Subscribe Did a colleague forward this newsletter? Sign up to receive your own copy. News Upcoming Speeches: “The evolving role of the CMO,” SMPS Southern Region Conference, San Antonio, Jan 25-26, 2007 “The Five Most Important Roles for Tomorrow’s Most Effective Legal Marketers,” Legal Marketing Association New England (LMA NE) Annual Regional Conference, Boston, MA, Nov 16-17, 2006 Articles: Practice Management: Re-evaluate how you evaluate your marketer (PDF), by Suzanne Lowe and Sally Glick for Accounting Today, September 2006 Why You May Not be Truly Differentiated, Consulting News, September 2006 (available to CN subscribers only) Hallmarks of an Effective CMO (PDF), The Marketer, August 2006 Turning a Marketing Eye Toward ROI (PDF), by Suzanne Lowe and Larry Bodine for New Jersey Lawyer, August 2006 Proving ROI on Marketing by Measuring Marketing Effectiveness (PDF), by Suzanne Lowe and Larry Bodine for Lawyers' Competitive Edge, July 2006 Bringing In More Revenue: The Role of Marketing Metrics, The Practicing CPA (Suzanne Lowe quoted in article), June 2006   New from the Expertise Marketplace Blog Is this what they meant by "baking a bigger pie?" Embrace the unexpected Breaking out of the moldly old days Getting kicked out ain't what it used to be Professional service marketers' global experience Project Runway and professional services marketing Where are the clients in Competitive Intelligence? Network your way to success? Puh-LEEZ! Beam me up, Scotty Gender, professional services pricing and Glass Cliffs See all the posts at the Expertise Marketplace blog Subscribe to the blog's RSS feed for regular updates. (Need RSS help?) Recent Issues Insights on Blogging for Professional Services Marketers, August 2006 The State of Cross-Selling in Professional Service Firms, July 2006 Targeting and Segmentation in Professional Service Firms, June 2006 You can order Marketplace Masters from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, your favorite online bookseller, or CEO-READ.

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Ten years from now, what will be different about the professional services Marketing function?

Having been an in-house marketer for a number of professional service firms (PSFs), I understand the unique challenges of trying to lead an organization toward a more favorable marketplace future.

Many of my clients tell me that leading their firm’s Marketing function is like turning a barge in the ocean . . . herding wild cats . . . you can name other metaphors, I’m sure. Some approach this situation with aplomb and good humor; others find it frustrating and depressing.

For this issue of The Marketplace Master™, we will explore how the Marketing function will be led differently in the professional service firm of the future. In October, we’ll take a look at how today’s senior marketing professionals view their leadership legacy (and we’ll include some thoughts about the new book Your Leadership Legacy, by Rob Galford and Regina Maruca).

Suzanne Lowe
Author, Marketplace Masters: How Professional Service Firms Compete to Win
President, Expertise Marketing, LLC

How will Marketing be Led in the Professional Service Firm of Tomorrow?

In my writing and speaking I’ve already begun calls for the function of Marketing to make a deliberate shift toward becoming more ingrained in the leadership of professional firms in the future, and to become more effective both inside and outside of a firm. Some of the shifts I hope to see are, I believe, already underway.

Marketers will have more academic credentials.

The other day, I reviewed the biographies of several professional service firm CMOs and senior marketers. Most had been promoted from tactical marketing communications positions within their or other firms. Most had college degrees; a few had master’s degrees, often in communications, or journalism. A significant minority had MBAs or other business degrees, with formal education in business practices relating to finance, operations management, or technology.

The PSF Marketing function of the future will increasingly be led by professionals who have formal business education, most likely at the master’s degree level.

Marketing will be led by career marketing professionals, not necessarily “homegrown” marketers from within the profession.

A few weeks ago, I led a workshop on creating marketing ROI programs. The group exercise, while ostensibly focused on ROI metrics, gave participants a crash-course lesson in how to craft a business plan and the difference between “strategy” and “tactics.” Indeed, the participants in this workshop mirrored the profile of many senior marketers in today’s professional firms: former practicing lawyers, management consultants, CPAs, and architects who have learned marketing by doing marketing.

The professional service Marketing function of the future will increasingly be led by career marketing professionals, often from a different services industry than the one represented by the firm hiring them. There will be more cross pollination, from law to accounting, from accounting to architecture, from architecture to management consulting. These career marketing professionals will understand how their functional plans should support the achievement of the firm’s and practices’ growth goals.

Marketing will feature less of a focus on marketing-as-expense and more of a focus on marketing-as-growth-engine.

I talked last week to a professional services firm executive who described his firm’s approach to crafting the marketing department’s annual budget for the coming year. As he described it, they focus exclusively on tactics that cost money. He’s already planning to ensure that the Marketing managers must “defend” the tactics and their expenses – and he’s already planning on how it can be trimmed. Like many of his counterparts in management leadership roles, he naturally thinks of Marketing as a tactical part of the organization, which only spends money, not generates it.

The PSF Marketing function of the future will do an improved job of linking the intended Marketing strategies and initiatives to the firm’s overarching corporate growth goals. Marketers will be more capable of implementing initiatives whose return-on-investment is clearly positive, not perceived to be negative.

Marketing plans will be more formally integrated “up-and-down” with the firm’s overarching corporate and long-term growth strategies, and “left-and-right” with other operational functions.

As traditionally conceived in a professional firm, the purview of the Marketing function has not been structured to link with the firm’s other critical functions (business development, technology, finance, human resources, etc.). Silos are alive and well in professional service firms! Currently, the individuals leading these functions have to craft their own pathways to work together, with no guideposts or organizational support to do so. Moreover, too many PSF executives still develop their growth or corporate strategies or yearly plans with little or no input from their marketers.

