There is a common saying among journalists and other professionals that “an empty office is a busy office.” Anyone caught sitting at a desk or hanging around the office must not have enough to do.

Journalists needed to be on their beats and visible to their sources in order to get first dibs on a great story. They needed to hang around the courthouse and police station, visit schools and sometimes even the local bar or church to find their stories. They didn’t always come back with a story, but it was expected that they better be in the right place at the right time just in case.

In the same way, professionals of the past had to stay physically visible to their clients, referral sources and potential clients. They attended networking and philanthropic events, went to happy hour and took long lunches at local hot spots. Deals were secured on the golf course and at sporting events. The most successful rainmakers, soon-to-be partners sometimes knew more about their clients’ families than their own.

Today there seems to be less emphasis on being out there and more emphasis on using technology to “stay in touch.” The trends of work-life balance, economic necessity and accelerated deadlines have limited the capacity of both journalists and other professionals to simply hang out and see what comes of it.

Let’s not lament the good old days too much. Professionals can strike a balance between getting out of the office and also leveraging technology for productive visibility.

Even the world of dating has used technology to help busy people market themselves to the most suitable matches. Keeping that in mind, let’s explore the future of visibility for professionals. There are many new ways to get out there and attract your ideal audience.

What’s Your Sign? 

The new buzzword in the world of professional communications is content marketing. Professionals are getting smarter about attracting the right people and managing their reputations by sharing interesting information. But you have to know what to share.

Imagine telling a story about yourself or your firm at a cocktail party. Do you want to be considered “the most interesting man in the world” or just another insurance broker? Do you want people begging for your number at the end of the night or asking themselves why they bothered going out?

For journalists and professionals, the story is critical. Is it news? Is it different? Will people say, “Wow” when they hear it? If not, it’s not a good story.

For Law Weathers, a law firm in Michigan, their story emerged from a long tradition in the community, but also from frequent client comments about their humility and kindness. Truly, in the dog-eat-dog world of law, humility and kindness can draw attention. But it’s not enough to say, “I’m a nice attorney.” Demonstrations of kindness must be shared through client stories and the attorneys’ involvement in the community.

What’s Your Pick-Up Line? 

Now take your great story and test it throughout the various channels available to you. These channels will then continue to share interesting information about you 24 hours a day. When placed correctly, your information will also be shared from one person to another, expanding your visibility exponentially. This includes your website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, traditional business media, speeches, webinars, videos, advertising and trade media. We call these channels the “three Ps” of media: Pitched, Paid and Proactive.

You choose these channels by understanding your audience — where they hang out and get their news. Keep in mind that your audience is getting younger. (Anyone who is at least 40 has experienced that sad reality.) They are getting their information online and via mobile devices more than ever before.

Craft your story to be consistent, engaging and different from your competition. For Platinum Bank, one of the 50 fastest growing privately held companies in Minnesota, that message is about banking for business. When CEO and Founder David Rom talks — about how he hires people to how he manages the bank portfolio — he is describing a bank for visionary entrepreneurs who want to be 10 steps into the future.

Who Do You Desire? 

Whether you want to attract time-traveling entrepreneurs or female chief financial officers who love sushi, you need to be clear on your audience. Develop a detailed profile of the “A” client or the “A” referral source you want to attract, then investigate how they gather their information. What are their interests? What do they read? Do they gather their information via mobile device or the evening news? What gets them excited? Where do they hang out for entertainment? Who do they trust for reliable updates on industry trends and strategies?

Wherever they go, you need to be seen there. And you need to be seen there frequently…preferably with an entourage. By that I mean that you should have followers, lots of quality connections and people commenting positively on your information and sharing it. Your entourage builds over time, but it doesn’t hurt to have your colleagues and friends talk about you at networking events or share your content with their friends online (or recommend you on LinkedIn).

You can gather this information about your target audiences in time-consuming conversation, or you can hire Ingenuity to do 10 to 15 interviews and gather it for you. The bonus is that we’ll translate the answers into the profiles and themes you need to create your story and “pick-up lines.”

Wait! Do You Still Live With Your Mom? 

Once you have attracted the right people, it’s important to take them somewhere nice and classy to learn more about you. For your unknown prospects, “A” clients and top referral sources, they’ll often head to your website or your LinkedIn profile to gather more information before they make a decision to take the relationship further. If your website is awful or you only have 50 connections on LinkedIn, that first impression can sour quickly.

The same goes for mentions about you on Google. If a prospect searched for you or your firm name, what would they find? We hope they would find your LinkedIn profile and company page, populated with great status updates and service descriptions. We hope they would find an article written for a popular trade magazine. We hope they would find your affiliation with important networking and trade groups. And we hope they would find an interesting bio, a great photo, a video or white paper about a differentiating service.

The key to visibility today is to know your audience — who you really and truly want to attract for a long-term commitment. Find out where they hang out for important news and information. Start sending them little gifts of insight that rock their world and leave them wanting more.

Once you’ve hooked them (lead generation), then start wooing them (lead nurturing) and drawing them back to your place (website, social media, videos, events). Then let them make the next move.

What you’ll gain is an enhanced reputation with referral sources who feel good about recommending you. You’ll gain loyalty and cross-selling opportunities with your best clients because your visibility and credibility will affirm their decision to stick with you. And you’ll attract the unknown prospect who didn’t realize they needed you so much.

If you’d like to see how this article looks in cool multimedia, contact us at Ingenuity for our soon-to-be-released presentation on Visibility 2012. It’s time to get out of the office and be seen.

Content marketing is the art of attracting prospects and clients with your brilliance —without the hard sell. Here are a few reaons why it’s a marketing technique worth considering.

• 77% of firms surveyed generate at least some new business online and 15% generate 40% or more of new business leads online.

• The fastest growing firms are generating 40-59% of their leads online. The higher percentage of leads a firm generates online correlates to how profitable that firm is.

• The most used techniques included (listed from more heavily used to moderate use): LinkedIn, email marketing, white papers, eBooks, newsletters, blogging, Twitter, Facebook, webinars and video.

• The techniques described as most effective (from highest to moderately effective) are: white papers/eBooks, blogging, SEO, email marketing, newsletter, Linkedin, and webinars.

• High growth firms were significantly more likely to post new content to their website on a weekly basis and to have redesigned their website in the last 12 months.

[Source: The Online Marketing for Professional Services Firms study from the Hinge Research Institute.] 

 

Nine out of 10 B2B marketers are using content marketing to grow their businesses. On average, marketers use eight content marketing tactics to achieve their marketing goals. The most popular tactics are:

• Article posting (79%)

• Social media (excluding blogs) (74%)

• Blogs (65%)

• eNewsletters (63%)

• Case studies (58%)

• In-person events (56%)

• Videos (52%)

• White papers (51%)

• Webinars (46%)

• Microsites (31%)

Marketers are using content marketing to support multiple business goals, led by brand awareness (69%), customer acquisition (68%), lead generation (67%), and customer retention/loyalty (62%).

How are firms measuring the success of their content marketing? top answers include: increased web traffic (58%), sales lead quality/sales accepted leads (49%), direct sales (41%), qualitative feedback from customers (40%), and SEO ranking (40%).

The majority of firms (58%) are using a mix of in-house and outsourced content marketing, up from 52% last year.

By far the biggest challenge was producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers, with 41% of respondents listing that as their top issue.

[Source: The B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends Report by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs]