Episode 32: How to increase your consultancy’s brand awareness

Every consultant I know - whether a start-up or a million $$$ consultancy - has grown their consultancy via word-of-mouth and referrals.

For those fortunate enough to receive them, they're a great way to grow your consultancy because they don't require any 'marketing effort' from you.

BUT, relying on referrals alone to grow or sustain your consultancy is really risky

And there's lots of reasons why....

First, your personal income is at risk:

As business owners, our personal income and survival rely on the success of our business. Not to mention your family and the people you work with, too.

Next, your consultancy's cash flow is at risk:

All it takes is for you to lose one big client (which is why most established consultancy owners start working with me) or for your referrals to dry up for a while before you start having cash flow issues which can be a very slippery slope.

Next, you're at risk of getting stuck in a boom-and-bust business life cycle:

Consultants who rely on referrals are often trapped in a boom-and-bust business cycle, which is terrible for cash flow, growth and your stress levels.

And finally, your future is completely out of your control:

When you rely on referrals, your consultancy 's future and personal earnings are completely out of your control and that should terrify you into taking action.

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And that's why you need to stop relying on referrals and start marketing your consultancy...

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So the very broad subject of marketing can be organised via two types:

'Farmer 'and 'Hunter

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The goal of your farmer marketing is to increase your brand awareness.

To do this, you simply need to be putting as much content as you can out there on a regular basis.

Think newsletter, blogs, emails and social media content.

And it's this type of content ticks along in the background to make sure you're consistently seen and heard

And then you have your hunter marketing - and the goal of this type of marketing is to convert warm relationships into appointments.

Most people will call this lead generation.

To do this, you need to be doing targeted, multi-channel campaigns

focusing on entry level services like contracts, policies and handbook, HR audit, HR software and HR advisory.

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So if you said to me... James! I want to stop relying on referrals and get new clients.

Where should I get started.

I'd tell you to focus on increasing your brand awareness first.

This is your marketing foundation, upon which everything else is stacked.

And that's why in today's podcast episode, I'm going to to explain what's working for my other clients and how you can start increasing your brand awareness today.

Easily, quickly and affordably.

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Okay, so like we've just said, the whole goal of your brand awareness marketing is to get as much content out there as you possibly can.

Now, I have spoken to loads of consultants who have MASSIVELY over complicated this and I've actually been terrified by their spreadsheets.

They have every social media platform going under the sun.

They're getting all of their employees to contribute to blogs and write articles.

And they're focusing their attention in all of the wrong places.

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Increasing your brand awareness doesn't need to be complicated.

You don't need a huge spreadsheet.

And you don't need an army of people working on it either.

So let me break it down for you and make it super simple, based on what's working well for my other clients both in the UK and US.

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There are 4 channels that you should be putting content out on.

The first is your website - this is the most powerful marketing tool you own and it should be the source of lots of great content, advice and information for business owners.

The second is your Google Business Profile - not because anyone actually goes there to read content but you're simply doing it to improve your local SEO.

Which is an annoying hoop to jump through, but jump we must.

The third is your email list - now this another really important channel you should focus on growing and I have lots of resources to help you.

And finally, you have social media.

What social media you use is down to your target market.

My golden rule is that if your target market uses the platform personally or for work, use it.

If they don't, don't.

For me, my advice focuses on LinkedIn because it's the best B2B platform.

I also focus on personal profiles because they get the best traction, but it's also important to keep your business page up to date with content too.

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Okay, so now you know what channels you should be distributing content on.

What should your weekly tasks and content schedule look like?

Well, to keep things super simple you should just focus on these weekly tasks.

Task 1: Weekly blog post on your website 
Task 2: Weekly post on your Google Buisness Profile 
Task 3: Weekly email 
Task 4: Weekly posts on your LinkedIn profile 
Task 5: Weekly edition of your LinkedIn newsletter

And in terms of what your content schedule looks like...

I suggest posting every day on Linkedin - this is good for the algorithm.

On a Tuesday, you post a blog on your website and you talk or link back to it via your google business profile, email and LinkedIn.

This is called mulit-channel distribution if you're feeling fancy.

And then on a Thursday, you publish a new edition of your LinkedIn newsletter.

You share it with your connections via a post.

And by doing so, it also sends an email to all of your subscribers which is fab.

A LinkedIn newsletter and events are the only thing that actually email your connections or subscribers too, which is why I highly recommend you set up a LinkedIn newsletter.

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This is the exact content schedule I'm using for my business and it's the exact content schedule that my other clients are using too and it's working brilliantly.

If you would like a PDF version of this content schedule, please email me on james@marketingforhrconsultants.com and I'll ping it straight back to you.

And also, if you're a start up listening to this and you don't have a website set up and an email list, don't freak out.

You can easily just get started on LinkedIn and then build out your marketing channels as you have the time.

I'm just sharing with you here best practice and what's working for my other clients.

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Okay so now you know that in order to stop relying on referrals and get new clients, the best place to get started is by increasing your brand awareness.

We've also discussed that it doesn't need to be complicated.

Keeping it simple and consistent is key here.

We've discussed the 4 channels you should be using.

And I've shared the weekly tasks and content schedule that's working for my other clients.

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Now it's time to talk about the things you need to 'set up' in order to do this content schedule on a weekly basis.

You'll need to have a...

✅ Website with blog post functionality
✅ Claimed Google Business Profile page
✅ Email list and CRM / Email sender
✅ Optimized LinkedIn profile
✅ LinkedIn newsletter
✅ Marketing content
✅ And Time to implement

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Now all of this can sound really overwhelming but fear not.

We're here to help with the ultimate brand awareness marketing solution for ambitious HR consultants which includes...

The HR Marketing Box 
The HR Marketing Box Kickstarter
And the HR Marketing Box VA.

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Now i'm going to do a quick deep dive into each service to explain what it offers and how it can help you.

At the heart of our ultimate brand awareness marketing solution sits the HR Marketing Box.

It's an online portal full of content & ideas to help you increase brand

awareness & get new clients.

It's a huge time saver (even using ChatGPT) and it's a thousand times cheaper than hiring your own content writer.

All you need to do is go in, personalise the content super quickly on canva and publish it across your channels.

It really is as easy as that.

And then on top of the HR Marketing Box, we have 3 bolt ons.

The first is the HR Marketing Box Kickstarter.

This is everything you need to get your brand awareness marketing set up.

So we have a do it yourself version, which includes lots of resources and checklists to help you get everything you need set up in order to do your weekly tasks and content schedule.

And then we have a done for you version, which is a one month prorgamme where we actually do all of the set up for you.

And then we have the HR Marketing Box VA.

So if you don't have the time to personalise the HR Marketing Box content and publish it across your channels, we can do it all for you every single month.

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And that brings us to the end of this week's main event.

So to quickly recap, if you want to stop relying on referrals and get new clients, the best place to start is by increasing your brand awareness.

In terms of what's working for my other clients, we just focus on the 4 main channels.

Your website, Google Business Profile, email and LinkedIn.

We then get as much content as we can out there using our suggested content schedule.

And to help you, we have the ultimate brand awareness marketing solution which includes...

The HR Marketing Box 
The HR Marketing Box Kickstarted 
And the HR Marketing VA

If you would like to learn more about these services or anything esle to do with your brand awareness then please drop me an email and let's book in call.

I'm here to help.