Want to get your consulting business more exposure, generate more leads, and convert prospective clients? Of course, you do.
You need to learn how to promote your consulting services the right way.
There are so many people out there who need your service and are looking for what you have to offer. You just need to position yourself in their line of sight.
Create an effective marketing plan that puts your brand at the forefront of your target audience.
If you really want to stand apart from the competition, you’ll need to go beyond just the basics.
You need to be a pro at getting paid traffic for your business and building an organic audience. Also, you need to build relationships and be good at networking in your industry.
In this article, you’ll learn how to promote consulting services through ads and other low-cost and even free marketing strategies.
How To Promote Consulting Services Via Paid Advertising
Learning how to advertise consulting services would be the best step you could take in promoting your business. While having an organic online presence is recommended (for obvious reasons), advertising gets you the quickest results.
Here are a few ways you can advertise your consulting services:
Google Ads
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can be an excellent way for businesses in the consulting space to reach their desired target audience and increase their visibility.
To advertise your consulting services with Google ads, understand your options and create a plan based on your desired goals and budget. Here’s how to effectively leverage PPC advertising as a consultant, even if you’ve never used any form of digital advertising before:
Understanding Google Ads
Google Ads has precise targeting capabilities, efficient pricing, and the ability to quickly list your business on the search engine results page (SERP).
You need to be aware of two main types of ads to advertise consulting services on Google: search ads and display ads.
Search ads appear on the SERP when someone searches for specific keywords you’ve chosen, while display ads appear as banners on other websites.
While both types of ads have pros and cons, search ads tend to be more effective and expensive than display ads, so they should be a part of your marketing mix.
An example of search ads:
Select Keywords Wisely
The key to successful PPC advertising is selecting the right keywords that will accurately reflect what people searching for services might type into the search bar.
When advertising consultancy services and specifically choosing keywords, don’t go too broad or select too competitive terms, as these may drive up prices without yielding results.
Instead, use targeted terms that will grab people’s attention when they see your ad but don’t cost too much per click (CPC).
The average CPC for business-to-business ads is $3.33. But you can find some lower CPC keywords with some keyword research.
To find some great keywords, use Google’s keyword planner or SEMrush.
Here are some keyword gems with a lower CPC than the industry average:
Using The Right Tools
Unless you are experienced with PPC advertising already, your best bet is to use a Google Ads tool like Spyfu to manage your budget and assorted keywords more efficiently.
When advertising consultant services, most of your money on Google ads will be spent optimizing your campaign to balance CPC and high return on investment (ROI) via trial and error.
But your competitor has already done that for you, so why not steal their keyword research? With Spyfu, you’re able to do just that.
You’ll be able to easily access insights into your competitor’s search marketing strategies—discover which keywords they’ve bought on Google ads and learn their organic rankings. You’ll also find all their ad variations in the last 16 years.
But even using a tool like Spyfu, don’t waste money by diving headfirst into investing large sums of cash before testing different options.
Instead, start small by allocating only a few hundred dollars to test different approaches.
Once you’ve executed your campaigns, keep track of the results.
That way, you would know which approach works best so that you can continue refining your strategy going forward and advertise consulting services effectively!
Facebook & Instagram Ads
Google search ads target potential customers based on their own searches.
When advertising consultant services, the more specific you can be with targeting, the better the results will be.
Say you are advertising a marketing consulting business. With Facebook and Instagram ads, you can target business owners interested in conversion optimization, public relations, and email marketing.
Through lead ads on Facebook or Instagram, interested prospects can be directed to a landing page that can collect their information for building up your email lists.
Like Google ads, you also have control over your budget. You may pay per click, cost per action (CPA), or for every 1,000 views of an ad.
- $1.72 per click on Facebook
- $5 for 1,000 views on Instagram
- $10 for 1,000 views on Facebook
- $18.68 per action on Facebook
LinkedIn Ads
If you aren’t running ads on LinkedIn for your consulting business, consider doing so.
With 875 million members, 80% of whom impact business decisions, LinkedIn is a goldmine for B2B marketers. Your brand’s voice gets heard by influential decision-makers by leveraging LinkedIn ads.
These movers and shakers have twice the buying power of the usual online audience.
Compared to other social media platforms, this makes it much easier to get seen by the right audience and convert leads into customers.
96% of B2B marketers are taking advantage of this opportunity—and with good reason, they are six times more likely to convert compared to other networks.
