Communication Tools

The marketing communications strategy is geared in one of two directions – toward products or toward services. The differences between the two are naturally immense, especially with professional services – yet, to really think about a marketing communications strategy strategically, the similarities are equally important.

What is it that an effective marketing communications strategy always does?

First, the marketing communications strategy always targets an audience. Even a mass-market product like Pepsi differentiates market segments within the mass. In Pepsi’s case, the youth market is vital. If Pepsi identifies specific buyers, how absurd is it for a law firm or an accounting firm to market to everybody? For the professional services, the more well defined and the more specific the audience, the more effective the marketing communications strategy.

Second, an effective marketing communications strategy sells brands, not companies. Procter & Gamble markets Bounty and Crest and Pampers. Procter & Gamble doesn’t market Procter & Gamble. Yet law firms and accounting firms, with much less name cachet than Procter & Gamble, persistently try to market themselves as institutions to buyers who only want specialized practice or industry services.

Interestingly, the law firms whose reputations for reliability approach Procter & Gamble know better. Skadden Arps sells M&A, not Skadden Arps, and the other practice groups prosper as M&A prospers. When the marketing communications strategy is shrewdly niched, one rising tide lifts all boats.