Marketing for M&A firms and corporate finance advisers in London, UK, Europe and USA
Deal flow doesn’t arrive by accident. It comes from a network of intermediaries who thought of you at the right moment, usually because of something that happened months or years earlier.
That’s an awkward thing to market. You’re selling something most of your clients will buy once in their lifetime, you can’t talk openly about half the work you do, and when a live deal lands, marketing is the first thing to fall off the list.
What’s different about marketing an M&A firm?
Your clients buy once in a lifetime, so almost everything depends on referrers rather than on the end client. Confidentiality limits what you can say about the work you’ve done. And the people who originate deals are the same people executing them, so business development stops entirely whenever the firm is busy. Marketing has to build visibility years before a mandate appears.
The challenges M&A firms and corporate finance advisers face
Feast and famine. A deal completes, everyone looks up, and the pipeline is empty. Three months of scrambling, then another deal lands and it happens again.
You can’t talk about most of your work. The mandates you’re proudest of are the ones under NDA. Meanwhile your competitors are posting tombstones and it looks like they’re busier than you.
Deal flow depends on intermediaries who’ve got options. Accountants, lawyers, banks and PE houses can refer to any number of advisers. Staying front of mind with them is the whole job and almost nobody has a structure for it.
Your originators are your executors. The people with the relationships are the ones running live processes. Business development is the thing they’ll definitely do next week.
A three-year courtship for a one-day decision. A business owner thinks about selling long before they appoint anyone. Whoever has been quietly useful throughout that period usually gets the call, and most firms only start the conversation once a process is already live.
Everyone claims the same expertise. Sector specialists, trusted advisers, a partner-led approach. All true, none of it distinguishing.
Relationships held by individuals, not the firm. When a partner moves, the referral network goes too, and nobody realises how concentrated it was until it happens.
A market you don’t control. Rates, confidence and deal volumes move without reference to how good your marketing is, which makes it tempting to conclude that marketing doesn’t matter.
How I can help
If you’re a founder or partner without a marketing function
- Build a marketing and business development plan honest about the time originators can actually give it.
- Put structure around your referrer relationships, so they belong to the firm rather than to individuals.
- Get your positioning specific enough that an intermediary can explain why you rather than the next adviser.
- Work out what marketing resource you need, in what order, and help you recruit it.
If you’ve got a small or junior marketing team
- Give them a plan with priorities and senior direction.
- Mentor and upskill them, particularly on working with deal teams who are rarely available.
- Provide senior oversight without the cost of a full-time hire.
If you’re a head of marketing or BD
- Extra senior capacity on campaigns, sector pushes or a new office.
- A second experienced view on strategy, and someone who’ll constructively challenge it.
- Support demonstrating value to a partnership that measures everything in fees.
Services I offer M&A firms and corporate finance advisers
Marketing strategy and planning
Firm-wide and sector plans covering positioning, target referrers, channels and messaging, with priorities and owners attached. Built around a team who are unavailable whenever a deal is live.
Fractional marketing director and CMO services
Senior marketing leadership one or two days a week, for firms that need someone owning marketing at partner level without a full-time salary.
Business development and BD training
The part that matters most here. Individual plans for originators built around their actual networks, referrer and intermediary programmes that belong to the firm, and training segmented by seniority. I’ve designed and delivered a three-part business development programme for a US investment bank, from first-year analysts through to managing directors.
Marketing reviews and audits
An independent look at what you’re doing, what it costs in originator time as well as money, and what’s actually generating mandates.
Why work with me?
- I’ve been running Helen Cox Marketing since 2016 and have worked with clients across corporate finance, professional services and B2B. Before that I was in-house.
- I know professional services from the inside: partnerships, fee earners, and the realities of getting senior people to engage with marketing when they’re mid-transaction. I won’t promise you deals in ninety days, because that isn’t how this market works and anyone telling you otherwise hasn’t worked in it.
- I’m a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM) with Chartered Marketer status.
Who I work with
Firms: M&A advisory boutiques, corporate finance houses, investment banks, debt advisory firms, private equity houses, and the corporate finance teams inside accountancy and law firms.
People: founders, managing partners and heads of corporate finance, originators and deal partners, heads of marketing and business development, marketing managers, and marketing executives.
Who this isn’t for
I’m not the right person if what you want is lead generation, a database of targets, or someone promising a pipeline of mandates within a quarter. That isn’t how relationship-led origination works, and firms selling it are usually selling you a list.
I’m brought in to work out what the firm should be doing, build the plans, and help your originators act on them.
Next steps
If your deal flow depends on relationships and reputation, and you know your marketing isn’t doing enough to support either, it’s worth a conversation.
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we’ll talk through where you are, what’s getting in the way, and what a sensible next step looks like. No pitch, no obligation.
I work with B2B businesses, law and solicitors firms, accountants and consultancies in London, the UK, Europe and the USA.
Happy clients
An asset in helping us to build our marketing capabilities
We initially approached Helen as we were looking to enhance our brand image and lead generation through a more cohesive digital marketing effort. Helen pulled together our firm’s marketing plan looking at all elements both online and offline to help us make the most of our marketing efforts. Following this, we brought her in as our Outsourced Marketing Director where she has project managed a rebrand as well as recruited our first Marketing Executive in the business
Philip Albright, Partner, Goldenhill International M&A Advisors
Confident and reassuring approach
Helen is a fantastic asset in running a campaign. She understands the various different channels and is an ace on social media. She has taught me a lot and I would not hesitate to recommend Helen. She has a very confident and reassuring approach.
Melanie Reed, Head of Corporate Tax, RSM
Case study highlight
Crossing the Atlantic: designing and delivering a three-part BD programme for a US investment bank
A US investment bank wanted to make business development more consistent across the firm. I designed and delivered a tailored three-part BD programme in Washington DC, helping everyone from first-year analysts to managing directors build stronger relationships, develop their networks and take a more intentional approach to growth.
FAQs
No, it makes it different. Confidentiality limits what you can say about specific mandates, not what you can say about the market, the sector, what’s driving valuations, or what a business owner should be thinking about two years before a sale. Most firms have far more to say than they think, and they’re waiting for permission to talk about deals when the useful conversation was never about deals.
By making it small and specific rather than asking for more of it. A plan built around the handful of referrer relationships most likely to produce mandates is something an originator can sustain in a busy month. “We should all be doing more BD” isn’t, which is why it’s been said at every partners’ meeting for years.
With a structure rather than good intentions. That means knowing who the referrers actually are, who owns each relationship, what useful thing they get from you and how often. Most firms discover on doing this that three people generate most of the referrals and nobody had noticed.
Longer than anyone would like, and I’d be wary of anyone saying otherwise. What you can see in a quarter is leading activity: referrer meetings held, conversations started, invitations received. Mandates follow on the market’s timetable, not yours.
Yes, arguably more so. A firm with clear positioning and a referral network held by the firm rather than by two individuals is worth more than one where the value walks out at retirement. That’s true whether you sell or not.
No. Plenty of the firms I work with have one marketing person or nobody. Working out what you need, and in what order, is often part of the job.
It’s a free 30 minutes for me to understand what you’re dealing with and work out whether I’m the right person to help. If I’m not, I’ll tell you and point you somewhere better.
Let’s talk…
For more information on any of my services, get in touch and let’s talk.