Has anyone ever used a marketing agency to help promote themselves and what were the results?

[lisalisa]

I am about to become a self employed consultant solicitor. I am looking at some marketing offers I have received to design an enewsletter ( sent by email) along with tools to measure who reads the email and clikcs on any link etc.

It is quite expensive but seems to be a very good way of keeping in touch with clients or potential clients generally.

Has anyone ever used this type of service and what were the results? Has anyone as well been on teh receiving end of such emails and actually decided to use teh service based on the email?

thanks

We're looking into this at the moment (we are a market research agency), with Constant Contact.

We have been writing and sending out a newsletter for the last 4 years, which has been really painful each time in terms of physically attaching the newsletter rather than being able to include it in the body of the e-mail, getting the distribution list right each time, etc

The companies who deal with this will sort out your database for you, deal with all those 'system undeliverables', and also give you feedback as to how many people actually open/read your newsletter, which sounds fantastic.

However, it is money being spent every month. And you have to be clear as to what you're expecting in return. It's doubtful how much new business a newsletter is likely to generate - at least in the short term.

I know nothing about your profession, or where/how you will generate new business - it could be that a newsletter would be the perfect medium for this - but I would counsel you to think long and hard about where you are most likely, being realistic, to generate revenue and focus your money there.

Thanks SantaClaus. I am quite interested in this medium as in my business staying in touch wtih clients and other contacts is important so that when they have a legal issue your name is right there in front of them. I think the approach is right but I'm worried about wasting a lot of money.

Will look at constant contact thannks

Yes, a good way to stay in touch - absolutely. But you need to be realistic in terms of

a) how many people will actually read your newsletter? People are swamped with e-mail and you may find that a huge proportion are just deleted without being read

b) how often are you sending out your newsletter, so that you're always on someone's 'shopping list'? If you send a newsletter out too often you risk being deleted and, worse, irritating people. If you don't send it out often enough you will slip off their radar.

The approach can be good for you, but I think there are some significant disadvantages, so you need to think about other, complementary, methods of revenue generation.

Thanks Santa. You make good points.

What other methods of revenue generation can you recommend? I have joined BNI a networking group whch is fairly serious about what it does but I cannot see it generating anything partiuclarly worthwihle for me.

Trouble is, lisa, I'm not a solicitor, so I don't know your profession works in terms of new business development.

What I would suggest is that you contact some new business development agencies (there are loads of them) and just get them to come and see you and tell them how they would seek to develop new business opportunities for you.

You will need to be quite brazen about this - don't invite them to talk to you with the expectation that you will be giving them a contract. And make sure that you see 3 or 4, so that you get a really good idea not only of how they work but also whether or not it will deliver in terms of revenue. Ask each of them if they work for other solicitors and ask them to give you references/people you can talk to about their services.

HTH

I don't know if it's practical to send out business mousemats?
One of my clients does it every year - there's more chance that if it's a nice one - that people will use it and then will be 'under their noses' when they need you??

hmm

It is very hard to generalise from one industry to another, esp when yours depend so much on repeat business from the same clients.
DH's business is more one-time focussed (ie they need his product, he sells them one, they are happy and unlikely to need him again) and we worked out that multiple client touches like this were not cost efficient, esp by email as they end up in one person's inbox and cannot be accessed by their colleagues.
A paper flyer or postcard (though possibly more expensive to produce / mail) can be passed from desk to desk, stuck on a pinboard, kept in a supplier file etc.

What he has found extremely good value is search engine optimisation, so when people google eg 'window cleaners in Lincoln' he is the top hit (though he is obv really neither a window cleaner nor in Lincoln ).
There are companies that'll do this for you but if you are a bit tech savvy it's not madly difficult to work on yourself, esp if you administer your own webpage.
The click-through metrics etc are provided by Google and are free.