When you advertise your consulting services on LinkedIn, lead magnets play an important role.
A lead magnet is a great way to attract prospects and entice them to become customers.
It’s a free resource that can attract people in your niche, encouraging them to click on it and ultimately sign up for your email list.
With a successful lead magnet, you are more likely to convert potential visitors into paying customers.
Check out this great article that explains how to run LinkedIn lead-generation ads in more detail.
Yelp & Other Directory Ads
For promoting consulting services, run ads on directories like Yelp.
Here are the steps you can follow to get started with advertising consultancy services on Yelp:
- Create a business profile: Your profile should include your address, phone number, website, hours of operation, and a description of your consulting services.
- Set a budget: Start with a small budget and increase it as you see the results of your campaigns. Also, set a daily or total budget for your ad campaigns.
- Choose your target audience: Consider the types of businesses or individuals that would benefit from your consulting services. Think about the location, industry, company size, and job titles. Increase the likelihood of generating leads by targeting your ads to the right audience.
- Create your ads: Create an eye-catching headline, a short description of your services, and a call-to-action (CTA) that encourages the user to contact you or visit your website. Use relevant keywords to optimize your ad for search engines and improve visibility.
- Monitor your results: Yelp provides metrics such as impressions, clicks, and click-through rates (CTRs). Utilize these metrics to evaluate the success of campaigns and implement necessary changes if needed (e.g., revising ad copy or targeting new audiences).
- Optimize your profile: Regularly updating/maintaining optimized profiles on Yelp is key. This includes ensuring profiles are complete with up-to-date information and high-quality photos of businesses. Also, customer reviews should be encouraged to boost visibility and attract new clients.
Yelp Ads operate similarly to Google Ads, allowing you to purchase ad space at the top of SERPs (search engine result pages) or on competitors’ pages.
With its pay-per-click (PPC) model, the CPC is generally higher than on Google or Facebook. But, Yelp does offer estimates so that you’re always aware of what you’re getting out of your investment.
There are plenty of B2B directories and review sites for businesses looking for extra exposure and brand recognition. Here are some you need to consider:
How To Do Free Advertising or Low-Cost Advertising
While advertising gets you the quickest results, building an organic audience ensures you have more loyal fans for your consulting services. Also, you would gain your prospective clients’ trust by showing your expertise in your field.
Plus, it costs way less to build an audience through organic means than getting paid traffic in the long run.
But remember: It takes patience to build an organic audience.
Here are a few tips to help you learn how to promote your consulting services:
Website & Blog
Your website and blog are essential tools for marketing. You don’t need to spend a fortune to get a professional website for your business.
Many website platforms offer no-cost options for basic websites, and upgrading to secure a domain name can cost just a few dollars per month.
Here are some tips to help you promote your consulting business through your website and blog.
- Your website should be easy to navigate and contain all the necessary information about your consulting services.
Include a detailed description of the services you offer and the areas in which you specialize.
- Include an opt-in form on the homepage where visitors can leave their contact information if they want more information from you.
This is an excellent way of building up a database of potential clients.
- Post regular blog updates featuring helpful articles relevant to what you do and industry news or trends affecting businesses in general.
This content should be enticing enough so readers pay attention and stay engaged while showing off what makes your consulting services unique and valuable.
- To promote consulting services, set up review systems where customers can publicly post reviews of their experiences with your services.
Reviews help build trust and show potential customers that existing ones are satisfied with your work.
- Create content that’s focused on helping your target customers. Your blog should include content that speaks directly to the needs of your potential clients.
It should be informative, interesting, and engaging.
- Optimize your blog for search engines with SEO techniques such as keyword research and writing compelling titles and meta descriptions for each post.
When people search for related topics on Google, you want them to find you easily! SEO is an excellent way of getting low-cost traffic to your website compared to running ads.
- Promote your blog posts on your marketing channels, such as Facebook groups/pages, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
Do that with tailored content for each platform to increase visibility and attract new followers interested in becoming customers or referring others to you.
Link back to relevant pages on your website from each blog post so readers can learn more about your services without leaving the page they’re reading. (linking within posts is also a great way of keeping readers engaged).
Also, to promote consulting services, link to other authoritative websites on relevant topics that provide supplemental information or valuable resources.
This will make it easier for people to trust the content they’re reading and increase the likelihood that they’ll come back to learn more in the future! Also, this helps build your rapport with Google, getting you more traffic from Google.
