Why SEO is overrated if you need clients for your professional service

Almost all marketing agencies tell you the very same tactic:

• Get your website search engine optimized

• Create ads that direct people to your website

• Continue & further optimize the process until you succeed

Well, this tactic works for many businesses for sure; it can even be counterproductive and slow your growth. It also locks you in with your agency's binding contracts, constantly evaluating & optimizing your SEO, which doesn't deliver valuable clients. 

Why is SEO overrated?

There is a big difference between finding a service provider and trusting in one.

While SEO can help with the finding, it certainly hurts the trust as most customers looking for service providers on Google are price-shopping. If you provide a valuable service to your customers, you certainly don't want to offer said services cheaply. Sure, SEO can give you a quick boost in clients - but are these clients you want to stick with for the long-term? SEO is not the best option for you if you are thinking about a customer's lifetime value.

The second problem with SEO is that everyone is doing it - the competition for rankings is insanely high. Imagine that you are a law firm in a particular area - there are many-many law firms around you as competitors. Everyone is doing some form of SEO nowadays. Investing in SEO is like buying a billboard ad next to the highway, surrounded by 100 other billboards bought up by your competitors. 

Switch away from short-term results to long-term investment

The key to massive growth is pretty simple. You have to establish credibility within your field of expertise. Then you have to market that credibility with a combination of well-designed content (which is SEO-friendly), hyper-targeted online ads, and a marketing machine that converts visitors to leads for you & your team. It is that simple; however, not many businesses are doing it. 

Why? Because it is a long-term strategy - and everyone is thinking short-term when it comes to marketing.

But why would you think short-term in selling your professional services if you have obtained those services with hard work, long-term planning, and dedication?

A long-term investment produces results that overpower short-term ones - but it takes time to make it fruitful. 

Becoming a thought leader in your field

While SEO might get you some short-term results, establishing a thought leadership platform will deliver you clients all the time. Once the platform is set & established, you only need to maintain it. But what are the main tactics, how would you do it?

It all starts with content. Before creating content, you have to figure out what type of content works for you. Not everyone is comfortable with video, for example - and you have to be comfortable with the content you produce, as you will create it for the long-term. Also, not every type of content suits your business and its goals. A content strategy helps you figure out what kind of content you need to produce and how you should create it. 

We always recommend blogging or any written content first. You can repurpose written content into downloadable lead-magnet materials, such as ebooks. Written content also helps you with SEO indirectly - the more valuable content you produce, the higher your impact on Google. Also, written content can quickly establish credibility as it is a useful content piece for your prospects. 

The next step should be something that builds your personal brand. Many B2B service providers such as lawyers find massive success on social media such as LinkedIn.

Sharing personalized professional content boosts your credibility while builds your personal brand as well.

We recommend starting a multimedia channel, one that you are comfortable with - a YouTube show or a podcast.

The magic happens when you combine the content you produce together - you do a podcast episode, which you turn into a blog from the podcast's transcript, then share it on social media with your peers.

The combined effort of repurposed content boosted with pay-per-click ads delivers an insane result for you - even in the short-term.

You have to make sure that there is a marketing machine at the end of your funnel that captures the visitors' attention and turns them into leads for your team. 

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A simple positioning process for B2B companies

One of the critical elements for a successful marketing strategy is positioning. However, many companies can't crush it. We wanted to give a simple process applicable to most B2B areas, especially for professional service providers. 

How do you know when you need to rethink your positioning strategy?

There are a couple of scenarios where you need to invest time & resources to define your positioning correctly.

• When you just launched your business. Typically, startups mix up positioning with niches. They think that their product or service will define their market position anyway - but this is not true. It only explains what industry niche they are active in. For example, if you have a product that helps small businesses to accept card payments, you are in the SME fintech niche - but it is not your market position.

Simply put, you can't skip your positioning strategy when you are just starting because your product or service won't define it for you on its own. Others are providing the same solutions on the market - you have to be different.

• When you reached a certain point with your business. This scenario is typical for medium-sized companies. They started with a position; they evolved beyond and now need to rethink their mission, goals, and ultimately position on the market.

Positioning is not something you set and forget - it has to evolve and change with your business.

