Spiraling Up — Marketing For Professional Services

The 2025 Professional Services Marketing Tactics Draft + Everyday AI Examples

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How do High Growth professional services firms go to market today? Download the 2025 High Growth Study to find out: https://www.hingemarketing.com/highgrowth

In today's episode of Spiraling Up, Austin, Joe, and MB explore the new challenges marketing faces in professional services, especially with the rising influence of AI and automation. Then, they channel the excitement of the NFL Draft by hosting the inaugural marketing tactic draft where each host picks from a selection of high growth  efforts to build a championship-caliber campaign for 2025. In this conversation, we cover:

  • How AI is changing professional services marketing
  • The top challenge marketers want to learn about in 2025
  • Differences between networking and speaking at conferences
  • The strategic impact of thought leadership and content creation
  • Ways social media advertising is being leveraged in B2B
  • Effective approaches to presenting in webinars
  • The importance of incorporating PR in your marketing strategy
  • The role of video blogging in expanding expertise and visibility
Austin McNair:

Um, In today's episode of spiraling up, our team looks at the new biggest challenge in professional services, marketing, and then MB Joe and I will face off in our first ever NFL style marketing draft. It is going to be a great time. Welcome everybody. This is spiraling up with hinge marketing. All right. Well, welcome back to spiraling up with hinge marketing. Look, we are just getting started with this new podcast. So if you're here with us for today's episode, let me say, thank you for joining us. Thanks for, for, for, uh, joining us for these early episodes. Our vision for this podcast is simple. We want to create a podcast that is insightful for marketers and leaders at professional services firms. And we want to have some fun along the way. Joe, MB, how are you guys doing today? Uh, you guys ready to get started?

Joe Pope:

I don't think we can officially get started until I make some sort of reference to the weather. That's how these meetings go, right?

Austin McNair:

How's everything going then in the middle of March for you guys in Virginia?

Mary Blanche:

we are glad to be done with the snow. Uh, we had quite a snowy, uh, winter here in Virginia. Um, but it's been what, like. High sixties, almost, we had almost a 70 degree day. So I am, I am here for spring.

Joe Pope:

I've been watching, uh, your surf videos, Austin. South side of the globe. Uh, and jealousy has reigned supreme, so I'm, you know, in addition to just poking fun at the fact that we're talking about the weather, I am also just really excited to be hitting the beach up pretty soon.

Austin McNair:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean the jealousy cuts both ways, right? Whenever you guys are in winter, I'm in summer for people that don't know. I'm, I'm living down in Southern Brazil with my family. Um, and yeah, we just had a glorious, uh, summer season, carnival season. Things are, you know, always lots of energy and now things are starting to cool off. Some of the tourists are heading back to their daily life. So, uh, but yeah, things are, things are going well. I'm excited to talk about, um, this, this episode, we've got some fun things planned today. M. B., why don't we start with our pivotal story for today?

Mary Blanche:

All right, let's do it. Welcome back to Pivotal Stories, where we explore the intersection of marketing, business trends, and the wider world. Now, we've been delving into Hinge's recently released high growth study for 2025, and one of the most striking findings this year has been a significant shift in the challenges faced by professional services firms. For years, navigating uncertainty in the marketplace has taken the number one spot, but this year's study revealed a new top contender, which is incorporating AI in automation. High growth firms are not only recognizing this challenge, but they're actively seeking to understand and leverage AI's potential. In fact, AI is the top trend that they want to learn more about in 2025. So what I want to know is how are you guys seeing AI influence your day to day lives and your work life at Hinge?

Joe Pope:

Yeah, I think it's natural, honestly. Let's just think about it from the perspective of how AI is kind of Dominated our lives, right? And how it's just we've gone from everybody's 1st experience with AI being Alexa and it's sorry. Alexa is about to go off right next to me. Apologies. Stop. But we've gone from that being everybody's 1st expectation or experience with the tool, the functionality, the ability to have something in your back pocket to support you to now it's ingrained across. Everything we do, I, I, MB and I, uh, I think we, we both picked up a new vehicle recently and, and this thing's got the ability for us to talk to it. It might even drive itself realistically. And that shift has happened so quickly. It's only natural then to see it. Infused in how people are doing their work on a day to day basis I know we can definitely dive into some of those different pieces to moving into efficiencies and focusing on things like profitability and client retention. So it was not surprising. Let's just say that that it has replaced uncertainty. With something that has become certain, which is that this technology is here to stay.

Mary Blanche:

I mean, we've definitely been making strides and integrating AI into our day to day workflow. So, I mean, things as simple as like note taking and follow up comms, uh, things that just have traditionally been such an administrative. offload those and create that additional capacity and bandwidth of team has been huge.

Austin McNair:

it's interesting because I, I remember back in March 2023, um, I did a webinar with, uh, one of the managing partners at hinge, Carl Feldman, and it was about chat to BT in the future, professional services, marketing, and all the way back then, like when the, when this technology came to, uh, kind of came to the market and everybody started using it. It was like one of the biggest webinars we'd ever, we'd ever done, like the interest was like super, super hot then, but like everything was so fresh and new and like, really, um, I think that the AI narrative was contributing to the uncertainty narrative back then. But what stands out to me is that that was two years ago. I mean, this stuff still feels really new, but I mean, two years is a, it's a pretty considerable amount of time, especially in when we're in a space like marketing, which is. constantly changing. Um, I mean, I look back to kind of some of the things that we said in that webinar, and I think they all still kind of work because we stuck to more big picture strategies. Um, but I just think about the biggest change and what I think, why I think this flipped from uncertainty to actually specifically saying that, you know, incorporating AI, uh, and automation into your business is the top challenge. I think the reason for that it. Um, of why that is, is that now we have a lot more of a concrete idea of what the challenge is. We see all the technology platforms kind of hitting us and like being advertised to us as marketers. Um, we are, I think, in our roles, sort of expected to be pioneers in using this technology. Marketing generally is expected to kind of be on the front lines of like making sure that we're staying ahead as a company. Um, I don't know, Joe, what do you, would you agree with that?

