Marketing, get out!

In consulting to my professional services clients, I entreat them to monitor the life cycle of their service portfolios by watching for signs of client service fatigue and commoditization of their offerings.

This reminder also applies to the marketing services that are internally delivered to architects, lawyers, accountants, engineers, management consultants, and numerous other professional sectors.  Even though the field of professional service marketing itself is relatively young, we are already seeing signs of its maturation.  For example, when I was a senior marketer in the Chicago office of a global management consulting firm nearly twenty years ago, I supervised a staff of ten people: graphics designers, database managers, event planners, market researchers.  We delivered all these functions internally on behalf of the fee-earners of the firm.  Now, it's not at all surprising to see these functions handled externally, as outside expenses. 

In the last month or so, however, I'm seeing discussions about something even bigger: the outsourcing of the entire marketing function.  Interestingly, it's been mentioned more in the law firm sector than others. 

• Mark Beese's Leadership for Lawyers blog features a post describing one firm's RFP for outsourced marketing services.  Many of the functions that will be outsourced are no surprise: events planning, media relations, etc.  These are well known services that professional fee-earners have "consumed" since they began using marketing on a formal basis more than a quarter century ago.  But the law firm in Beese's post also seeks to outsource its strategic marketing planning!  I find this mighty ironic, because I think most professional service firms -- law firms included -- have not yet effectively used strategic marketing planning to the extent that they could have.  (Some may say, "Suzanne, it's good they are outsourcing strategic planning!  Maybe it will be done correctly for once."  They may have a point. )   
• Larry Bodine's Professional Marketing blog features a post about offshoring Marketing jobs to overseas locations.  Once again, it appears that many relatively well known and arguably commoditized services are going to be outsourced:  Brochure writing, graphics design and Web site design, among others.  But once again, tucked deep into the list, are two areas of concern: market research and competitive intelligence.  Both of these marketing services have yet to be strategically employed within the majority of professional service firms.  It appears these firms are getting rid of critical functions before they have truly grasped their significance.  Either that, or the decision makers whose decisions are reflected on this list are only requiring the most shallow results that market research and competitive intelligence can deliver.  Certainly, if one only thinks of competitive intelligence or market research as passively monitoring the web sites and press releases of rivals, this technologically based function can indeed be done by others. But these firms shouldn't be fooled into thinking this kind of market research or competitive intelligence has offered strategic insights.  It won't.

It does make sense for professional service firm marketing leaders and their internal clients to seek the most productive use of their resources to compete in business.  Commoditization is a reality, and outsourcing/offshoring certain marketing services can be a useful step to take. 

But marketing, as a role within any thriving professional services firm, should not be retired completely; instead it should evolve upward, into the executive suite.   

Comments

[Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan]

I find it interesting that many professional firms pontificate about how they partner with their own clients and build relationships, but when they they hire external help and become clients, they often treat the hired professionals as situational elbow grease, extra a pair of hands for grunt work no one within the firm wants to do.

Sadly, I think this firm fails to understand the importance of the marketing function, so the partners use the same process to hire a marketing firm they would use to hire a minimum-wage kid to clean the toilets.

So, I’m curious whether or not any good marketing firm will respond to the offer. I find it hard to imagine. In my experience good firms don’t waste their times and talents on bidding battles.

In my – maybe somewhat radical – opinion, bidding is a process mediocre companies use to hire competitive(ly cheap and mediocre) contractors or consultants who look good on paper, but often don't have significant value to contribute to the client company.