• When your market changed, forcing you to change your business. Typical for those who used to do business in a certain way, but the market moved ahead. They might not feel a push back, as old-school is still working, but their competitors will soon eat their slice of pie as well. Legal companies are a great example of this, sticking to traditional networking, capitalizing on their attorney profiles to get new clients - but people are looking for specialized help with a lot of upfront value-based content.

You can't skip upgrading your business to the current needs, and an upgrade starts with your positioning strategy.

The five steps of our positioning process

Our process is insanely simple, but it takes a lot of effort to go through it properly. We designed it for general purpose, and we can apply to any business scenario. However, we've found that it works best for B2B service providers. If you have an in-house marketing team, you can implement this process on your own as well. We advise using a facilitator like us to get objective results.

The first step is RESEARCH. Before we do anything, we do a lot of research on the market. Our research focuses on three key areas:

1. Your competitors. Everyone operates within a niche industry nowadays, and no one is alone doing so. Proper competitor analysis is mandatory for any positioning strategy or plan.

2. Your customers. You have to know your customers' pain points to offer correct solutions to them. Gathering intel on what your target audience wants will help to craft better messages within your positioning strategy.

3. The broader market. Like day traders can't ignore the current trends of the market when they are trade, you can't ignore the market trends either. It doesn't mean you need to follow the trends - but you have to be aware of them.

A tangible output for this step is a market report with competitor-, customer-, and market analysis. No actionable steps yet, just insights.

The second step is an AUDIT. Gathering all internal stakeholders, decision-makers, and opinion leaders within your company is a crucial need for this step. We can't recommend a positioning that is a) not doable with your current internal resources, b) is not within the company's future vision, c) just not desired for whatever reasons. Your whole company should fully own the new position; otherwise, it won't work. This step should produce an audit report, seen & approved by all stakeholders. 

The third step is STRATEGY. With all the information gathered from the previous two steps, at this point, you can create a positioning strategy for your business. The plan should detail the summary of the research & audit documents, the reasoning behind the strategic switch, the goals & objectives, the necessary steps (tactics) to fulfill the strategy, and KPIs to measure the plan's effectiveness. We always include quick wins, and teams stay motivated in completing the procedure when there are immediate wins for the business. 

The fourth step is the DESIGN. It is inherently different for everyone - a collection of materials to achieve the business's desired position. Simply put, this step is the production work that is needed to fulfill the strategic approach. Most companies do a design makeover at this step, rewrite their messaging, maybe push out a complete set of new content. 

The last step is implementation, LAUNCH. Usually, the previous step's production work has a set of milestones. Completing the milestones will launch the positioning strategy into action. The stage is ready; the curtains are down. We always recommend keeping a close eye on the results & metrics. Monthly marketing reporting with an additional KPI report should be a priority for at least a quarter. There might be some adjustments to the positioning strategy because of the reviewed data.

As described, positioning is not that hard. Positioning IS focus, a focused approach for your business. It is why you need to focus time & resources to craft a positioning strategy that captures your customers' attention. 

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The secret to a zero $ marketing machine

If you spent any cash on marketing so far, you would probably be familiar with cost-per-lead and cost-per-click terms. There is a quantifiable figure on how much you need to spend to get a client. How much does it cost to drive a prospect through your funnel and turn them into a client? We bet you would be thrilled to know that this figure can be zero $ - or even better, you can make a small ROI on every dollar you spend on marketing without considering your usual sales figures.

We discussed previously that value-based marketing is a good call to reach potential leads. Now you need to prepare a sales offer that turns leads into clients.

Most businesses go with one or maybe a few high ticket offers. But most people are not ready to buy a high ticket offer from you right now. But that doesn't mean that they are not prepared to buy. If you ignore these people, you will leave a great deal of money on the table.

Enter downselling. You have to create an offer that is low-priced but still high-value. This offer will convert most of the leads in your pipeline on day one, increase your customer base, and pretty much pay out their acquisition cost, making your whole marketing budget liquid. And the best part? Micro-offers like this can instant-qualify leads into sales-ready customers. Anyone who bought something from you is a potential customer who will buy something else.

