Know Your Marketing Message to Build Your Valuation Practice

IMGCAP(1)]Marketing your valuation business is more important than ever.

With the rise of social media and other new communication techniques, industries that may have once been considered “traditional” must seek new ways to engage potential clients and to re-engage existing clients. While many business professionals can still keep their companies afloat with a smile and a handshake, there is no doubt that the world has changed and will continue to do so.

Ask nearly any professional in any industry: Solid client relationships are more complex than a phone call or a letter. The use of technology has become an important player in the game of remaining relevant. Yet particularly in the business-to-business world, an old principle stands—face-to-face relationships are still a key to success. Today’s marketing techniques that utilize both an online and offline presence allow accounting and financial services firms to easily maintain and build these relationships both with current and prospective clients.

When building your firm’s marketing plans around your valuation practice, you’ll expand your reach by outlining tactics that leverage a variety of mediums. But keep in mind that it is your marketing message, no matter the medium, that is crucial. The elevator pitch of yesterday is still just as relevant, if not more so today, and firms need to be able to execute it in-person and in a limited number of characters online.

Everyone on your staff should be well versed in what it is that distinguishes your firm from the competition.

Knowing how your firm can provide value is critical not only in being able to market your services, but also to appropriately price and execute on value-added service offerings, especially in the case of valuations.

Carefully consider the marketing statements you’ll utilize to draw in prospective clients that are ripe for a business valuation engagement, and then how you’ll build on those relationships once they are established.

A specialized practice like business valuations may need an additional explanation of what the service entails, so it’s important to keep the language accessible to a typical business owner who isn’t likely to be entrenched in finance.

Once your messaging is crafted and you’re ready to build your plan, there are a number of ways to identify the marketing mediums that may work best for your firm. To further explore avenues to marry your marketing message with both the online and offline world, download the Sageworks whitepaper, “Marketing Tips for the Business Valuation Professional.”

Mary Ellen Biery is a research specialist at the financial information company Sageworks.

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