How to develop your consulting company?

1. Making yourself known: Outbound and Inbound marketing
2. Exhibit and develop your expertise
3. Focus on the customer experience

At the heart of a complex and constantly evolving economy, consulting firms are characterized by their very different profiles in resonance with a very competitive market. Indeed, every year, the sector's activities grow significantly, peaking at 12% in 2018 after 6 consecutive years of increase. Even after a decline in activity in 2020 (-11.4%), the consulting market continues to evolve thanks to new trends. This allows the activity to gradually continue to grow.

The Big Four (Deloitte, PwC, Ey and KPMG) alone account for 37.4% of the global market. The top 10 consulting firms have up to 56.6% of the total market. This is why the remaining smaller structures must be responsive and intelligent in order to make a place for themselves and remain competitive. The growth of a consulting firm depends on sales and marketing strategies whose adoption is crucial.

A consulting firm, after identifying its market target, its niche and a perfect customer profile, must take the lead in order to boost its growth.

1. Make yourself known: Outbound and Inbound Marketing

Peter Drucker, the "Pope of Management", Austrian-American professor of management and consultant, considers that "The goal of marketing is to make sales superfluous." Thus, when properly branded, a product or service sells itself: it has become essential in the eyes of the customer.

If a consulting company is aware of its target audience, it will be able to refine its communication to adapt to its needs and present a truly tailor-made message to its clients.

Outbound Marketing: Reaching Out to Prospects

How do you bring together the right audience?

With professional associations and federations, or other events such as seminars, trade fairs, workshops or round tables. These are multiple opportunities for meetings and exchanges.

But making yourself known and exposing yourself to circles of potential customers first requires a regular and relevant presence on the web and social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.). Acting proactively, the consulting firm is omnipresent when its audience is looking for a solution to one of its problems and is exposed to a wide range of choices and options.

Indeed, the Internet, unlike face-to-face networking, has multiplied the alternatives while offering more and more optimized comparisons. This makes the competition tougher and based more on the company's services than on its employees.

Once the contact has been made, the key is to stay in the customer's head. This involves, in addition to constant activity on the Internet, an adjusted emailing (newsletters, invitations, publication of articles, etc.). You shouldn't break the exchange once it's started. Thus, the firm's website must directly expose a way to maintain this contact: subscribe to the newsletter or social networks. This makes it easier to create engagement with the prospect.

Paid advertising on the net or offline is also a possible marketing strategy to develop your consulting company.

Inbound marketing: making prospects come forward naturally

Create great content. This demonstrates the company's expertise in a specific niche and responds to the issues and developments in its field. It is also a way to acutely illustrate the capabilities of a consulting firm. Much more than popularization, these articles correspond to a discussion between experts. 

This content is mostly in the form of blog posts published in the blog/articles section of the firm's commercial site and hosted on a platform such as WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Squarespace or Posterous.  These articles illustrate a constant updating and questioning of the consulting firm's expertise in addition to increasing activity, and therefore traffic, on the website. 

With the right SEO, this content becomes a real indirect business strategy. Indeed, customers click on the article, attracted by its subject and land on the consulting firm's website. They are exposed to the relevance and expertise of a company with appropriate answers to their questions as well as to a way to continue the dialogue via the blog, the newsletter or even social networks. The visibility of the site grows, consequently increasing the potential leads.

2. Exhibit and develop your expertise

In 2021, digital communication is all the rage and it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd and showcase your expertise. The multiplicity of distribution channels can produce the opposite effect of the one sought: visibility.

It's up to you to choose your method and your supports. For a consulting activity, the written and often more suitable.

Once a consulting firm has become aware of the type of clients and topics to prioritize, it is able to write a white paper that exposes its skills and expertise in its field of activity. A white paper, often in e-book format, answers a specific question. In the form of professional advice, it offers various answers and solutions.

A white paper can serve as a practical guide to consultants' services, positioning them as experts in their field. Mainly used in a B2B context, the white paper allows a particular company to stand out from its competitors, via technical capabilities on the one hand and via communication capabilities on the other. 

Process communication with the target customer must also be developed and deepened. More than a brief overview, it is a matter of exposing in depth the work cycle, from start to finish, and the services offered by the consulting company. The audience can thus be reassured and better understand why and how their money will be invested. 

These commercial strategies, in addition to testifying to the expertise of the consulting firm, also make it possible to explain the exact role of the firm in the face of the various problems that clients are facing. Why is this specific consulting firm a relevant answer to this or that question? The justification is in targeted expertise and effective communication.

3. Focus on the customer experience

A consulting firm, like all companies, needs to improve itself down to its workings in order to reach its full potential. Indeed, it is fundamental for any consulting firm to equip itself with the appropriate tools in order to prepare to respond as effectively as possible to each of its client projects and to offer the most successful customer experience possible.

This is about the reputation of the company, which can be peddled by its customers spontaneously or in the form of comments on comparison sites, recommendations, etc. The client becomes an ambassador for the consulting firm. He built up his first network of acquaintances and acquaintances.

In addition, in addition to having a proven track record in marketing and serving as information-rich indicators for prospects when exposed, past customer testimonials are also crucial for the consulting firm to evolve and calibrate its services even more accurately. They inform them about the needs, criteria and requirements of their audience and allow them to continue to perfect their communication and marketing.

Faced with an economy in transition, consulting firms must react accordingly and adapt. The development of the Internet and connected markets multiplies the potential for each customer. A consulting company must therefore stand out for its regular communication, which is otherwise constant, of quality, suitable for the most used mediums, for its up-to-date and challenging expertise and for its particularly qualitative customer experience.  

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