Social Media
With the rise of social media, it has become essential for consultants to use this platform as a powerful tool to promote their businesses and connect with potential clients.
Here are a few tips you should leverage for promoting consulting services on social media:
Establish Your Expertise
Establishing expertise is an essential factor in gaining the trust of potential customers. As a consultant, your customers seek you out as an expert and expect you to have the right tools to help them improve their businesses.
Showcase your mastery of social media marketing tools through a successful online presence. This is one way to show customers that you practice what you preach.
Maintain Expertise
Consistency and staying up-to-date are two critical components of maintaining expertise. As long as your customer base has confidence in you, they will continue to rely on your services and trust your advice.
For this reason, regularly engaging with content and keeping track of new trends will help keep current and prospective clients interested in your consulting business through social media.
Create & Align Brand Identity
Create a strong brand identity to promote your consulting business on social media platforms such as Twitter or Instagram. The values and aspirations of your business should be accurately represented.
That way, your potential customers will know what kind of service they can expect from you.
A consistent brand alignment helps tell people that they can trust your advice or product recommendations if they decide to work with you as a consultant.
Leverage Hashtags
When used appropriately, hashtags can increase traffic and brand awareness.
Aim for trending hashtags such as #consulting, #ConstantContactConsulting, or #socialmediamarketing to draw more attention from current audiences and those who may not yet know about your services.
Followers who follow these hashtags are interested in consulting topics that could potentially lead to future clients or networking opportunities!
Know Your Followers
Get familiar with followers’ habits to adjust strategies accordingly to suit their needs better while also helping attract new customers—both current and potential ones!
Take advantage of reporting tools like Facebook Insights or Twitter Analytics, which provide insights into popular posting times, content performance, click-throughs, likes/shares, etc. That will ultimately feed into connecting better with followers over time.
Post Consistently
Consistency is critical when attracting followers on social media—let them know there’s always engaging content or updates coming out from time to time, so they continuously come back for more!
It may be tricky to determine the best times for posting, but regularity trumps difficulty.
Experiment with different timings (even daily versus weekly posts) throughout periods and track engagement afterward. Eventually, you’ll find what works best for building more significant relationships with existing followers!
Engage & Connect
Develop a recognizable “voice,” which should make conversations with followers easier, but don’t forget why they came into contact with you in the first place.
Offer valuable content towards specific topics through blogs/posts/videos to establish yourself further within fields. That will also spark even further discussions among like-minded individuals seeking similar advice.
Relatable Content Works Wonders
Creating relatable content for your audience to promote consulting services goes a long way toward achieving this goal.
Customers want professionals experienced in particular niches, such as yours.
Share stories insightfully through experiences to present yourself differently from competitors and make them see how YOU could help them succeed down the road.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is an excellent tool you should consider if you are still learning how to promote your consulting services. With a free email account, you can send personalized messages to the top of your clients’ inboxes.
This gives you an advantage over search engine listings since there is no competition.
Plus, due to the convenience and frequency of checking emails, you can expect higher engagement from their clients than from other forms of marketing.
Also, send out a weekly email newsletter to ensure engagement with your prospects.
Investing in an email marketing platform is worthwhile for those who want more features and tracking.
Prices vary depending on the provider, but low-cost options are available, so any budget can accommodate this type of marketing.
Check out this great article, which explains how to find your potential clients’ emails and the email marketing platforms we use at Scaling With Systems.
Networking & Relationship Building
Relationships and networking play an essential role in the success of any business.
Strong relationships with other consultants and individuals can open doors to new opportunities, create referral sources, and provide valuable advice to help your business grow.
Here are a few tips to help you learn how to promote consulting services through networking and relationships:
Host Events
As a consultant, you know that potentially meeting clients is invaluable. Not only can you let your personality shine and answer questions, but you can also demonstrate your expertise.
Whether it’s a meetup in your hometown or an online webinar for people from all over the world, these gatherings give you a chance to connect with people interested in working with you.
When planning an event, consider making it focused on your field of expertise.
Say you are a software consultant. Host an event that provides helpful information on trends in the software industry, and then allow time for attendees to ask questions about what you can do for them.
Webinars are similar; choose a subject that interests attendees, provide helpful information, and then leave time for chatting at the end.
Remember that when first starting, events may not have many attendees.
But, it will grow as people start getting value from it and sharing it with others.
