Welcome to The Marketing Engineer

GROW YOUR PRACTICE

WITH THE CLIENTS YOU WANT

We help solicitors, accountants and consultants to grow their practice with the clients they want.  We do this by developing a sound marketing strategy and plan for your business and then helping you to put it into action.

We have pioneered a proven 12-step process to produce your marketing strategy and plan. Your strategy and plan are designed to help accelerate the building of trust between you and your prospects.  This is done in numerous ways

Our boutique firm specialises in strategy, copywriting and training. We often act as your virtual Marketing Director co-ordinating the delivery of your marketing with your existing suppliers or our trusted partners.

A Marketing Secret

There is a marketing secret that most agencies and consultancies don’t want you to know about.  Find out what it is in this 6-minute video.  This  secret will make your marketing much more effective.

Our Services

We offer three key marketing services to solicitors,
accountants and consultants
Strategy
If you want to grow your practice with the clients you want, then you will need a solid marketing plan. You will be guided through our proven 12-step process to develop the right plan for you.
Copywriting
Copywriting tells your market what you offer, how it benefits them and why you are their best option. It makes them want to engage you.
Training
Do you want your fee earners to bring in more business? With some training, your fee earners can improve their marketing and win more of the work you want.

Our Practice Areas

Professional service providers have very different marketing requirements to other sectors.  Your target market may not fully understand what you offer and how it helps them.  Secondly, it is impossible for your prospective clients to determine who is the best supplier.  Why?  Because they cannot intelligently judge the quality of your work. How can someone who is not a solicitor or an accountant tell if you have done a great job in creating a new set of Terms and Conditions for them or in compiling their accounts?

Legal practices and sole practitioners have had to cope with:

  • Major legal aid changes and new fees (e.g. for employment tribunals)
  • New entrants into the marketplace
  • D.I.Y. law with businesses using templates and apps

These factors have put solicitors under pressure.

Individuals and companies need sound legal advice. However, laypeople cannot judge the quality of it and often don’t know when they need it. So with no other persuasive factors they choose solely on price. A robust marketing strategy combined with useful content and persuasive copywriting helps to generate trust between you and your prospective clients.

The Marketing Engineer has helped a wide range of solicitors across the UK.  We have worked with sole practitioners such as Eileen Schofield at Schofield and Associates, multi-disciplinary practices like Emms-Gilmore Liberson and Else Solicitors and multi-office firms like HCB Solicitors.  We are also regular speakers at the Sole Practitioner Group National Conferences, Fusion Legal and Hub Legal.

Accountants have had many new challenges thrown out them including:

  • Improved automation
  • On-line accounting
  • On-line bookeeping
  • Offshore accounting
  • Digital returns

These are all putting pressure on accountants but there is massive opportunity here.

The days of performing purely compliance work are fast disappearing. This is a good thing.  Accountants will be able to specialise more in key tax areas and they will have more time to advise businesses.  A set of accounts tell the business owner about their past but not about their present or future.

The Marketing Engineer has worked with range of accounants around the West Midlands from sole practitioners to medium sized firms such as Bloomer Heaven and HCB.  Most accountants appreciate our systematic approach to marketing.  We tailor everything for your businesss and your prospective prospects rather than producing the same content and copy for hundreds of accountants in the UK.

We work with a range of consultants including:

  • Finanical Consultants (including Wealth Management Companies)
  • Technology Consultants (including IT)
  • Business Consultants (including training companies)

We love working with you and developing your marketing strategy. We are the experts at writing the technical content you need to explain what you do to your target. We can craft the messages you need to attract the clients you want

You will appreciate our structured approach to marketing.  We are very different to your normal marketing agency in that:

1. We have developed and use a proven process.

2. We are technical by nature, for example, Richard has a Ph.D. in laser physics and Alan is an IT wizard.

Our backgrounds allow us to rapidly pick up and explain technical things- something which most marketing agencies don’t do purely because they are creative people.  Creativity is important in graphic design and branding but in producing content and copywriting you need someone who understands what you offer, what your target market need and want and how to help them understand that you are the best option for them.

Frequently
Asked Questions

Very few companies have formulated a marketing strategy.  Most would rather spend money on implementation than working out who they want to attract and the best way to go about it.  If you don’t have a marketing strategy, then you are wasting your marketing money.

I have seen many small businesses (and large ones) blow money on expensive campaigns that were never going to work.  Marketing companies are masters of persuasion.  They can get you to believe that their offering is the answer to your problem- well, when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. 

This leads to bad ideas like financial management firms cold calling wealthy individuals, solicitors trying to attract corporate clients through Facebook and accountants spending heavily on Search Engine Optimisation.  As a note, the wealthy individuals really disliked this approach, most people (including young adults) don’t trust what is on Facebook and all the accountants attracted from SEO were calls from people looking for the cheapest service.    