Joe Pope:

I can't disagree with anything you said. And I actually, in the lead up to this podcast, did the same thing you did, which was go back and review that webinar that you and Carl did a few years back. And a lot of, uh, we'll just call you both Nostradamus, right? Because a lot of what you had talked about rang true in the fact that this was going to continue to proliferate across the entire picture of. Marketing, business development, sales, whatever terms you want to use, and where those pieces would start to then eke into, I mean, you referenced it, the administrative elements, right? Replacing some of the more onerous tasks. the big thing I think is. In this role that we have this marketing business development, front end role, the ability for us to kind of own that in, uh, not just hinge as a marketing agency, but when you're sitting in that role as a marketing director of a, let's say, 100 person, architecture, engineering, construction firm, and, you know, small team, lot of proposal responsibilities, shout out to the folks. I know exactly what I'm talking about and. But you've got these new technologies got these new elements that can be infused and improve and develop efficiencies. So there's just a natural opportunity here. Um, and I, I think 1 of the things we, we've talked about internally quite a bit is experimentation is key. Go back to what I was saying at the start. A lot of us are experimenting with these things on a day to day basis. In just our daily lives, right? It's, there's times now where folks, myself included, are using Gemini chat GPT instead of throwing something into Google like we used to. Google's responding. Right? Generative AI search, answer boxes, all of those types of elements has greatly shifted and anybody who's been plugged in on the digital marketing side has just naturally seen this. So, uh, yeah, there's a definite opportunity here for marketers to be experts in what is a awesome and expanding realm of, uh, what is our day to day life.

Austin McNair:

Yeah. So for that webinar that I mentioned, I actually went back and looked and there is a blog post that we published at the same time, covered the same content. Uh, good, good, good repurposing strategy on our point. Uh, on our part, and this is dated back on March 1st, 2023. And so in the article, we laid out four strategies for professional services firms in a chat GPT world. So I'm going to list these four things out. You guys tell me kind of what you think. The first one was thought leadership is king now. So not just content, but thought leadership. Um, differentiation will matter more than ever now.

Joe Pope:

Mm hmm. Yeah.

Austin McNair:

Doing high quality campaigns as opposed to just more content. And then finally, humanize your brand, uh, with integrated marketing strategies. So techniques that really put your, your experts and your influencers out there. What do you, what do you guys make of those four, four strategies? I'd say they all roughly apply today still. Well, I think they do, but what, what stands out to you guys?

Mary Blanche:

Yeah. I mean, for me, well, first of all, I think all four of those still very much resonate today. I know for myself, one place I'm using AI a lot is on, is on that content side and developing, you know, my own content content for, for the hinge website. You know, I, I've been able to almost cut down my time in half when I'm writing a blog post because, you know, I can really come to it, you know, with like, what is my idea? What is my outline for that idea? What are those Core points that I want to hit. And, then in a back and forth engagement with AI, you know, it's really helping, it really helps me bring my vision for that post to life. So, um, yeah, I mean, from a time saving perspective, it's been huge.

Austin McNair:

Yeah. And then B, I would say it helps us bring this podcast to life too. I mean, we, we're, we're using it, you know, for the pivotal stories and kind of writing some introductions and stuff like that. It does really help us. team be able to do more, accomplish more, um, which, you know, I don't think it's necessarily always the, uh, the, the end goal, but you know, efficiency, right? It's all about efficiency in terms of, uh, how we go about things. Joe, what about, what about you?

Joe Pope:

Yeah, absolutely. I think the, the big ones that still stand out, I mean, all of them stand out and we covered that perfectly correct. Uh, my, I also would not be able to contribute anything on the blog without AI at this point. I think when you had me writing blogs pre chat GPT days and the ability to kind of think storyboard and so forth, it would be a. Painful process, partly why I don't write as many blogs as I probably should, but now, I mean, you've got the ability to narrate into these tools, organize your thoughts, collaborate, we're, we're on the Google system. There's a lot of great collaboration tools there for us, but the ones that stand out to me is that differentiation and humanizing side. Anybody who's had any amount of experience in developing proposals know that by having good sound templates, you can reduce down what can be an extremely time consuming. And depending on the business line, you're in, uh, sometimes unrewarding based on when percentages and RFPs and so forth. But what AI is really enabled, especially when you have the types of tools, like we're, like I mentioned, we're Google. So Gemini being plugged into our proposal decks and slide decks and docs and so forth, where we can take things like the transcripts from our calls, the email threads. The back and forth brainstorming that the team has done and build into that framework, using prompts information that allows us to truly connect in with what our prospects are saying with what our clients are saying. So it's not just the standard lip service, mumbo jumbo crap that, you know, a lot of times get scanned over because it's just the same, right? Oh, okay. Boring, whatever trope, but no, like, look, like we can get without having to spend the time to sit there and re listen to every recording and re, uh, read every email or back and forth, or look at every single note. We can combine all that into storyboarding elements and then grow it and develop something that is truly within our unique voice, but. Is directly tied to the issues and topics that our customers care about. Uh, win percentage last year, plus that we've gone and done this hinges when percentage increased 15, 20%. Um, so that's an actual statistic. Uh, and I, I think a major part of that is that process that I was just describing.

