this is ‘professional services marketing 3.0.’
by bruce w. marcus
professional services marketing 3.0
today, we are entering a new phase of marketing, in which marketing is not only integrated into the practice, but actually helps shape the nature of the practice itself. this is marketing 3.0.
it is characterized by marketers – professional marketers, accountants, firm managers – who fully understand the nature of practice, as well as the techniques and skills of marketing professional services.
there is a new generation of accountants who, unlike their predecessors, fully understand that marketing is as much part of the practice as billing and other financial controls. even the process of the growing field of knowledge management, long considered primarily technical for acquiring and managing internal data as a management function, is now beginning to include marketing data as integral to managing a firm. and why not? no professional firm exists without its clients.
where once project management was taken for granted, there is now a more sophisticated approach to it, as part of a growing firm management professionalism needed to improve productivity.
competition has sharpened the practice, and helped introduce new services that better serve both the firms and the clients. the changes are phenomenal. it has led to more streamlined firm management and service structures, benefiting both the firm and its clients.
it’s a new partnership between the professionals, who are imbued with a true understanding of the meaning of marketing to a contemporary practice and their inevitable role in it, and marketers who fully understand the markets and services, and the personalities of accountants.
if the last generation marketers better understood the craft and tools of marketing professional services, the marketers of 3.0 better understand the practice of accounting, the profession’s disciplines, fundamental characteristics and tasks in the actual practice of accounting, as well as the distinctive personality traits of accountants. at the same time, both marketing and accounting professionals now better understand the principles and practices of marketing.
bruce w. marcus is a pioneer in professional services marketing and coauthor of “client at the core.” this is adapted from his new book, “professional services marketing 3.0,” available for purchase here.
copyright 2011. used by permission.
related: click here for more about bruce w. marcus and “professional services marketing 3.0.”
one response to “when practice drives marketing and marketing drives practice”
chris zdunich
… the marketers of 3.0 better understand the practice of accounting, the profession’s disciplines, fundamental characteristics and tasks in the actual practice of accounting, as well as the distinctive personality traits of accountants.
bruce, you are right. without this understanding, the marketer or sales person will not last long.
understanding the distinctive personality traits of the partners is most important.