A strategy will focus your marketing spend and efforts so that you can achieve your business goals.

Great question.  

  • Copy is about 10% education and 90% persuasion.
  • Content is the opposite- 90% education and 10% persuasion.

They often work hand in glove.  You always need to educate your clients in some way- like why they need the services you offer.  They need to understand this before they will start thinking about who is the best supplier for them.  However, many professional service providers start off with the idea that their prospective client knows very well why they need them- this is rarely true.  

Most copywriting is bad- really bad.  You can spot it a mile off.  It just talks about the company and hardly mentions you- the client.  It uses vocabulary you don’t understand and somehow skips the beneifts you might enjoy by working with that supplier. 

Please note- this is not just business owners who try it themselves.  It is often paid copywriters.  I’ve put together a guide to help you spot them- The 7 Signs that Your Copywriter is Clueless.  If you are writing your own company, it also gives you some useful guidelines. 

People spend thousands on a web site.  It is worth either putting yourself through a copywriting course or paying a professional to ensure that your words convert your visitors into clients.  It is words that persuade people to take action; not pretty pictures.  Design is important as you do need to attarct attention and you certainly don’t want to repel people with a poor look but beyond this, it is copy that does the work.  

Solicitors, accountants and consultants have different marketing requirements to other industries.  They face different challenges such as:

  • Helping their prospects to understand how they can help them
  • Creating confidence with their prospects- business owners and decision makers choose the professional service providers they trust the most.

We understand these sectors and the challenges the face.  We have developed a process which will help you to connect with, educate and build trust with your target market.

You will be pleased to know that we have answered the conundrum: how do you become a trusted advisor to someone who does not know you yet?

I’ll explain.  A few years ago I was at a networking event.  I was sat down awaiting lunch when a latecomer sat next to me.  Before he had taken his seat, he had pushed his business card on me.  I looked at it and was quite amazed by the list of things he offered.  This included everthing from search engine optimisation through graphic design to PR and events.  I had to supress the urge to ask him which he was good at.

One of my solicitor clients had previously employed a marketing agency that specialised in four areas.  After 18 months, he was still waiting to find which out one they were good at. 

The reason this happens is most agencies start with an owner or two partners who are very good at one or two things. They grow their business and decide to offer more services and inevitably they employ inexperienced people- although you are still paying them the rate of a professional.

The Marketing Engineer charges a professional rate for a trusted and experienced professional.  We work with specialist partners who run their own successful businesses doing the one or two things they are really good at.  This way we can always guarantee the quality of our products and services.

What Our Clients Say

Photo of Oliver Buckle from Else Solicitors
Oliver Buckle
Else Solicitors
Marketing Manager

Richard is our first point for all our new content requirements.  Richard writes compelling content that people actually want to read which has helped us generate more traffic through our blog posts, case studies and digital brochures. He has a unique writing style that encourages people to read on, increasing dwell time which results in more prospects getting in touch with the firm and ultimately increased our client conversion rate.

 

Marie Walls
Marie Walls
Nelson's Solicitors
Business Development Solicitor

Richard has worked with Nelsons’ Fusion Legal network for the last 2 years providing business development training and strategic consultancy for our member law firms.

Richard is like a breath of fresh air! Not only is he an engaging and entertaining speaker,he also understands the challenges which our member firms face in an increasingly competitive market.

James Knight
James Knight
FBC Manby Bowdler LLP
Partner

Richard has worked with the Hub.Legal network for a couple of years, providing training on Business Development strategy, directly to member firms and presenting at our annual Practice Management Days. Richard conveys, in an engaging way, essential information on Business Development that lawyers need to grasp, now, as part of their own commercial strategy.

Julia Leask
Julia Leask
Leask Accounting Services
Director

Richard presented ay the Annual CIMA Members In Practice Conference at Heythrop Park, Oxfordshire this weekend. As a speaker on the main stage not only was he engaging and interesting but his content was very relevant for the audience who are mainly sole practitioners.

These professionals have left the world of employment and are wanting to understand how best to market themselves and make themselves different to their competitors. This he explained begins with understanding the SMART marketing process of understand what and when you want to achieve it. Thanks again Richard you were a great hit with the crowd.

Eileen Schofield
Eileen Schofield
Schofield and Associates
Principal

I have known Richard for some years and from my first meeting with him I realised that he had a great deal more to offer than just the run of the mill marketing experts.

His strategic and intelligent approach to marketing has been a guide that I have kept in view whilst growing my business. He really gets to the heart of the business and specifically the legal sector with gusto and enthusiasm. Don’t be taken off guard with his hearty laugh he is a consummate professional and an asset to your business irrespective of size or sector.

Latest Articles

Working hours

Monday – Thursday: 09:00 – 17:30 Hrs

Friday: 09:00 – 17:00 Hrs

Closed weekends.

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The Colmore Building, 20 Colmore Circus, Birmingham B4 6AT