Austin McNair:

This is not going to be the last time that we talk about, uh, a I clearly, you know, for, for, for us marketers, it's imperative that we stay as pioneers in the space, keep testing out new tools, keep. working with our colleagues and helping them to kind of understand the limitations, but also the efficiencies of it. So, so much to cover here in the near future. Um, but we've got a great segment planned. Uh, let's jump into that now, uh, after we have a quick word about this research, we keep talking about the high growth study, let's learn more about that. All right. So, Joe and B, I've got a question for you. Would you, what, what if I could tell you that today you could get it just, Direct insights on what the fastest growing professional services firms are doing in their marketing program Would that be of interest to you? Would you want to see that kind of data?

Mary Blanche:

I would say I, I love this for me. Yeah.

Joe Pope:

yeah, I, I, it's the kind of thing that I would literally take my glasses off and stare longingly at the camera over.

Austin McNair:

Well, good, because I have great news. The 2025 high growth study is here, uh, and anybody listening to this podcast can get free guys, free access to the executive summary that includes all the professional services firms that we, uh, that 700. It's a decent sample size to understand what is the fastest growing professional services firms doing. That research is available right now. If you go to hinge marketing. com slash high growth, you will always and forever go to that link and get the most up to date research on the fastest growing professional services firms. So go do that now.

Joe Pope:

Do it.

Austin McNair:

All right. So as football fans, I know that the three of us always look forward to the NFL draft. And since the draft is coming up, we thought we would make this the inspiration for today's segment for today's episode. So let me say, MB Joe, Welcome to the 2025 Spiraling Up Marketing Draft. Here we are.

Joe Pope:

woof.

Mary Blanche:

to be here, Austin. We're ready.

Austin McNair:

All right, so how this will work. In this episode, we're channeling our inner Adam Peters. Yeah, that's the Washington Commanders GM. Brad Holmes. There's your Lions GM MB.

Mary Blanche:

Thank you.

Austin McNair:

Howie Roseman. Boo, Eagles. How about Brett Veach? Okay. This is getting a little bit too nerdy, but you get the point. In this segment, we're going to strategically select marketing techniques, uh, that will build a championship caliber marketing strategy. So forget quarterbacks and wide receivers in our marketing draft. We're going to be selecting marketing techniques that were included in this year's high growth study. So, uh, MB, Joe and I, we're going to take terms drafting marketing techniques onto our teams and building a roster of strategies to conquer any challenge. But it's not just about picking the best team. We'll have to justify our picks and explain how each technique fits into our game plan. So, you guys ready to kick off the first ever spiraling up draft?

Mary Blanche:

Let's do

Joe Pope:

Oh, man, I'm ready. This is, uh, it's a long time coming, Austin, especially after we discontinued the Hinge Fantasy Football League. Hashtag

Austin McNair:

Yes. A decision that I know you guys, especially Mary Blanche, is very upset about since she would occasionally dominate that league for, for many years.

Mary Blanche:

And by occasionally, we mean every single time.

Austin McNair:

Uh,

Mary Blanche:

At least beat Joe. At least beat Joe, anyway.

Austin McNair:

You, yeah, you, you at least

Mary Blanche:

that alone, I take that as a win.

Joe Pope:

beat Joe is the bumper sticker.

Austin McNair:

All right, guys, here is our draft board as you,

Joe Pope:

you put this together?

Austin McNair:

I did. I had some help. I had, you know, Hinch has a great design team. We, we, we collaborated a little bit, got to get the T the old dust off the old tear maker. Yeah. Shout out to maker. Um, this is great,

Mary Blanche:

on brand. I love it.

Joe Pope:

I thought MB was going to have to like hand write all this down to keep us honest.

Austin McNair:

Great. Well, look, in a randomly selected draft order, uh, M. B. You get the first pick of today's marketing draft. So the first overall pick, always lots of pressure. Who are you going to, what are you going to choose?

Mary Blanche:

Okay. Let me see. All right. From my first round pick, I am going to go with networking at targeted events and conferences.

Austin McNair:

All right, networking and targeted conferences is off the board. MB, why did, uh, why is that the first selection? That's a big one.

Mary Blanche:

Yeah. I mean, for me, you know, there's just, there's a huge opportunity for professional services firms here to gain new businesses. New business in this way. targeted approach is definitely key here. So we're not talking like, general networking, happy hour on a Tuesday night. Right. But when you're bringing intentionality to how you're selecting these conferences, how you're selecting these you can just really bring your, your company presence there increase your brand value, your visibility, and that's, that's the competitive edge.

Austin McNair:

I think it's a great pick. Uh, you know, if we go to the high growth study data, uh, what we see in terms of. Level of impact, right? So what are the marketing techniques that are most impactful? Uh, networking and targeting conferences was listed as the fourth most impactful technique. So you're right there at the top of the list. And I think you made a good case. Joe, what do you, what do you, what do you think about the pick?

Joe Pope:

I'm bummed. It was absolutely what I was looking for. I mean, might've been, uh, might've been lucky to see it fall to, I'm guessing you're meeting me three in this rain and mortar. Am I right?

Austin McNair:

Uh, yeah, actually, yes, you're all right.

Joe Pope:

I can see it. I can see it already on the screen.

Mary Blanche:

And also it's a random order.

Joe Pope:

I guess, uh, I guess I was never going to get, I was never going to get to what is absolutely become a, especially coming out of the COVID era, right? Something that it is as important at part of any high growth strategy. Uh, and absolutely the targeting piece and be great. I completely agree with you. There's got to be an element of focus around this, uh, in order for this to make any amount of sense. Cause you can blow a boatload of money on conferences, trade shows, and events if you're Not being sensible or thoughtful towards how it's being done.

