Craig Thatcher
- Sep 6, 2023
- 3 min read

Digital marketing advice for service businesses

Companies like yours often face unique challenges in your marketing due to the nature of your target audience and the complexity of your services. You need digital marketing advice specifically for service businesses. Here are some of the common areas where you may need help to develop targeted strategies to communicate the value of your services.

Improving brand awareness

Establishing and maintaining brand awareness within your market can be difficult, as the focus is often on building strong personal relationships. So you may need help in crafting and promoting consistent brand messaging. Companies often struggle to communicate why they’re different because they’re too busy communicating what they do, which is generally what everyone else is saying too.

Strategy first

Creating useful content is essential because it will position your organisation as helpful and approachable, which are excellent qualities. But decide on your strategy first before you decide on how you are going to communicate.

Developing an effective content strategy

Creating valuable and relevant content that addresses the specific pain points, challenges and needs of your target audience can be challenging. The most important issue is to understand what your clients need most help with - by asking them the right questions. Then deciding which is the best format from which you can extract this information before developing a comprehensive content strategy using channels they are comfortable with.

Personalisation and segmentation

If you target specific industries, roles and pain points then you can segment your audience and tailor your marketing messages to resonate strongly with each segment, which will lead to greater engagement.

Thought leadership and content authority

Establishing thought leadership and authority within your industry or market sector helps your company to stand out. Crafting thought-provoking content, participating in industry discussions, and presenting at relevant conferences can all contribute to this goal.

Social media strategy

You may struggle with finding the right social media platforms to reach your target audiences. Developing a social media strategy that aligns with your industry and engages potential clients is essential but don’t assume that every one of your prospects is active on social media. Other more traditional forms of communication can be effective for them.

Lead generation

Generating high-quality leads is a top priority and relevant content makes lead generation far easier. So you may need help in designing lead generation campaigns, optimising landing pages, and creating compelling calls-to-action to capture the interest of potential clients.

Account-based marketing (ABM)

Do you often target specific key accounts? Implementing ABM strategies requires identifying decision-makers, personalising content, and orchestrating coordinated marketing efforts across various channels.

Marketing automation

If your products or services are high-ticket items then you will experience longer sales cycles and multiple touch points. Implementing marketing automation tools to nurture leads, segment audiences, and send timely, relevant content can greatly enhance your efficiency and effectiveness especially if you have a high volume of prospects and limited head count.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Improving visibility in search engine results for relevant keywords is crucial. Optimising your website and content to rank higher and attract organic traffic is an effective way to make the most of all of the valuable content you have created and help to generate leads.

Trade shows and events

Participating in industry trade shows and events is a common marketing tactic. But many companies don’t think why prospective clients attend trade shows and how they can make the most of their time there by communicating before, during and after the event to maximise their ROI.

Sales and marketing alignment

Effective collaboration between sales and marketing teams is crucial to ensure a seamless transition from marketing-generated leads to sales engagement. I’m amazed that we still need to talk about this as is has been on the table ever since I started my career in marketing in the early 1980s.

Measuring ROI

You may struggle with measuring the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and attributing ROI to specific campaigns. So you may need help in setting up proper tracking mechanisms and analysing data to understand which strategies are delivering results. The key is select the minimum number of Key Performance Indicators to monitor.