Gues article: Matt Baldwin, Coast Communications
Is your firm or practice a ‘best kept secret’?
This is not a badge of honour – it is a serious business problem. Clients can’t buy from you if they don’t know you exist.
At any given moment, 95% of your potential market isn’t actively looking for new advisers. According to research by Prof. John Dawes at the Institute of Marketing Science, businesses change professional service providers once every five years, meaning that only 5% are actively in-market at any given time.
So how do you break through? How does your firm stand out when every other firm is shouting about their expertise, their achievements, their market-leading service?
Most firms turn to the usual suspects: sponsorships, advertising, events, SEO, legal directories even. Some of these work. Some are eye-wateringly expensive. And some are, well, just questionable (why do we still obsess over the legal directories?).
But there is one approach that consistently punches above its weight in both impact and cost-effectiveness: media relations.
A strong, sustained media relations programme that delivers targeted coverage week after week has the potential to reach huge audiences. It creates brand awareness at scale.
But unlike, say, advertising, it does something more valuable: it builds credibility.
Here are four reasons media relations deserves a bigger slice of your budget.
1. It creates genuine engagement
Sponsorships, SEO, advertising and directories are broadly passive – they work whether fee-earners engage or not. Media relations puts your people at the heart of conversations that matter. Fee-earners build relationships with journalists and can quickly become thought leaders. This isn’t passive brand-building – it’s reputation-creation.
2. It’s proactive, not reactive
The best media relations programmes don’t wait for opportunities – they create them. They focus on what matters to your clients right now and position your firm at the centre of those conversations. You’re not responding to the market; you’re shaping how the market thinks.
3. It’s flexible
The media landscape covers every aspect of business and personal life. Good trade magazines can reach more readers than many national newspapers. Your programme can flex across your full range of services and the changing economic environment, meeting clients wherever they are.
4. It creates assets that keep working
The value doesn’t stop when the story runs. Each piece of coverage becomes fuel for your BD engine: social media and direct-to-client content, email signatures and pitch credentials. And crucially, it comes with independent third-party credibility that your own marketing cannot manufacture.
Oh, and it’s considerably cheaper than most sponsorships and ad campaigns.
A sustained media relations programme can deliver hundreds of pieces of targeted coverage, position multiple partners as experts and create a library of credible content that supports every other marketing activity you run.
The question isn’t whether your firm should invest in the fame game. It’s whether you’re investing in the right channels to do it.
Matt Baldwin is the co-founder of Coast Communications, a media relations agency.