Today’s digitally-driven, increasingly competitive B2B landscape makes the call for insightful and practical guidance more pronounced than ever. The numbers speak for themselves: The IT and technology consulting services segment is gearing up for significant growth at a CAGR of 5% from 2021 to 2028 according to Zipdo. This rising trend is mirrored by the consulting industry as a whole, which is expected to grow at a 4% average annual rate from 2019 to 2015. These statistics emphasize the critical role of the consulting industry in helping businesses tackle the complexities of the tech-driven business terrain.
The demand for consultants has spiked in response to this breakthrough. Nevertheless, succeeding in this area demands the utilization of marketing strategies that clearly convey your unique market value. Ensuring the survival and growth of your consulting business requires a proficient lead generation strategy.
Lead generation in the consulting sector
Whether you’re into financial or IT consulting or a company offering any business consulting services, having consistent and loyal clients is important to keep up with the demands to grow their business.
Cost reduction and risk management financial-related advice or IT operation and strategy consulting from planning, verification, and design projects to cloud integration, IT assessment, and other services are needed to stand out in this highly competitive business consulting world.
Two of the main challenges every consulting company faces nowadays include, attracting and developing new business and a highly competitive and crowded market. To be able to keep up and compete, many owners are considering lead generation campaigns to increase their clients.
Related: Online and Offline Marketing Tactics to Position Your Consulting Business in the APAC Market
But how can lead generation help consulting firms?
Many consulting companies find leads through prospecting – cold calling or email blasting. Through lead generation, consulting companies can build relationships with their prospects. Trust! This is important to every consulting firm. Why? Clients rely on your advice on how to reduce their costs and increase their ROI. To them, a company that they can trust to provide quality standards and the ability to deliver results is a must.
So how do you make B2B lead generation work for consulting firms? Here are 8 effective lead-generation practices for consulting firms.
#1. Hire a professional with experience.
The consulting industry is all about building trust for your service to be considered by your target prospects. Hire a consultant with experience, who is credible and knows how to handle clients well.
Related: Where Consulting Firms Should Spend Their Marketing Resources
#2. Provide good customer service to gain trust.
According to a result from a survey conducted by Forbes, 88% of consumers trust and rely on online reviews from current and previous clients when choosing a consulting firm. Ask your clients for testimonials and promote them online.
To give you an example, here is our client testimonial page:
#3. Engage with your visitors through multi-channel marketing.
As a marketer, you have to be where your customers are. Different ways – email, call, mobile, web, social media, and chat, to reach out, communicate, and build a relationship with your prospects is considered the best way to deliver your message across all channels.
Related: C-Level Blind Spot: Not Incorporating Multi-Channel Marketing
#4. Content Marketing
Effective content types that showcase your brand’s expertise include blogs, social media posts, email campaigns, newsletters, whitepapers, and case studies. Creating valuable and relevant content builds trust with prospects and positions your brand as an authoritative figure in the industry.
When crafting compelling content, make sure that you curate material that resonates with your audience’s interests, address their common painpoints and provide solutions, and focus on providing informative insights.
- Incorporate CTA in your website or blog post
CTAs such as “Learn more here” or “Click here” is important. Creating informative content that they can relate to and can help them solve their problems is an effective way to generate leads. Offering content like this will let them solve their problems but will let them see the need for your service. Start with this guide, the 15 Brilliant Web Design Hacks That Convert Traffic into Leads!
#5. Participate in industry events, such as webinars and workshops
Webinars and workshops are often used to promote digital products and online courses. Their efficiency in connecting with a broad audience and fostering engagement seamlessly extends to the consulting sector.
These allow you to:
- Increase brand awareness
- Provides new opportunities for you to gain new clients
- Meet with some industry experts and get insights that can help your business.
- Find out what’s new within your industry that can help you keep up with your competitors.
In IT consulting, you may ask clients to commit to big projects without them knowing how you work. This can make them feel uncertain. Webinars and workshops offer a relaxed yet professional approach to sharing industry expertise and building relationships with potential clients and partners.
#5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
68% of online experiences start with a search engine. 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic searches. SEO helps consultancy firms attract new leads, build brand awareness, and establish themselves as industry thought leaders. Essentially, it helps you generate qualified leads that convert into loyal customers and foster relationships that last.
SEO serves as an essential tool that helps make your consultant firm become more visible to prospects, draw in more website traffic, and boost your reputation as a trusted name in the industry.
#6. Digital Marketing
For consulting firms to succeed in the competitive landscape, developing and implementing a strong digital marketing strategy is necessary. This involves targeting the right audience, using effective channels, monitoring success, and curating relevant and engaging content.
Also, utilizing social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can strengthen your brand’s visibility and engagement.
#7. Email Marketing
Email marketing is a cost-effective strategy for consulting firms to connect with a broad audience, maintain a prominent presence, and convey tailored messages for enhanced client and prospect engagement.
Effective email marketing for consulting firms entails building high-quality email lists, segmenting the audience, and delivering valuable, personalized content. Personalization and segmentation are pivotal elements in delivering impactful email campaigns, aligning messages with the unique needs and interests of the audience.
#8. Leverage testimonials
88% of customers find online reviews as trustworthy as personal recommendations, and 72% of them state that testimonials and positive reviews make them trust a business more.
This is a valuable source of trust that can be put to good use by showcasing well-written feedback from real customers. Testimonials offer solid proof of a consulting firm’s skills and the positive results they’ve achieved for clients, strengthening the firm’s reputation and credibility.
Generate leads for your consulting business, the expert way!
Leads serve as the lifeblood of your consulting business, as they’re essential for reaching potential clients and engaging with them effectively. To do this, you will need a steady stream of leads in your pipeline. Take note: The absence of such can significantly hamper your capacity to reach your business goals.
Choosing the right method to gain these leads, however, can be overwhelming, given the multitude of available channels and strategies. Picking the right tactics that work well for your audience and match your business goals can be quite daunting as well.
To make your lead generation efforts more effective, you should identify and nurture the best leads. Instead of trying to gather as many as possible, you should focus on those with the potential to bring valuable opportunities. These are the prospects who encounter specific IT-related issues or challenges in their organizations and understand the value of your services.
Whether you decide to build your own sales team or hire a specialized service for B2B lead generation, following the best practices mentioned earlier is essential. This ensures your lead generation campaign remains focused on your ideal prospects, increasing your chances of acquiring and converting high-quality leads.
In fact, outsourcing to a trusted lead generation services provider like Callbox is often considered the best option to maximize your efforts, as it allows you to leverage their expertise and resources while maintaining that crucial focus on your ideal prospects.
Since 2004, Callbox has been the top-notch B2B lead generation services provider in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, fostering business growth across multiple industries. By leveraging our expertise in telemarketing and appointment setting, along with our multi-touch multi-channel approach and AI-powered tools, we assist your business in reaching, acquiring, and nurturing target prospects, ultimately converting them into clients.
Simplify your lead generation process, expand your prospect reach, and capture more leads by teaming up with us. Get in touch with us now!
