B2B Marketing in the Professional Services Industry

Why is it important to empower your clients? and especially so in the Professional Services Industry? Where do you start? spotONvision interviewed Albert Jan Huisman, Marketing Director at International Law Firm Kennedy Van der Laan, about the challenges in B2B Marketing.

Kennedy Van der Laan was awarded the title of ‘Most Innovative Law Firm’ in 2010. But, can we say the same about its marketing strategy? Does the company take any notice of the ideas and thoughts of e.g. Josh Bernoff (co-author of bestselling books Groundswell’ and ‘Empowered’)? One of the main challenges for marketers these days is to empower employees and clients.

Empower your clients

Albert Jan Huisman supports the idea behind ‘Empowered‘, but states that Law Firms are not totally ready to take this on board: “Our industry is very traditional, however at Kennedy Van der Laan we are working hard to be different and innovative. We have to be, to stay ahead of our competition.”

This year Kennedy van der Laan integrated a social media marketing strategy in its plans. Albert Jan: “We run a Twitter account and publish a blog, and it really works well, even in our industry! Our clients and also media reporters comment and participate in the dialogue! We only just started and we were invited to appear in the TV-News-Update programme, RTL Boulevard”.

In a couple of weeks, Kennedy van der Laan will launch a new intranet, a hub that offers employees the opportunity to communicate with the clients as well. All is linked to social media integration.  Albert Jan: “This will be version 1.0. I think that we will see a big change in 3 years’ time with even more integration between internal and external communications  – maybe version 3.0 by then-. Information will be linked more and more.”

Create content that adds value

Kennedy Van der Laan is introducing new marketing tools to empower employees and clients. Albert Jan explains that it is of vital importance to offer valuable content for prospects and clients. Not many professional services companies around us are operating that way.

When visiting a website of a typical Law Firm, most of the time you see facts about when the company started, how many lawyers, etc. Usually this is not what a prospect is looking for. Albert Jan: “A prospect wants to know if his or her problem can be solved by you; what’s the knowledge or the area of expertise that can help him? Can you help him? Can you convince people that you are indeed a thought leader? If you can, you will win your new clients without a lot of extra effort!”

Do you want to know more about how to empower your employees and clients? Have a look at the interview with Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research.