The PSF Marketing function of the future will enjoy the formal collaboration of other executive and departmental colleagues, even to the point of the functions co-creating their annual plans to ensure the integration of their initiatives.

Marketing will be more strategically focused on the entire marketing spectrum rather than heavily oriented toward promotion and communication.

Many professional service firms, regardless of sector, still relegate their marketers to focus most of their energy on acquiring clients. There does appear to be an increasing focus on retaining clients, but many marketers are still not well-versed in loyalty-related marketing initiatives. Also, professional service firms are weak in defining and identifying the most strategically appropriate clients to pursue, and in determining appropriate ways to grow their revenues with those loyal clients. (Click here to review my previous writing about how PSFs should evolve the role of their Marketing function.)

The PSF Marketing function of the future will be more broadly focused on growing a firm’s client, revenue and services portfolio, and more deeply integrated with the firm’s critical functions and overall marketplace leadership goals.

Marketers will increase their practice of outsourcing commodity services, and increase their influence over the firm’s strategic decisions.

Understandably, professional service firm executives press their marketing leaders to streamline their activities and costs. Marketers have responded by outsourcing more and more commodity services like public relations, client relationship database management, web site design and maintenance, and more. On the business development side, several larger firms are already utilizing outsourced proposal development services.

The PSF Marketing function of the future will further shift the balance from a marketer’s supervision of “execution” initiatives toward a focus on marketing and growth strategy “advice and counsel.” The practice of outsourcing commoditized marketing and sales support services will become commonplace.

The experts weigh in!

I asked a number of my Marketplace Master™ newsletter and Expertise Marketplace™ blog readers to send me their thoughts on the question “Ten years from now, what will be different about the professional services Marketing function?” Take a look at their answers below.

Sally Glick, CMO, Sobel & Co., LLC, certified public accountants and consultants: “I think marketers in ten years will be far more strategic, especially in assisting with firms with mergers, etc. I also think more will become shareholders - and I believe the business development (SALES) function will become embedded in the marketing - as it is one of the most effective and efficient ways to measure the ROI for the marketing strategy.”

Betsey Lynch, former professional services marketer at Deloitte & Touche and Mercer Human Resources Consulting. “As long as professional service consultants are rewarded mostly by the number of hours they bill, marketing will continue to be a secondary function and considered by some in leadership positions as “coming out of our pockets.” Marketing involves so many disciplines and tactics that it is often difficult at year’s end to prove to the consultants that marketing played an important role in bringing in business. It will continue to be a priority that marketers have accountability for business development built into their strategies and executions. A win/win situation occurs when marketing and business development professionals work together.”

Curtis Wang, Executive Vice President Marketing and Admissions, Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. “Marketing will be about providing immediate value to target segments both to draw them in and to hook them at the moment they make contact with you. Marketing will be ingrained further down the selling pipeline in order to provide greater credibility and value in order to move the sale ahead with specific information (white papers, articles, etc.) - ready at the moment for potential clients when they surface their particular need. Professional service firms will have the right material at their fingertips only because they are selling to their chosen targets which they have built a body of expertise.”

Eileen Harrington, Vice President Marketing, Analysis Group. “I think one big change will be in the area of marketing technology -- ideally, in less than 10 years, PS firms will put a big emphasis on using integrated technologies to drive marketing: CRM, web, and email/IM, all linked to billing / financial systems, providing instant and continuously updated reports on marketing activity, response, effectiveness, and budgets, and facilitating all outreach. Maybe this sounds ironic -- that what we think of as an extremely high touch marketing environment (compared to consumer) will be so tech-driven, but I think the nature of the billable hours world will demand it, and the accountability and reporting capabilities it enables. That will make for a "war for talent" as we all compete for the scarce resource -- the technologically proficient experienced marketer with terrific communications skills and a flair for analytics -- a real right brain/left brain combination!

Teri Schram, Director, Americas Marketing, Heidrick & Struggles. “Ten years from now I think the CMO role will look more like a "CRO", Chief Relationship Officer. By that I mean the role will focus on delivering the kind of experiences for clients, prospects and even alumni that will forge lasting relationships. Building new relationships and expanding existing relationships to support their firm's growth strategy will be their primary responsibility.”

Neil Fauerbach, MBA, Partner, Director of Business Development & Marketing, Smith & Gesteland (accounting and business consulting). Marketers will be involved in setting the strategic direction of the firm and its components. They will use their analytical skills, gained through their MBA classes, to help the firm determine the ideal client to pursue and to divest. They will have a seat at the management table, not only as partners, but as members of their firm’s executive committee. Accounting marketers will come to the industry with a better understanding of accounting and how a firm works. This will happen due to the focus that business schools will make to the curricula of accounting and marketing degree programs.

Cross-selling will be completely replaced by cross-serving. Due to the increased scrutiny on the accounting industry and the need for independence, the practice of being a “one stop shop” for all business services will diminish. CPAs will align with multiple service providers to provide clients with options for wealth management, staffing, insurance, financing.

Conclusion

Just as the marketplace itself evolves, so too will the Marketing function within professional service firms. Some of these shifts will be dictated by external events and capabilities that we can only imagine today. Some of the changes that the marketing function will undergo in the next ten years, however, will be dictated by what marketers themselves believe is important, and how they themselves drive the changes in their own leadership roles.

Next month, we will take a look at how a professional marketer’s personal and intended “Leadership Legacy” will play a significant role in the way the Marketing function evolves.

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