Austin McNair:

good points. All right. So the, the, the timer on the, on the draft has continued to tick and it's been my pick. Uh, so with the second overall pick in this 2025 marketing draft, I'm going to select conducting and publishing primary research. So here's my case for this. I'm not really using the data here, although I like to, you know, kind of use the data here with a lot of these. Uh, I'm thinking of this more of like a big picture, like in a marketing program, right? Like what is the foundation of my, uh, content marketing program going to be? Uh, for me, uh, I think especially as we've talked about with like AI and all the, how easy it is now to create content. I want to be creating content that is unique to my business. I want to be creating content that nobody can steal or imitate or if they, you know, if they do, they have to reference me and they have to reference my company. So I think to stand out and to kind of, uh, still lean into the content marketing. Um, strategy. I'm going to go with conducting and publishing primary research. What do you guys think of my pick?

Joe Pope:

Well, it's a true Homer pick for sure, but there's a reason I honestly speaking. And if, if you aren't tying your efforts directly to the issues that your customers care most about, then you're lost. So the fact that you can then turn that around and leverage it as content itself and as marketing technique is a double whammy of efficiency. So another good pick, another one that I was hoping would fall, but. I guess I'll figure something out based on the remaining choices.

Mary Blanche:

Yeah. Austin, I, uh, Keeping my, I have my notes over here, right? My, my potential picks and I'm having to cross that one off the list now. But yeah, good pick. Don't blame me. That one was right up there for me too. Well,

Austin McNair:

All right, Joe. It's on to you now.

Joe Pope:

Well, thanks for giving me this opportunity, Austin. Third doesn't necessarily mean that I'm out of the running. I feel like I can still create a nice solid team and I'm going to build it off of an old faithful. I've got an idea here too, to make sure that. Pushes this through, but for my first round pick and the third overall pick, I will be selecting keyword research and search engine optimization,

Austin McNair:

All

Joe Pope:

which should spark some interest. Based on the fact that I'm pretty sure every single flamboyant, uh, prognosticator in the marketing space has posted some form or another of the blog. SEO is dead. Some sort of title around the idea that SEO is dead. It's over AI. The overlords are taking, I'm sounding like Carl Feldman hinge partner at this point, but the fact of the matter is the best practices. That have driven SEO for at least the last five to six years still ring true in all things, AI, in all things, generative search, if it's original, if it's thoughtful, if it's not generated by AI entirely, at least, um, You are going to be creating something that's going to resonate, not just on the SEO side, but in a lot of these other new techniques of which are embracing AI tools to figure elements out. And another big piece here is the fact that you see the word research. In this piece as well, that keyword research is imperative. And if your keyword research is just pulled from a tool like a SEM rush or a Moz things along those lines, great. It's better than just pulling it out of thin air. But in reality, what you should be doing is leveraging the types of research that you referenced earlier. In how you build out in a strategy. So you were chasing the issues, the topics, the challenges, the pieces that really do resonate with the types of customers you care about. So by combining keyword research into SEO, by activating it in the manner of which you should do it, the ways that we were just talking through, or that I was just talking through, I think you're going to get more bang for your buck. So SEO is not dead. And it is my first pick.

Mary Blanche:

when you look at all the other tactics we have on the board to select from right now, I mean, it's a huge part of, of a lot of these, whether you're writing content, you know, you've got to have that keyword research SEO, if it's paid ads, that's a component of it. If you're building a new website, you know, it's, it's important that you, that you have the keyword SEO strategy there as well. So, I mean, it really, while it's its own entity and tactic on this board, it, it really flows into so many. Of these

Austin McNair:

Yeah, I have a little bit of data to add for perspective here. So, I mean, one thing that, uh, when I, those articles you mentioned, Joe, about the people that write about SEO is dead. Look, I wrote one similar. I think I called it panic. Panic at the SEO disco. So I didn't say that it was dead. I said that, you know, there's a lot for us to think about. Um,

Joe Pope:

you, millennial, you

Austin McNair:

Yeah. So, um, but when people say stuff like that, right, my, my instinct is to say, well, okay, so then what did we just ignoring search engines were just ignore. I mean, so with our, with our hinge clients, we regularly, uh, interview and survey and research their buyers. Yeah. Search engines is still right at the top of the list right now next to referral, uh, getting referrals in terms of how people are finding you. So if you're ignoring search engines, uh, I'd say that's probably a bad strategy. And I mean, the preferred method would be to continue to pay attention to it and continue to evolve your strategy. So I think it's a great pick there, Joe. All right. Uh, Joe, Joe, I know you're gonna be upset about this. We're not doing a snake draft. This is not fantasy football. This is NFL. This is NFL style. no, no holds bar. We're going to go back to the top of the order. MB, why don't you give us your, your second pick here?

Joe Pope:

I'm under protest already.

Mary Blanche:

I was like, wow. All right. Let's see. All right for my number two. I am going to go with a downloadable gated content Um to me that one's a no brainer. I mean gated content is just such a powerful way To capture those high quality leads and establish your company as a trusted industry expert and it also builds such Such credibility.