LisaLisa - I am a self employed consultant (although not in law) and I get absolutely none of my business via paid-for marketing of this sort - first contact all comes via word of mouth ie a prospective client says to their colleague 'I really need a consultant to do this ...' and the colleague says 'oh we hired MrsBaldwin, she was quite good'. Then the prospective client Googles me and finds my website (which comes up top of the page - this is MrsBadger's point about SEO). The website (a) provides my contacts (b) shows I am a proper, professional person with a track record etc - sort of like an online CV.

How do I keep in touch with clients? Have lunch with them and all that kind of thing. I am about to do an update of the website - and when I do that I'll send out a personal email to various key contacts saying 'have a look if you like'. How do I meet prospective clients - at functions, or contact people I think might like to hire me directly, with a referral from an existing client if possible.

Anyway, the upshot is you probably don't need to do a monthly newsletter ...

There is a great little book by Robert Ashton called How To Sell (it's on Amazon) which I found really good when I was doing a sales and marketing plan when I started off.

Thanks everyone - this is really informative.

I think my business would benefit from this newsletter approach as i am primarily targetting people who've been my clients in the past or those who've expressed an interest but perhaps not yet had a need. Also those who I've had contact with and need a sure fire way to stay in touch or keep my name in front of them ( but don't know them well enough for lunch/drinks).

I want to do it therefore.

Had a look at Constant Contact which sounds great ( especially the price) but is absolutely bewildering when it comes to trying to do anything. The list of tutorials and guides is overwhelming and I couldn't find any simple easy to follow info on setting up a first newsletter.

I will probably go with the expensive company as I'd rather someone else did it for me intially I think after which I can guage the effectiveness of the tool. As my business is fairly high end ( each bill being about £2.5k ) I only read need one new bill to justify the spend.

It's all v exciting setting up on our own isn't it?

I

It will be interesting to hear whether you think the ends justifies the means after you've tried it. Maybe you can revive this thread then with an update?

I think a newsletter is a really good idea as well as any other revenue generating methods you choose. It reminds clients of your existence and also gives you the chance to tell them about any new products/services you're offering.

The Constant Contact one really isn't difficult to set up - it's worth having a play around. They do a free 60 day trial that gives you the chance to see what you can do.

Santa - i signed up for the free trial. When I tried to actually create a newsletter I got simply lost in all the different advice parts and found I couldn't easily join any tutorials or hear any webinars on the methodology as they're all in the states. I think itsd not for me at the moment.

Mrsbaldwin - I agree would be a good idea. I suppose apart from repeated goodwill and ongoing relatinship with existing clients ( which may or may not have continued anyway) I won't really be able to guage success unless its a new instrcution from a person to whom I sent the newsletter who has never instructed me before. That's a fairly long yterm investment in my game - people like to use they know and trust in property transafctions and things can take 2-3 years to really penetrate and start to build trust. But - happy to report back in a year or so ( provided I remebmer and am still in business of course).

Going to start antoher thread asking if anyone has ever used a networking sserice like BNI or BRX but if anyone reading this thread has please do reply!

Other businesses which use a newsletter approach (ie because stuff changes every 5 mins) are tax advisers, accountants, certain IT professionals. If you have contacts with any of those, then ask for their latest newsletter, see what you like /what works for you as a potential client, and chase up the supplier.

I can send you a couple of examples of our own ('homemade' as it were!) and ones that we get from our IT people and accountants as examples if you like? CAT me with your e-mail address if you want them.

thanks santa would be most helpful

ll ray @ hotmail co uk

I've left gaps in it but there should be no gaps thanks a lot

You have mail!

Hi

Just seen this post. I launched my own online business in November, and yesterday I sent my first ever newsletter. So i'm by no means an expert on this!

I notice you said that the offers you've had were expensive. Just wanted to say that I went on a 2 hour training course, run by the lady who designed my website and by a marketing person, about e-newsletters for £75. This included having a template designed for me. I send the newsletters via their email marketing system so they are not caught up with spam. It is really easy to operate, and the cost is £6 per newsletter plus 1p per recipient. No idea if this would be expensive, bu it seems pretty reasonable to me.

It was based in Maidenhead, Berks, so if you would be interested pl pm me. If you are far way, perhaps you just could look around a bit more for other suppliers.