Why Consideration matters
'Why Consideration matters' addresses a critical marketing metric, namely the proportion of prospects and clients who would consider engaging a professional services firm.
Creating sustainable growth in professional services requires a firm to continuously strengthen its brand equity.
Investing in your firm’s brand equity improves your market competitiveness, increases price-setting discretion, attracts exceptional talent, and enhances clients’ loyalty and inclination to recommend you.
Building a firm’s brand equity requires a number of stages to be executed sequentially. The foundation phase is measuring your clients’ and potential clients’ awareness of your firm’s brand. Brand awareness refers to clients’ and potential clients’ ability to recall and recognise your brand. Brand recall involves clients and potential clients cognitively linking a firm’s brand name to certain associations in their memory. In other words, what is your firm known for? What do you stand for? Are you recognised as being a leading firm in particular service lines or client industries?
Why Consideration matters
The critical marketing metric for firms is the proportion of clients who would consider engaging their services. This represents the degree to which a firm’s brand resonates positively with clients and potential clients. To transition clients from Awareness to Consideration requires a high level of familiarity and strong, favourable brand associations.
If a firm has high levels of Awareness but low levels of Consideration, its brand-building strategy needs to be reviewed to reflect a value proposition that resonates more closely with the needs of potential clients.
beaton's research across the professions of law, accounting, engineering, IP and management consulting shows that the top drivers of consideration and purchase are essentially the same.
Clients of professional services firms tell us that the key reason they consider and appoint a firm for a particular piece of work is that the firm has demonstrated:
Expertise in their area of need,
Understanding of their business and industry, and
Commerciality of advice.
Improving Consideration
Firms looking to improve their Consideration, and ultimately win more work, need to build brand associations in the minds of potential clients and referrers as:
Leading firms in their key areas of business,
Having deep relationships,
Being knowledgeable and active participants in their clients' industries, and
Providing commercially savvy solutions.
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Author
This post was written by David Goener, a beaton partner based in Brisbane. You can connect with David on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter at @dpgoener.