Austin McNair:

I think it's a good pick. I mean, you, you think about like, you know, combined with your networking at targeted events and stuff. I think a lot of times when we're talking to our clients. I'm always asking them, like, okay, so when you go to these events, like, what's the takeaway? What kind of call to action do you have to offer? So, I like the little one two combination you picked there, um, because I think when you have, um, gated content on your website, um, readily available, when you do those networking events, when you're kind of socializing or networking on social media, Uh, and people do check you out. There's a way for them to get into your, uh, your, your kind of broader email marketing system and nurture marketing system. So I think that's a smart pick in my books. Joe, what do you think? All

Joe Pope:

your description in, in the use of the word, a trusted expert or. I think every accounting firm's favorite phrase, trusted advisor, you know, just saying you are a trusted advisor does not make you in a trusted advisor, right? Like, that's something that's expected. If you're going to pay somebody a decent amount of money to work with them. Yeah, you better be somebody I'm going to trust on how, uh, you're advising me on an ongoing basis, but a good way that you can develop that trust at an Earlier stage prior to where they're paying you money is by putting your expertise out there for them to learn and understand from. And at that stage of the funnel where, you know, you're exchanging that insight that hot topic for something as simple as a name and an email at a minimum. But certainly you can get more. Expansive, especially using tools like we've been talking about on the AI side, where you're progressively profiling, collecting information from your prospects. It's a very good pick. MB.

Mary Blanche:

thank you very much. And I mean, not to go down a total rabbit hole here on this, but kind of some of what you were saying about that information collection piece, the data for the sales teams, right. So, you know, it allows you to be able to, I prioritize the leads who are actively engaging with your content or even use it to, you know, tailor your outreach to create, you know, a more meaningful connection with the prospect.

Joe Pope:

Preach. Absolutely. It's so important.

Austin McNair:

me. Uh, so for the fifth pick in the 2025 spiraling up marketing draft. Wow. What a, what a mouthful. Uh, I am going to select speaking at targeted conferences and events. So look, I'm glad that this one fell to me. I'm surprised that this fell to me at the, the, the fifth pick. Um, and I'll, and I'll tell you why. So when we go into the data, um, something that we have consistently seen in our high growth study, but also our research on visible experts, um, is that speaking at targeted conference is conferences and events is regularly considered to be one of the most impactful marketing techniques in professional services. So at Hinge, we do make a distinction, you know, Mary Blanche did pick the networking at, um, at the events. We do distinguish between networking and speaking because we do see that there is a big discrepancy between the amount of companies that, um, participate in events, that sponsor events, that network at events, and the ones that are also adding in that speaking layer. That definitely adds kind of a different level of, um, you know, uh, investment, but also, um, to your, to the strategy at play. So, uh, for me, the way I'm looking at this here is I'm going for a strong authority play here with my team. I'm trying to, I'm conducting and publishing the research and now I'm going to target events and I'm speaking about it. Um, uh, the other thing that we talk about, especially with the visible experts is that When you can, when you can be seen speaking, and this isn't just applied for events, although events is kind of what I'm talking about, but any kind of speaking, podcasts, webinars, you do have an opportunity to establish yourself as an authority, um, on the topic that you're, you're discussing. So, um, for me, I'm really happy this fell for me. Uh, Joe, you sounded disappointed. What do you, what are your thoughts?

Joe Pope:

It was absolutely what I was hoping that would fall to me too. And look, I mean, I think. This is a step up from MBA's number one overall pick and if you don't have, we'll say if we're really looking at this from a team building perspective, if you don't have something reasonable to talk about, you're not going to get the opportunity to speak anyways, you can usually they'll find your way into networking at a conference or trade show or an event, right? Like the bar to clear there is usually a money, right? And it depends on how much you want to spend, but. Yeah. Okay. When you're taking that next step up in how you're creating visibility, uh, as for the individuals that are speaking their personal visibility, shout out, visible expert, uh, but also the visibility that generates for organizations that you're, that, that they're representing. It is a, there's a reason why it is as high on the research as it is as an important piece. And, and if you can pull it off, it absolutely needs to be included in your strategy.

Mary Blanche:

Yeah, 100%. I like the way you tied your first pick to your, to your second. Like, I see where you're, I see where you're going with it.

Austin McNair:

Thank you. All right, Joe, it's back down to you for the sixth pick.

Joe Pope:

Oh boy. All right. Um. I'm going to bounce around this. I mean, yours is kind of very much a funnel perspective, Austin, and how you describe that. Uh, mine is, uh, going to be a jump because I think it's much lower than on the funnel where keyword research and search engine optimization is. But I'm going to, as somebody who does quite a bit of this in my day to day role, I'm going to select with my second pick and the sixth overall pick, which is again, still BS because this should be a snake draft and I should have had the fourth pick. Uh, my pick will be. Digital product services and demonstrations, which I also correct me if I'm wrong, Austin, I think impact wise, it's near the top on the research.

Austin McNair:

It is listed as the most impactful marketing technique in professional services. Right side by side with assessments and consultations.

Joe Pope:

And the fact that most organizations in some form or fashion. Have that as a part of their sales process. Uh, the fact of the matter is in professional services, this is not an impulse buy people are not buying your service. Like they buy Coke or Pepsi, or I think I was talking in a recent podcast about Baja blast Mountain Dew, which is. Absolutely. The number one soda. I'll continue to hammer on that point. But the, the big piece here is if you have the opportunity to get an expert, not that I'm claiming to be one, but somebody who does this for a living and talks about it and can connect in. The service, the offering, the product, the element of which you're trying to make a sale on to issues, topics, challenges, elements of which these buyers care about. And we already referenced it. If you have some insight on them from their journey and what led them to you in the 1st place, even better. Right? You can plug that in and start making those connection points. It is an imperative piece in your process to making sure that you have that stage before you send a proposal where you are warming this person up to the idea that they're about to make a investment. In theory, they're about to make it, but in reality, a lot of times it takes more time, uh, but you are making these folks comfortable in their selection, uh, that you're bringing to the table. So digital products, services, and demonstrations combined with keyword research, search engine optimization, and the reasons behind it. I'm feeling good. With my two picks, even though you all stuck me in the bottom of this draft order,

Mary Blanche:

Good for you.

