How to know what marketing activity to focus on

There are always lots of things you could be doing. You could write more articles. Improve your website. Post more on LinkedIn. Send a newsletter. Run Google Ads. Update your collateral. Capture more reviews. Work on SEO. Build a referral campaign. Host events. Create lead magnets. Focus on PR.

While all have their uses, is it possible to do all of it at the same time? Not for small firms.

Often marketing takes the shape of whatever feels most urgent in the moment. The result is often a lot of activity, but not much progress.

Marketing activity is not the same as marketing progress

For marketing to work properly, it needs to be focused on the right problem. If your website is unclear, more traffic may not help. If your firm has no clear positioning, posting more on LinkedIn may not make much difference. If your best enquiries come through referrals, but you have no process for nurturing those relationships, spending money on ads may not be the first priority.

Good marketing starts with identifying the problems. Sometimes the issue is visibility. Not enough of the right people know you exist. Sometimes the issue is conversion. You are getting attention, but your website or follow-up process is not turning that attention into conversations. And Sometimes the issue is consistency. You know what you should be doing, but there is no clear plan or routine to keep it moving.

The right next step depends on which of these problems you are actually trying to solve.

Why professional services firms often struggle to prioritise marketing

Professional services firms are usually built around expertise, relationships and reputation. That is a strength, but it can also make marketing harder to plan.

A law firm, accountancy practice, consultancy or financial planning firm does not need marketing that simply makes noise. It needs marketing that builds credibility and helps the right people understand why the firm is worth speaking to.

A small firm might assume it needs more marketing activity, when the real issue is that its existing foundations are not clear enough. The website may not explain its services properly, its content may not answer the questions clients are already asking, or it may not be doing enough to maximise visibility in its local market. For many professional services firms, the priority is not always to do more, but to make sure the right people can find, understand and trust them.

The best marketing priorities usually come from a few simple questions

You do not always need a huge strategy project to get clearer on your next marketing move. Often, you can make a lot of progress by asking a few practical questions:

What type of clients do we want more of?
Are we clear about what we want to be known for?
Can people quickly understand what we do when they visit our website?
Are we creating content that answers real client questions?
Do we have a way of staying in touch with prospects and referrers?
Where are our enquiries coming from?
Do we know which marketing activity is working?

These questions help separate useful marketing activity from activity that simply fills space.

They also help you avoid copying what other firms are doing. Just because another firm is investing heavily in LinkedIn, SEO, events, or paid advertising does not mean that should be your next move too.

A simple way to decide what comes next

If your firm knows it needs to do more marketing, but you are not sure where to begin, the most useful starting point is to identify your current marketing bottleneck. Even that can be hard to work out.

To help make this easier, we have created a simple marketing activity prioritiser for professional services firms.

It asks a few straightforward questions about your firm, your current marketing activity and where you want to improve. Based on your answers, it helps you think through which areas may deserve attention first.

It is not designed to give you a complicated marketing plan or push you into a particular service. It is simply a useful starting point if you know your marketing could be working harder, but you are not sure what to focus on next.

Try the marketing activity prioritiser here.