Service-based businesses are among the oldest around.
Lawyers, accountants, printers and many others have been around pretty much since the dawn of capitalism. But since then, a lot’s changed in marketing. Every business is a service business. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a SaaS, technology or managed service business, every company needs a service-based ethic.
Do you need to outsource marketing services?
So how up-to-date is your service business marketing?
If you’re honest, you’ll find there’s probably a lot more you can do. But then again, you’re busy, you don’t have time for digital marketing and you get plenty of referrals anyway. Right?
Maybe. But some of the more forward-thinking service businesses are now making moves into digital and inbound marketing methodologies as well as service marketing strategies.
Check out the following blogs to learn more about marketing service businesses:
- Top 6 Elements of an Enhanced Customer Experience in 2023
- 6 decisive ways to improve your marketing positioning
- Creating a recession-proof customer marketing strategy
- How a B2B Marketing Agency Can Help Your Business Grow
Those who fail to prioritize service marketing efforts, devise a good service marketing strategy, and provide outstanding customer service are falling behind. In today's marketing landscape, this puts a local business at a significant disadvantage with limited opportunities for catching up. Local businesses now have numerous methods, such as leveraging social media platforms and implementing content marketing campaigns, to effectively engage and attract potential customers.
Additionally, cultivating loyal customers is crucial for the success of a local business, as they provide ongoing support and contribute to sustained growth.
Here's the why and how to market a service business in the 21st century.
How B2B marketing decisions have changed
Naturally, Google has documented in considerable detail how search engines have drastically changed buying decisions. Back in 2011, it even created a fancy acronym for the subject: ZMOT, which stands for the “Zero Moment of Truth”.
According to Google’s analysts, a so-called “zero moment” is when someone needs information about, or is ready to purchase a product or service. They hit the search engine for information or purchase opportunities and begin looking for a brand they can trust.
When that happens, will they find your brand in the search results? Or will they find your competitors?
As a local or service-based business, it is crucial to leverage every available tool to outpace your competitors. Achieving this can be challenging, but with a well-designed service marketing strategy, you can enhance your existing customer relationships with both existing customers and attract new customers.
Google also recorded that the searcher will read on average 10.4 pieces of content prior to making a purchase decision. This highlights the importance of incorporating various strategies into a service business' inbound marketing approach, such as networking events, marketing services, social media marketing, and paid ads. We will explore these strategies further later on.
Not only are things much more complex these days, but that complexity has specifically come from the major paradigm shift of inbound marketing and the digital marketing strategies historically used.
Before we look forward at how to tackle this funnel and ensure it’s your brand appearing in those all-important ZMoTs, let’s have a quick recap about how things used to work.
The old-fashioned way to market a service business
Because of the nature of the service business industry, when you do a good job for one client, word gets around.
The CEOs and other ranking members in that business rub shoulders with those in other businesses.
When that happens, your great work and reliability will likely score a referral. And, when that happens, a snowball effect begins.
We mentioned before that things have changed. Here’s the first reason why. People don’t ask their friends so much these days, they “just Google it”.
When that happens, they have yell.com, Trust Pilot, website testimonials and many other forms of social proof over and above the fact that they know Google only puts the best companies on the front page. Social media plays a big role these days, too.
Consequently, that snowball that you started rolling when you scored your first contract and did your great work for your initial clients is slowly losing momentum, whether you realise it yet or not.
Over the years, it's likely you and/or your business' marketing department have become somewhat wedded to the old-fashioned system. And rightly so, as it has proven to be effective. However, to enhance your marketing efforts and effectively target your desired audience, it is important to incorporate modern strategies such as email marketing campaigns and compelling marketing messages.
Until now.
The new way to market a service business
In today's digital landscape, it is crucial for sustained growth to establish yourself as an industry thought leader. This can be achieved through leveraging social media posts and influencer marketing.
Much like the word-of-mouth referral system of old, building great content, an online following, a website’s backlink profile, social media shares and a fully-fledged landing page strategy generates a snowball effect of its own.
Except this snowball is recognised by Google.
Whilst it starts off slowly, venture capitalists have compared the effect to that of compound interest, i.e.the snowball grows significantly after a little time is consistently invested.
Whenever a potential client “just Googles” a keyword to find your company, there are only 10 spots on the front page.
That’s important because, according to an excellent study conducted by Moz, around 71% of searches conclude in that potential client clicking on a 1st-page result.
On those 71% of clicks, 67.60% click on one of the first 5 results on that page.
If you’re not making moves towards this type of marketing within your service business right now, some of your competitors are.
We mentioned you have almost no chance of catching up, and that’s the key reason why. Once someone has secured those front-page results, it’s very hard to knock them down.
Why that’s important to service businesses?
Right now, your competitors that have adopted more modern methodology are building a following.
They’re building backlinks, getting attention on LinkedIn, generating on-page reader data and all the other factors that Google’s algorithm needs to justify giving them a coveted front-page position.
They’re establishing themselves as thought leaders, too. They’re there when people need them for those ZMoT’s. Which means their brand and company name is constantly at the forefront of their potential client’s mind. That being the case who’s most likely to get approached first?
Agility is key to service marketing
Another factor to consider is that this promotes agility. Business service companies often have many partners, each of which has a finger in the pie. The decision-making process can be slow.
But, modern digital and inbound marketing strategies offer a constant stream of direct, actionable data that makes the decision-making process much simpler.
After all, when you can see a dataset that clearly describes a fact, you don’t need to sit down and discuss how to react to it. The answer is plain as day.
With more marketing channels covered, you can find and focus on what works a lot faster than before. You can understand who and where your audience is, quickly zero in on them and generate new leads. All the while, you’re contributing to a snowball effects that pays serious dividends in the future.
How to become a service business thought leader
Ok, so you see why it’s time for a change. But how do you become a “thought leader” in the first place? Well, the strategy involved is somewhat counterintuitive.
A great example is the issue of content. Of course, right now you’re too busy and don’t have time to write content. But, despite it taking a little time to gain traction, and despite the fact you’re busy, the sooner you start generating that momentum, the sooner you will secure one of those coveted top spots.
Then there’s the fact that in order to create the best content possible and become a thought leader, you need to unashamedly share some of your deepest and most valuable industry secrets.
For free.
Yes, a lot of your content will involve creating articles that categorically give the game away about how to produce great results in whatever field you work in.
You would think that if you’re teaching people to do it free, why would they ever call you up?
But the truth is, just like you’re too busy to write content, other people are too busy to get seriously involved in the service that you provide.
What actually happens is, you position yourself as someone who really knows what they’re talking about. You help people, build brand trust and gain recognition. Once that’s done, people take notice and they start linking to your material, sharing it on social and picking up the phone.
Your digital snowball starts building momentum.
Conclusion
The question of whether things have changed in service marketing is not up for debate. The fact is, they have.
It doesn’t matter whether you look at solid scientific studies like the one conducted by Moz.com, data from Google, Forrester Research or the Demand Gen Report B2B survey. It all stacks up and points in exactly the same direction.
It’s time for service businesses to change their marketing strategy.
This industry is particularly slow to catch up, probably because it’s so established and so wedded to the systems that have traditionally worked in the past.
In the coming years, there will be two types of service businesses. Those who made the moves to digital early and got ahead of the competition. And those who slowly dwindle with no way of catching up.
The question is, have you or your company changed to meet your target audience and client demands? Is your marketing message strong enough? Being in the services business today is a great position to be in.
Get in touch if you want to learn more about how Incisive Edge can help you reach your marketing goals and strengthen your existing client relationships.
