Industries
Advertising for trade businesses
Most trade firms have too much work and too few staff. That inverts the entire advertising brief, and almost nobody adjusts for it.
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Industries
Advertising for management consultants
Nobody buys consulting from an advertisement. They buy it from someone whose thinking they have read for a year.
Key points
- The product is judgement, and judgement can only be demonstrated in public.
- One narrow problem, deeply owned, beats a broad capability list.
- Speaking and writing generate more work than any paid channel.
Consulting is bought on trust in someone's thinking. That cannot be asserted in an advertisement; it has to be shown.
Own one problem
The most common positioning error is a capability list: strategy, organisation, process, digital, change. It describes what you can do and gives no reason to call you specifically.
A consultant known for one problem, such as pricing in industrial distribution or succession in family businesses, is called about that problem from a national market.
The narrower the problem you own, the wider the geography from which people will call you about it.
Demonstrate judgement in public
| Format | Effort | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Long-form written analysis | high | very high |
| Conference speaking | high | very high |
| Sector newsletter | medium, recurring | high |
| Podcast appearances | low | medium to high |
| Original research or survey | very high | very high |
| Social commentary | low, continuous | medium |
Original research is the strongest and rarest. A survey of 200 firms in a sector, published with the data, generates press coverage, speaking invitations and inbound enquiries for years.
The productised entry point
Strategic engagements are large and slow to sell. A smaller defined product, sold at a fixed price, converts interest into a working relationship.
Examples: a two-day diagnostic with a written report, a pricing audit, a one-day workshop with a defined output. Each is easy to say yes to and demonstrates the quality of the larger work.
The pipeline is relationships, tracked
Consulting work arrives from people who know you, often two years after the last contact. That makes systematic relationship maintenance the actual business development activity.
Practical: a list of everyone who has ever bought, referred or nearly bought; a reason to contact each of them twice a year that is not a sales approach; and a record of what they are currently dealing with.
What to avoid
Generic capability websites with abstract imagery. Methodology diagrams with four quadrants. Claims of transformation without a named client and a number. Case studies without figures, which read as fiction.
The client reference problem
Consulting clients frequently cannot be named. That is a real constraint and it is solvable: describe the situation, the intervention and the result with figures, and identify the client by sector and size rather than name.
An anonymous case study with real numbers is more credible than a named one with none.
Frequently asked questions
How long before content produces enquiries?
Twelve to twenty-four months of consistent publishing. It is a slow channel with a long tail.
Does paid advertising work at all?
For defined, productised services yes. For strategic consulting rarely, because the purchase is relationship-driven.
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