Austin McNair:

No, I, I think it's a good pick. I mean, we talk to our clients all the time about having, um, a clear call to action. Right? Like what, with all your marketing materials, with all of your marketing strategies, like ideally what would be the like next ideal step to get people into the business development process, right? And so I, I think that you've, you've, you've picked a great one there with, uh, um, you know, this choice in terms of having a clear call to action strategy. I think it's, it's, it's a non negotiable and it's essential component of, uh, good professional services marketing. Any thoughts from you, MB?

Mary Blanche:

Not that you guys haven't already covered. Um, honestly, this one was less on my radar. I think just because of the way it's described, but, um, after hearing Joe talk about the way you did, I'm kind of jealous. That's not.

Austin McNair:

Alright, well don't let that jealousy creep on you too long, because now it is back to your pick here. This is the halfway point, so we've got two more rounds left, so, it's uh, this is, this is where championships are made, as you know from your multiple fantasy football championships MB.

Mary Blanche:

Yes, I. Feels good to be a winner. So with that said, I'm going to go with, uh, social media advertising for my third pick. And with this one, I just think that there's a lot of misconception out there that, advertising on social media is, you know, much more of a B2C. Tool, um, but, you know, social media advertising for professional services, it can really help you reach a highly target targeted audiences. it's a much more cost effective way to nurture relationships throughout the buyer journey

Joe Pope:

I have no arguments there. And I think it goes really well with your second pick, if I'm being honest, because having content is King in social media advertising for professional services. Think about how we use these platforms. I mean, certainly there's the LinkedIn zealots who are. On that platform, religiously, I think we're going to talk to quite a few of them in the podcast, mostly in an effort to promote the idea of the benefits you can get from being on the platform. But for the rest of us, we scroll through these platforms as a way to disconnect. A lot of times, a lot of times it's to just have, I'm interested in learning something or seeing what's going on, or, you know, who's moved to a new role or if it's, you know, Facebook, it's who's had a baby, right? Uh, so. When this type of message comes across though, where you're in a sense, pulling, you're pulling the mind towards where you can like make a connection on the marketing side, having content is going to be the best angle or play because it's the type of thing that doesn't make them feel like they're immediately going to get hit by a salesperson. Right. And, uh, while there are certainly organizations that still do that, even though the offer was really just for a piece of content, you are, you are providing something to a hyper targeted audience that if researched correctly, if, um, titled correctly, I mean, the, the creative you use in these advertisements is important to that your ability to get somebody at, uh, you know, That you may not have gotten otherwise is increased and that's the game in marketing, right? We're, we're trying to best utilize the various channels we have in the most efficient manner possible.

Austin McNair:

No, I mean, I think this is a great pick, I mean, for a lot of our clients, this is like a key. Strategy, right? And Joe, I think you and NB have both already covered how linking that to the content, uh, the downloadable content piece is like, that is another one of those things where it's like a nice combination, because if you're going to invest in, say, like LinkedIn advertising, which is where generally in our hinge engagements, um, we do recommend a lot of our clients look first in terms of social media advertising and spend. Um, you're going to want to have that like content to, to, to get people into that, uh, to generate those leads or generate those, um, opportunities. So, um, I think it's a, another great pick. All right. So it's back to me now, uh, for my third pick and man, I, I am going back and forth. I'm looking across this list and I'm just like, ah, I could go here. I could go there. But I think this is just bias because it's something that I do quite a lot And and I and I help train our our clients on this quite a bit, too is presenting in webinars it's going back and forth on a few other things and possibilities, but similar to what I mentioned before about you know that speaking at targeted conferences and events Um, webinars, um, and this is actually to my surprise, you know, when I look at the high growth study data, webinars continue to be a higher performing, uh, marketing technique for professional services firms across different industries. Um, you know, there are industry variations to this, but we'll say like for consulting companies, uh, as an example, this is right there at the top of the list in terms of how people are, um, hosting online digital conversations. It's a great way to get, you know, live feedback from your audience, Q and a, um, it's a way to get, uh, um, you know, do some polls. I mean, there's, there's a lot of features that have been added to it, to the webinar environment over the years that I think worked really well for thought leadership expertise and professional services marketing in general. So I doubt that, uh, that's a surprise to you guys that I would, uh. Pick webinars since I've probably done. I don't know over a hundred and fifty winch webinars so far So but that's my pick Hmm

Joe Pope:

you know, if MB let you, if it, if it slipped past MB, I'd, I'd, you know, I'd be happy for you to take it. And it is such a great way, especially for folks that haven't quite gotten to the live speaking to get themselves the reps it takes to improve. And uh, your, your journey, I think is a perfect example, Austin from. You know, when you walked in day 1, where you would kind of just turn the webinar on and push questions around to the host to the point. Now, where you are pretty much the host of every single hinge webinar is a perfect example, though, of where you can kind of grow an individual's visibility in addition to the tactic. Right? And it's a great tactic because like gated content, you are usually almost always collecting information from your buyers in exchange for them to have access. And that information is just so important as a part of the larger picture in how you, we can market to them, how we can nurture them, uh, how your sales folks can have insights on them. We, um, we had a really interesting. Stat that came across, uh, in our early days where we had made the shift to a more enterprise, uh, Salesforce platform. And we're, we're talking seven or eight years ago, but one of the first things that stood out to us was that over 50 percent of our new clients that we brought in, in a given year had gone to at least two hinge webinars. I had registered, attended, downloaded things along those lines. So a massive chunk. Now admittedly, there's some other tactics that have risen in popularity and maybe have eroded at some of what you're, what you're kind of shouting out here with webinars. One of which, which is going to be my next pick, uh, has, has in a way taken some bite out of that. But in, in general, it is still a very solid way to market yourself to a target audience.

