals won, ratios, scales and/or percentages
of things. An example is a one-to-nine scale. Even
for highly qualitative initiatives, professional service
marketers could do much to develop some kind of recognizable
set of raw numbers for the various marketing and business
development initiatives underway at their firm. “Let’s
see, when this happens, I’ll call it
a 3 on a scale of 1-10. If that happens,
I’ll call it a 5 on a scale of 1-10.”
- Standards — Second, it would
make sense for marketers to establish some kind of
standard for measurement or target values
that they hope to achieve for a certain level of success
– for example, a seven, eight, or nine “level”
that a firm might try to achieve. “Now if we
get to a 7 on that scale I just made up, it would
be a marvelous achievement for our firm!”
- Benchmarks — Last but not
least, the biggest nut to crack is benchmarking, and
most of our study respondents feel they need to jump
to this level instantly. (It’s as if this is
a term they’ve heard about, and think they should
use, without understanding the elements that make
up a good benchmark.) Laura Patterson sums it up eloquently
in her article If You Don’t Measure You
Can’t Manage, when she says “Benchmarks
are the best measurements to aspire to, the standard
by which all others are measured. Companies that set
benchmarks in their industries are the ones often
lauded in "Top Ten" and "Most Admired"
lists and articles.”
(Take
a peek at slide 9 in the subset
of our study results for examples of good and bad
benchmarking.)
Even
if professional service firms don’t achieve the
sophistication of benchmarking themselves, there are
things they can do. For example, just understanding
the raw numbers of a potential measurement metric and
establishing target values to which they attain will
get them off to a good start.
Admittedly,
benchmarking in the professional services arena has
its fans and its foes. Some say it’s too academic.
Rubbish.
One
does not need a Ph.D. to develop a measurement scale
that is based on practical observations.
Some
say there isn’t enough sharing of information
between the largely privately held professional firms,
so that appropriate benchmarks could become known.
Hogwash.
With
the expansion of competitive intelligence initiatives,
most professional service firms should be able to get
a handle on this.
Still
others say it’s too inflexible for the dynamic
services business environment.
Harrumph.
This
is just an excuse for avoiding the kind of rigor that’s
required to succeed in business today. The act of benchmarking
would go a long way toward helping to establish the
appropriate tone of internal focus, discipline, and
“stretch.”
For
more on benchmarking, download
a subset of our study results (PDF, 92KB)
Want
to see ALL the results? Download
the complete 80-page study and its accompanying 68-page
case studies report.
Take
the confidential, web-based Marketplace Masters professional
service firm differentiation assessment test for
instant feedback on whether your firm is doing differentiation
right.
If
you are interested in seeing the results of a small
study we recently conducted on measuring PR budgets
as a percentage of sales, please send mail to info@expertisemarketing.com.
Your
feedback is important to us. Please contact
us with your comments and questions.
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2006 Expertise
Marketing, LLC All Rights Reserved |