I'm sure you are familiar with IKEA, the furniture store. Did you know that putting an affordably-priced restaurant plus a food court in their stores was and still is part of their marketing strategy? IKEA was one of the many furniture companies selling affordable furniture via its warehouse-style stores. Serving food was one of the prime distinction from their competitors. It reinforced their family-brand, plus it is easier to sell furniture to someone who's not hungry. Today, more than 1/4 of their visitors come only because of the food, which accounts for 5% of their revenue. Buying a couch is above $1000 - getting a meal for the family is below $100. It is the power of downselling.

Our practical tips on creating your low-priced downselling offer:

• Even if it is low-priced, it has to have tremendous value. Remember, it might be cheap to eat at IKEA, but it is healthy and tasty and distinctive. Where else could you get Swedish meatballs with gravy? Your downselling offer shouldn't be a low-priced, low-value version of your full-priced offer.

• Connected to the point above, never highlight the bargain value of your offer. Your offer's weight should be much higher than the price - it is the only way to generate buy-in from your customers.

• Learn as much as you can about your customer through this downselling offer. Those who bought-in on the proposal are all potential buyers for further, higher-priced offers. The more you know about them, the more comfortable you can sell the high-ticked offers.

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How to provide value to your customers with marketing

In recent years, the concept of value-based marketing became a practice only within young entrepreneurs - but the rest of the industry forgot about it. Why? Because of two things - first, customers attended too many 'free webinars' and other bullshit solutions masked as sales calls. Everyone became more paranoid and cynical. Second, giving value is hard - you have to understand your customers' problem, create a solution to solve it and provide value around it. Most businesses fail even with the first step.

To understand value-based marketing, you must understand the principle behind it: you provide value for your customers without asking anything from them in return.

You can't pull them into a webinar on whatever topic, which is essentially a sales call. You 'just' provide a webinar with an insane amount of value in it; that's it.

We don't waste time with story-mode, but there's a great story that helps everyone understand how value-based marketing works. Bruce Henderson founded Boston Consulting Group in 1963 - at a time when other companies like McKinsey dominated management consulting. Despite the fierce competition, he managed to grow the company so big that it is now part of the Big Three, the world's three biggest consulting companies. How he did it? With a simple marketing technique: value-based marketing. He published his ideas in short stories called Perspectives and sent it to potential clients. He provided value for free and showed a genuine understanding of his clients' problems, and with his insights, he actively helped them succeed. Within years, the company grew above the sky because of value-based marketing that served BCG an influx of leads.

Today, it might not be the best option to write short stories and mail them to senior executives. But though formats change, tactics stay the same. Content that adds value still acts as a powerful magnet for leads. Frankly, you are reading a piece like that now.

Value is useful. Value is entertaining. People are more likely to buy if they are learning something useful in a simple, digestible format.

The most useful tactical advice we can give you when it comes to value is a simple one. Provide value all the time. Don't waste anyone's time - value should present itself even with a simple headline.

Lastly, the value should be actionable for both sides. Your customer should find it useful for consideration, even for implementation. But it should be actionable for your business as well. The value should drive your customer further into their buying cycle. Make sure you include a call to action at each lead magnet content piece you create. Call to action shouldn't be a sales offer - just a drive for further action.

After all, though value can be free, your help is not.

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How to broaden your audience and get more clients

Essentially, you can increase your sales with two tactics. You either increase your conversion rate on your current flow of leads, or you can increase the number of leads you get to get an overall impact on the figures. We believe that you need to combine the two efforts into one with one tactic: focus on the few who are ready to buy from you now but always talk to those who are not there yet.

Your audience segments

Generally, your audience has five segments. There are those, the majority of your potential clients, who are not problem aware - they don't know that the issue you are solving exists yet. Others are aware of the problem, but they don't know how to solve it. Some see the solution and actively looking for those who can provide the solution for their pain. And others are aware that you exist and you offer the solution. A few of them are ready to buy from you. Most sales teams focus only on these few - they are easier to convert as they are aware of the problem, know you have the solution, and have a genuine interest in buying.

In a previous post, we said you need to create a solution that solves their immediate problem. With different tactics detailed here, you can increase your sales team's conversion - but that works only for the few who are ready to buy. It would be best if you also increased the incoming flux of prospects, so you have a funnel set to provide enough leads for your sales team.

