Most professional service firms do have a marketing strategy. The problem? It’s often overly ambitious, vague and disconnected from business goals, and filed away after the board meeting, never to see the light of day again.

For firms with limited internal resources, the real challenge isn’t creating a strategy. It’s delivering one that works in practice.

Here’s how to build a marketing strategy that’s not only realistic, but actually gets implemented, measured and improved.

Start with your business goals, not a wish list of tactics

Too many strategies start with marketing outputs. You know the ones: “We need LinkedIn ads,” “We should do more email,” or “We want to improve SEO.”

But strategy needs to flow from your business plan, not your to-do list.

Before you think about any marketing tactics, you need to ask yourself some fundamental questions:

What are we trying to achieve over the next 12 to 18 months? Are you looking to grow your existing client base, or are you trying to break into new sectors? Perhaps you’re considering expanding into different geographical areas?

Where do we need growth? Be specific here. If you’re a law firm, are you looking to grow your corporate work, or do you want to expand your family law practice? If you’re an accountancy firm, are you focusing on small businesses or looking to attract larger corporate clients?

What role should marketing play in supporting those goals? Once you’re clear on your business objectives, you can start to think about how marketing can help you get there.

This approach means your marketing strategy becomes a bridge between your commercial goals and tactical delivery, rather than a disconnected wishlist that sits on a shelf gathering dust.

Identify what not to do

With limited time, budget and internal capacity, saying no is just as important as saying yes. Rather than trying to “do more marketing,” you need to be strategic about where you focus your efforts.

Here’s what you should concentrate on:

Activities that support your best-performing services or sectors

If your employment law practice is thriving, don’t suddenly pivot to focusing all your marketing efforts on conveyancing. Build on what’s already working.

Channels where your clients are already active

There’s no point investing heavily in TikTok if your target audience of finance directors are spending their time on LinkedIn instead.

Tactics that can be repurposed or scaled easily

A single piece of thought leadership content can become a blog post, a LinkedIn article, an email newsletter and speaking points for a webinar. Think about how you can maximise the impact of everything you create.

You should cut anything that can’t be resourced or measured effectively. A lean strategy that gets delivered is worth far more than a bloated plan that no one follows.

Involve your team early

Marketing often fails in professional services firms because it’s seen as someone else’s job. The partners think it’s the marketing manager’s responsibility, while the marketing manager struggles to get buy-in from the fee earners.

To avoid this common pitfall:

Involve senior stakeholders in setting strategy

This is particularly important for fee earners and business development professionals. They need to understand not just what you’re doing, but why you’re doing it.

Ask what questions clients are asking right now

Your fee earners are on the front line with clients every day. They know what’s keeping your clients awake at night, so build your messaging around those real concerns.

Ensure those delivering the work understand why each activity matters

Whether you’re working with internal team members or external agencies, everyone needs to understand how their work connects to the bigger picture.

The more ownership and clarity you create upfront, the easier it becomes to deliver consistently.

Set clear priorities by quarter

A 12-month plan sounds impressive on paper, but it rarely survives contact with the demands of running a busy professional services firm.

Instead, break your strategy into quarterly action plans. Each quarter should have:

One to three core focus areas

This might be improving a key service page on your website, launching a webinar series, or refining your email nurture journeys.

Key deliverables with specific deadlines

Don’t just say “launch the campaign.” Be specific about what success looks like.

Assigned ownership

Someone needs to be accountable for each deliverable, and they need to have the authority to make decisions.

Success metrics

Rather than just measuring activity (like “publish four blog posts”), focus on outcomes (like “generate 15 qualified enquiries”).

This approach creates rhythm, accountability, and measurable progress that you can track and report on.

Budget and resource it properly

Even the best strategy will stall without the time, tools or team to deliver it effectively.

For each core activity in your plan, you need to be brutally honest about:

Who is actually delivering this work?

Don’t just assume someone will have time to take it on.

Do they have the time, skills and authority to do it well?

There’s no point assigning content creation to someone who struggles to write, or social media management to someone who’s never used LinkedIn.

If not, what support is needed?

This might mean bringing in external help, investing in new technology, or providing training to existing team members.

Many firms find that bringing in fractional or interim support for strategy execution (not just planning) helps maintain momentum, especially during peak periods when internal resources are stretched thin.

Track what matters and be ready to adapt

Marketing strategies don’t fail because they’re fundamentally wrong. They fail because they’re too rigid to adapt to changing circumstances.

Build in monthly or quarterly review points to ask:

What’s working well?

Double down on the activities that are generating results.

What’s taking more time than expected?

If something is consuming resources without delivering results, it might be time to pivot.

Where are we seeing engagement but no conversion?

This often indicates a problem with your messaging or your follow-up processes.

Are business priorities shifting?

If your firm’s focus has changed, your marketing strategy needs to evolve too.

This approach allows you to course-correct without scrapping the whole plan, and it gives you clear evidence to take back to senior leadership.

The real value of a strategy is in the delivery

If your firm has been through several marketing strategies that never quite delivered the results you hoped for, you’re certainly not alone. But the answer isn’t to give up on strategic thinking altogether.

Instead, you need to build a strategy that’s aligned to your business goals, focused on the few things that will really move the needle, backed by realistic resourcing and buy-in from your team, and built to flex and evolve over time.

When you shift your thinking from “strategy as a document” to “strategy as a delivery framework,” you move from endless planning meetings to real, measurable results.

The truth is, a simple strategy that gets implemented will always outperform a complex one that sits in a drawer. Focus on what you can realistically deliver, measure what matters, and be prepared to adapt as you learn what works for your firm.

Need help?
If you would like help with your marketing, bringing on a marketing consultant with a fresh pair of eyes can make all the difference. I work with B2B businesses and professional service firms in London, Kent, the UK, and Europe, specialising as a legal marketing consultant. Please get in touch or book a free 30-minute consultation.

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