Austin McNair:

all right. Well you teed it up with Joe. Tell us what's that next pick of yours?

Joe Pope:

Yeah, I can't believe it made it this far, but you know, it's, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's an important one, guys. It's one that, uh, I'm, I'm really happy. I'm really happy to see it. Really happy to see it come down to me and, uh, be available. But the idea of interviewing on a podcast or radio is a extremely valuable way to develop expertise, whether that's being done on your own podcast. Or being done as a part of an outreach strategy to improve your visibility, uh, your organization's visibility, your visible expert nature. It's, um, you know, you're getting the opportunity to leverage a, uh, a network, right? One of the biggest strategies that we're seeing podcasts take on is of course, they're just interviewing their target audiences, their clients. Uh, it is a natural way to just make connections. In a salesy way, that doesn't feel like a sale. People like to talk, especially buyers and decision makers. They love to talk. Maybe not necessarily about the right things, but they like to talk. So we're giving them a platform to do that. Whether you're hosting it or in reverse, right? Where you're having as a part of your outreach strategy, you know, we're reaching out and leveraging others. Potentially, who may give you access to an audience that you wouldn't otherwise naturally get through or that you could necessarily carry that digital product service demonstration. So I needed to start to build in my middle lower funnel tactics. And this is. This is one for me.

Austin McNair:

Yeah, I mean, clearly MB and I both like the pick. We're, here we are on a podcast right now. Um, MB, what do you, any, any thoughts on Joe's picks there on, uh, adding podcasts into his mix?

Mary Blanche:

I mean, I think for the reasons you just described, it's it's a good 1, you know, some of our other partners at hinge, you know, they're very active on being guests on other podcasts. So, even prior to us starting our own podcast, that's something that's very been very much been a part of something we do. Here at hinge, it's just a great way to showcase your visible expertise, but your personal expertise and the expertise of your organization.

Austin McNair:

All right. Well, look, we are here. This is the last round of the first ever draft. MB, why don't you tell us, you know, there's still a lot of decent options here on the board. What, what's going to be your, the final pick for, for your team here?

Mary Blanche:

I'm kind of struggling here in between a couple, but I think, um, I think I'm going to go with PR, uh, you know, call me bias. PR was my, uh, was my major and in college, but, uh, you know, public relations just plays such a crucial role in shaping organizational perception and the overall credibility of professional services firms. So, you know, whether it's, it's paid media or it's earned media together they really form that integrated communication strategy that, that leads to that substantial business growth.

Austin McNair:

Yeah, this is, this is one and in our high growth study, we have a whole glossary here that kind of unpacks like what we include as like under these categories. Same with the survey experience, right? So the people that selected this in our research kind of know what they were choosing. Um, PR is very inclusive, you know, under our definition where we're talking about everything from, um, securing speaking engagements out there, you know, whether that be, um, similar to the one, um, that I picked. on my list there, or like guest blogging, writing, um, or just, you know, getting, you know, just pitching topics to, um, get picked up on, more traditional news outlets as well. Really this kind of covers like a, an expansive part of professional services marketing and one that, you know, through the years we've, we've helped a lot of clients I know, um, really level, level up their, the visibility of the, their experts. By getting them out there kind of more, you know, often in terms of like speaking on topics, contributing to articles, um, getting on new podcasts. So, I think PR and kind of everything under your, that, that falls under that umbrella, MBA, it's a good, it's a good pick. Joe, any, any thoughts there on, uh, the PR pick?

Joe Pope:

there's a reason that, um, PR has been, uh, a thing for as long as it has been, uh, and, you know, attracted me to make it her major. Uh, so it's, it's still super, super important. I mean, we, we like to try to sometimes talk about the differences between digital and traditional and so forth, but as a tactic, the idea of going out in earning media, it. It should be a significant consideration for any professional services firm.

Austin McNair:

Alright, well, uh, It's on to me here for my final pick and, um, you know, I thought, yeah, I was, I, when I picked webinars that I, I kind of paused for a minute because I was like, ah, if I, if I pick webinars too early, I'm going to miss out on this other one because they really work well together and that's kind of a combination I wanted to talk about. And that is the combination between webinars and email marketing. So, um, you know, in my experience, like I mentioned, I've probably hosted over 150 webinars at this point. And I've helped advise a lot of our clients on producing webinars and promoting webinars. I can tell you that your email marketing system and the list of prospects that you develop on that email marketing chain Um, that's really going to help make web, the webinar experience a lot better. Um, if you want to promote kind of a live environment with like people that know you and that are, you know, already pretty interested in who you are and what you have to say, email marketing is kind of right there. And I think it kind of goes for all of thought leadership content as, you know, email marketing, if you're doing it the right way, which is, you know, not to spam people's inbox all the time with sales offers. Um, it is to literally just provide helpful content and be an authoritative, uh, voice that is, you know, becomes known for being helpful and being, um, you know, educational in nature. Um, I think it is a, is a, it's an essential component of a professional services marketing, um, program. So for that reason, I'll put it on and I'm happy to kind of complete my team there. I think that's looking good. What do you guys think on, on the email marketing side?

Joe Pope:

surprised it took you that long to pick it that and webinars were the two that I think when we saw this list that stood out to me for you personally, Austin, knowing how involved you are in that for both hinge and our clients, uh, it's, yeah, I mean, email is still such an important way to get in touch with your prospects, your clients. And while there's certainly a game, um, To be played there and the amount of filtering and elements like, uh, you know, the Google and Microsoft have brought to the table in terms of, um, and spam catching and so forth. You have to be smart in how you utilize these tools. So, uh, I think. For those that are still staying on top of best practices, email marketing is essential.