Ultimately, you have to increase your traffic, generate more buzz around you, make people aware that you exist - you have to talk to the many.

How to do it

What is the best way to achieve that? A simple combination of content and targeted ads. While ads can deliver a high impact on a short timeframe, content is more longtail. You need some content to supply ammunition for the ads, but the most effective long-term strategy is to become a thought leader in your industry. You have to become the authority who has the solution to your customers' problems.

You have to be everywhere, highlighting that the problem they might not know yet, exists.

You have to promote the ideal solution everywhere, furthermore, stress that you offer that solution. The tools you need to use are different for every business - it can range from guest posting on blogs, answering forum questions, being very active on social media, providing free webinars and other content, etc.

However, the ultimate goal is the same: put yourself at every stage of your customers' research. Your sales team can convert more easily as your ready-to-buy leads will want to buy from the best in the industry. Those looking for a solution will find you quickly, and with an efficient marketing funnel machine, you can move them quickly to the stage where they are ready to buy. You can get on the radar for those who are not aware of the solution or even the problem.

Your active ad campaigns should reflect your approach - the more platforms you use to drive traffic, the segmented your visitors will be. It is worth balancing your marketing budget between multiple ad platforms, even if your resources are limited.

Speak to the many, broaden your audience. With this tactic, you can increase your conversion rate and the number of your leads. But to maximize the impact, you need to provide value. In our next post, we define the concept of value-based marketing and what is really behind that.

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Why you need to learn about your customers' pain points?

It might sound a bit too dark but hear us out. You probably heard about the thing about painkillers vs. vitamins. Painkillers are easy to sell because people need them right now to solve an immediate problem. Vitamins are harder to sell because they don't fulfill an immediate need. Everyone knows that certain apps can help you have a more balanced diet, but when you are on the road and hungry, Google Maps enables you to find the closest grocery store.

Your goal is to become an essential solution for your customers to solve their immediate needs now. After all, no one will buy you anything if you offer something that your customers might need or will need. You have to provide something that is needed right now.

If you want to jumpstart your sales, you need to create offers that solve immediate problems. To do that, you need to learn the pain of your customers. What is their most pressing issue that you can solve? What is the single most crucial pain-point that keeps them away from achieving their goals?

Once you know the problem - you can offer the solution.

How to learn about their pain?

Well, you need to do some research. There are three main areas where you should start.

Start with the most important and widely-used platform, Google. Everyone is typing their questions into Google in desperation to find a solution to their problem. Check keywords around your existing product or even within your industry - what is the most searched phrase. Check related Google searches, which gives you the exact questions your prospects are searching for answers. A simple Google search can provide you excellent top-of-the-head value around the most excruciating pain points your customers have. You can top Google searches up with tools like the Google Keyword Planner or Answer The Public - the latter is one of the most powerful marketing research tools.

Funny how the internet hasn't changed in the last twenty years.

After the casual search options, the second area where you need to look at are the forums. Online forums are places where people ask questions, socialize, talk, and exchange ideas. They are not forums per se, but platforms like Facebook Groups, Quora, Reddit, or any industry-related groups are the best options to get the gist of your customers' problems. Find the most active forums, groups, or threads - they usually have enough insights for you.

The last area where you need to look is the world of public reviews. It depends on your business, but platforms like Amazon, Yelp, even Facebook or Google My Business are an excellent way to gather relevant insights. Good, 5-star reviews are OK but focus on the bad reviews. People provide points that are missing from a product or a service - if you can create solutions that solve these missing points, you are in for business. Focus on your competitors first, then broaden your search within your industry.

We always recommend gathering the information into a spreadsheet for later use. It is essential to check the pain points but equally crucial to follow how your customers explain their pain. What words are they using? How they phrase their problem? That information can help you craft better ads, better headlines, better offers that address your customers' pain points with their own words. To your customers, you will become a mindreader with this tactic.

But pain is not enough - that addresses only those who are ready to buy now. What about those who haven't faced a problem yet? Click here to learn how to focus on the broader audience from the following tactical advice.

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