To get the word out before running your first webinar or event, use social media platforms like LinkedIn groups, Meetup.com, and Reddit, as well as any other forums where potential clients interact.
Combining personality and expertise with something prospects care about is an effective marketing tactic that can yield successful partnerships in the future.
Attend Networking Events
Attending in-person or virtual events is a powerful marketing strategy for consultants.
Be among a crowd focused on meeting professionals and looking for service providers to improve your chances of gaining new clients.
Different areas of consulting require different events, so find the ones best tailored to you.
For example, financial consultants should attend financial meetups, while those working with small businesses should participate in local business networking meetings.
Plus, attending industry conferences, chamber of commerce meetings, boot camps, and speed networking events may be helpful in promoting consulting services.
Networking can be complex at first, but it becomes much easier with practice. Eventually, it can become second nature, providing a great way to expand your customer base and stay informed about current trends in the market.
Reach Out to Potential Clients Directly
Inbound marketing is great, but proactive outreach can often be the most effective way to get new clients for your consultancy.
To do this, you’ll need to find potential clients. There are many ways to do that, such as looking on Crunchbase for companies that have recently received funding and paying attention to local news and listings for new organizations.
Also, research the ideal clients you’d love to work with, scope out LinkedIn groups or business listings in your sector, and even do direct outreach via email, phone calls, and mail.
Although direct outreach can be very effective and time-consuming, it’s worth keeping in mind that it may take multiple attempts before making contact.
The sixth email in a sequence gets a much better response rate than previous emails.
Write an effective follow-up email after no response so as not to turn off potential clients who may be interested but don’t have the time or inclination yet to respond.
When using direct mail, remember that your offer should be attractive enough for potential clients to want to reply.
Partner with Another Consultant
Combining consultancies can have a multitude of benefits. For example, web design and content writing or engineering and legal services often go hand-in-hand.
Similarly, marketing and sales, management and operations, and financial and human resources services can be combined to create a more comprehensive solution for clients.
So if you’re looking to promote consulting services beyond yourself, team up with other consultants in complementary fields.
For instance, if you’re a sales consultant but don’t have the expertise in marketing required for specific projects, partnering up with a local marketing consultant would be ideal.
If a client needs help with marketing first, they’ll likely need help with sales afterward. So, by working with fellow consultants in different fields, you can also benefit from each other’s business networks to promote consulting services.
Get Referrals
Networking is a great way to grow your consultancy, but referrals remain the most lucrative source of business.
When a client refers someone else to you, it’s an opportunity that can’t be beaten—they’re interested in your services, already know about you, and are ready for a sales pitch.
This amounts to skipping steps in the lead generation process, allowing you to go straight from qualification to closing the sale.
But it can be tricky to get referrals. You must regularly remind your clients that referral business is valuable. You also have to consider setting up a referral bonus system or partnering with another business that provides complementary services.
Alternatively, you could reach out by email to reconnect with former clients and strike up conversations that may result in referrals helping you to promote consulting services.
That allows you to promote your consulting business without putting in additional marketing efforts.
Promote Consulting Services: FAQs
How do I get clients for my consulting business?
- Google ads
- Facebook and Instagram ads
- LinkedIn ads
- Yelp and other directory ads
- Website and blog
- Social media
- Email marketing
- Attend networking events
- Reach out to potential clients directly
- Partner with another consultant
- Get referrals.
How is marketing important for a consulting business?
Without marketing, reaching potential clients who would benefit from your expertise and services is impossible. To get consulting engagements, generate conversations with the right audience. Marketing can help initiate these conversations and attract interested prospects; without it, there are no clients.
What are the top 3 digital marketing strategies to attract clients?
- Get referrals
- LinkedIn ads
- Attend networking events.
Wrapping Up: How To Promote Consulting Services
With a mix of paid and free advertising strategies, you have the power to take your consulting services to new heights.
Remember that the road to success may require some trial and error, but don’t give up. Be patient and persistent as you discover the winning formula for your consulting business. Your dedication will pay off in the end!
Ready to take your business to the next level? Imagine having a client acquisition system that works for you 24/7, bringing in qualified leads without you even lifting a finger.
We know it’s possible because we’ve done it ourselves—we’ve grown our own business to eight figures in less than two years using this very system.
Now, we want to share our knowledge and help you achieve the same success. Book a free consultation call today to learn more.