Mary Blanche:

Yeah. Awesome. That's a good pick, email marketing and, uh, presenting webinars. I, I did think those would be your, your one and two picks, but, um, I like the kind of the way that you, the way that you went about it and recognizing that you have the, primary. Research piece too. And how you take that, the webinars and leverage them both through, your email marketing campaign. It got a pretty solid team there.

Austin McNair:

All right. So that's, that's, that's it. We're here at the last, uh, end of the draft here, Joe, you've get the final pick, anything on the board, it's yours. Um, what are you going to choose to complete your team?

Joe Pope:

Well, the, the NFL calls this, I believe, Mr. Irrelevant, right? Uh, I don't think of a lot of the things you're seeing on the board here. None of these are irrelevant. So, uh, I won't, I won't, I won't throw that title at this, but, uh, I think my final pick is going to be one that might. Surprise in the sense that when we did our research, it was not one that was identified or even just referenced by a majority of clients, right? Repressor respondents, right? Uh, people that were going through and entering this, but we're talking about impact and we were trying to select tactics that can carry a significant amount of impact. So video blogging. Was selected, I think, by 80 or 90 out of 600, 700 respondents who answered this question, but it still, I think, was in the top 10 of impact, or it might even been 8 or 9, or something like that in terms of those that are doing it are seeing impact and just. Recognizing how content is being distributed these days and what we are, again, embracing as a part of our, you know, our day to day, right? Best marketing happens all the time, not necessarily just when somebody is plugged in nine to five. Uh, blame TikTok, right? I mean, the idea here, I guess Vine, you know, shout out Vine. They had, they had it first, right? But the idea of taking expertise and creating content in a video format. Something of which we're doing with this very podcast and putting it out into social media on websites in a variety of ways to potentially publish ourselves as experts who may be, uh, try, uh, brought in to speak on a topic, things along those lines. It's also the type of content that you can take the transcripts, run them through AI and create content, written content. Actual writing blogs and so forth. So when combining that in with the fact I've done some keyword research and I'm still focusing on search engine optimization, I I've got this awesome product of which I can then sell after I've, uh, you know, brought people in via my interviews or my podcasting or my video content creation, I think I've created a nice little cycle here that makes my team a solid one.

Austin McNair:

I think video blogging is, um, I think that the, Uh, in our episode with, with Dane Fredrickson, um, we talked to him a lot about the challenges and barriers, um, that mark, uh, you know, professional services firms have in general that keeps them from starting to do more video production and invest in it. And there are many, um, but there are those that are kind of overcoming that hurdle. And as you mentioned, the data seems to suggest that, um, those firms that are making it as part of their plan do rate it very favorably. Um, in terms of getting in front of their audience, building visibility and credibility with their, with their, uh, buyers and be any, any final thoughts there on that one.

Mary Blanche:

Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's a good pick. I think we're seeing more and more of it. And the hardest part with this is really just the video blogging piece specifically is just, just getting started. Um, so I think, once you're over that hurdle, you're working with a, you know, a marketing team or, you know, and a video expert, like, like. Dane is a great example. taking that step is, is the hardest part

Austin McNair:

All right. Well, this concludes the first ever, maybe last we'll see, maybe it would be fun to do this again next year, but maybe we'll mix into some, some new voices, um, mark marketing draft. I mean, this is fun. I think everybody gets the kind of spirit of this. Um, you know, it's not that the techniques down there at the bottom are not unimportant. In fact, I think we left off Quite a few that I would say like deserve to be in the kind of the top 12 or whatever we picked today But no this really was you know mostly just a fun way for the three of us to have a conversation about What we're seeing kind of out there in the professional services marketplace a little bit about you know what the data is telling us And really just having fun about how these things interplay. At the end of the day, I think we all would say and kind of the work that we do with our clients is that, um, whatever marketing program you do build, those pieces got to connect, right? And you want to build a strategy that's well balanced. You know, you're thinking about visibility, but you're also thinking about. Right. You're thinking about your website, but you're also thinking about things that are in the offline space as well. So there's a lot of things that we think about as marketers, but this is a really fun exercise. I, you know, Joe and B, did you guys have a good time?

Mary Blanche:

always. Yeah, this is fun. We should definitely do it again. I like the idea of the, the annual marketing draft.

Joe Pope:

we might have to, we might have to have some sort of contest for a listener to be able to join us and participate. Uh, you know, they, there could be a, there could be some sort of gamification here, maybe, uh, filling in a positive five star reviews. You can make yourself eligible. Oh, wait, we're not allowed to say that, right? You're supposed to, or reviews should be natural, right? Five star reviews should be natural.

Austin McNair:

well, what I'll say, Joe is, you know, I, I think that, uh, any feedback people give us about the podcast is welcoming, great. We want to thank you guys for listening. If you are watching on YouTube, leave us a comment. What, you know, what boneheaded pick did we make that you were like, how did you, how did you leave case stories off or whatever you're passionate about? I mean, honestly, we love hearing from people and understanding, like, what's working in their space, what's working for their company. So send us your feedback. Find us on email. Find us on LinkedIn. Um, we are easy people to find. I will say that, which is, uh, which is good. So. I want to thank everybody for another great episode of the Spiraling Up podcast. And, uh, we'll be back here in a couple of weeks. Thanks again, Joe. Thanks again, MB. We'll see you on the next one.

Joe Pope:

See you soon.