Who’s in the high growth consulting club?

Intelligent client engagement drives high growth for consulting businesses.

 We’ve been digesting the results of some great research carried out by professional services marketing consultancy Hinge. It provides convincing evidence that digital marketing & client engagement is a key factor in the outperformance of the most successful consulting firms.

Hinge’s report The Visible Firm distils research carried out over nine years, involving 15 studies of over 16,000 professional services firms and their clients. It reveals how intelligent client engagement drives high growth for consulting businesses.

Most of us are now aware that Consulting specialist expertise has become the most important factor when clients are seeking out and choosing a consultancy firm to engage with. The issue is, even though you may have these sought-after specialist capabilities they are only a theoretical asset if your prospects are not aware and can’t find them via the channels they use for research and communication. Hinge headlines the concept of “Visibility”.

 

Are you in the high growth club, like the successful Consultancies Hinge identifies? If not, how do you put yourself there?

For growth above the average, you need to create and execute an effective, targeted marketing, client engagement and business development programme. It will include a well-integrated mix of digital and traditional channels and activities. The content will be tailored to connect with a unique audience, provide deep industry insight and provide answers to the specific needs and burning priorities of your client’s. It may include collaboration with specialists whose expertise complements and extends your own. It will incorporate continual evaluation to feed experience data back in and refine and evolve your marketing and client engagement activities to keep pace with client and new market challenges and opportunities.

Can you afford to invest in high growth? Can you afford not to?

Consulting firms can access this kind of transformative client engagement through technology. It’s a question of matching capability with budget. Solutions like Microsoft Dynamics 365 are ideal for SMEs, with customisable functionality and a focus on ease of use, so you can get into the game fast. They’re also designed to integrate with existing technology, tools and desktop or mobile apps.
We find Hinge’s empirical approach to understanding Consulting sector success convincing. The full Visible Firm report is a great source of ideas for accelerating your firm’s growth and making sure you’re in touch with your clients’ needs and expectations.