Marketing for
consulting firms

The offer comes before the marketing

Marketing for consulting firms fails most often for one reason: nobody can tell what is being sold. "Strategy, operations and growth consulting for mid-market companies" describes half the LinkedIn profiles in America. Before any ad or post, the firm needs an offer a buyer can say yes to: a named diagnostic, a two-day workshop, a 90-day implementation, each with a scope, a duration and a price or price range.

That entry offer does three jobs. It gives prospects a low-risk first step. It gives you a paid way to learn the client's business before quoting the big project. And it gives your marketing a concrete thing to point at. I help shape it in a value proposition session or as part of the audit.

Proof without breaking confidentiality

Buyers of consulting want evidence that you have solved their problem before. Case stories do that best: the situation, what you did, what changed. Many consultants work under NDAs, so stories are often anonymous ("a 200-person distributor in the Midwest"). That is fine as long as the facts are real. Never invent results; the FTC treats fake endorsements and made-up claims seriously, and buyers of expertise can usually smell them.

On the website, each case story links to the relevant service or problem page, and each problem page links back to the stories. A visitor who arrives from a search about one problem finds proof within one click.

Search, LinkedIn and email

Corporate buyers research problems, not vendors. Pages that explain a problem in depth, with your view on causes and fixes, can rank for searches decision makers actually type. That is slow work, and it compounds. I write and structure such pages as part of SEO content.

LinkedIn is where your network sees you. Regular, specific posts work better than polished corporate updates. A monthly email newsletter to past clients, prospects and referral partners keeps you in mind for the moment someone says "we need help with this". Email follows CAN-SPAM: honest sender and subject, postal address and one-click unsubscribe. For paid campaigns to specific job titles, see LinkedIn ads, which I run with a trusted partner.

Long cycles need a system

A consulting sale can take three to nine months from first call to signed scope. Without a CRM, warm prospects simply get forgotten. I set up stages that match how you sell (intro call, diagnostic proposed, diagnostic done, proposal, signed), with reminders for each stalled deal and a view of expected revenue by month. Seasonality plays in too: many US companies set budgets in the fall, so September to November is the time to have proposals on desks for January starts.

Working together

I work remotely with consultants across the US, from boutiques in Washington, DC to independent experts in San Francisco. We meet on Zoom in your morning. As a solo marketer myself, I understand the feast-or-famine problem from the inside, which may be the only joke on this page.