Consortium - More Than Marketing

"Lara and her team have done wonders for our social media. We tried to do it ourselves but found it difficult to fit in and make content relevant and delivered in the best way. Lara understands our firm culture and target market really well and is so kind when she is prompting us to write our blogs and posts!! I can't recommend Consortium highly enough." - Ruth Dolan, Tarvos Wealth

Taking the stress out of running your social media accounts couldn't be easier - just book a chat with Lara to find out how we can help raise your and your firm's business profile:
https://bit.ly/3NyX6yb

Ever felt like you were the only businesswoman you know?
Join us at the exclusive City of London Club on the 20 July for afternoon tea and a glass of Prosecco, and never feel like that again.

Ladies Lunch Clubs invite you to join our community of supportive working women. Get a ticket before they're gone: https://www.ladieslunchclubs.co.uk/events/event/afternoon-tea-with-a-glass-of-prosecco-london-ladies-lunch-club/

Google Reviews are likely the first thing potential clients will see when doing research about the services you offer.

93% of us read reviews before we decide whether to spend our money. Make sure that your Google Reviews reflect the true value of your service and your brand. Encourage your clients to leave you a review and share the good about you!

Here are our top tips:
https://bit.ly/3nyn0Hq

Google Reviews are likely the first thing potential clients will see when doing research about the services you offer.

93% of us read reviews before we decide whether to spend our money. Make sure that your Google Reviews reflect the true value of your service and your brand. And encourage your clients to leave you a review and share the good about you.

Here are our Google Review top tips:
https://bit.ly/3nyn0Hq

Connecting and getting to know other businesswomen can help develop yourself and your business 👑

Join us at The Ladies Lunch Club in Eastbourne on Friday 15 July and enjoy an afternoon tea, a glass of Prosecco, and a community of working women who can help support you and your ambitions. Find out more here and book your ticket now: https://bit.ly/3bHretW

We're excited to announce that Consortium more than marketing's Director, Lara Squires is a Best Business Women Awards finalist!
Lara was nominated in two categories: Best Businesswoman in Marketing and PR Services and Best Boss. We always knew that Lara was one of the best bosses that you could ask for, but now it's official. Read more about the awards on our website:
https://bit.ly/3nxunze

The day of the LawNet conference has finally arrived! Lara Squires and Lou Gilbert have been so looking forward to it! But it is not all about the socialising, the conference is jam-packed with networking discussion groups and inspiring headline speakers Matthew Syed, Julian Birkinshaw, and Sophie Devonshire.

Lou will be giving us the low-down next week about the ideas and thinking the conference inspired, and we'll be checking in with our clients to find out what changes the conference inspired them to make back at the office.

Here are some of the pics of the event so far!

Consortium attends Accountex London 2022 - Consortium More than Marketing

Is Throwback Thursday still a thing? 🤔

Either way, today we're throwing it back to last month when Lara Squires FCIM and Kat Boness attended Accountex London. If you're interested in reading our thoughts on the event - give our roundup of the event a read 👇🏼

https://bit.ly/3NxH6fB

Consortium attends Accountex London 2022 - Consortium More than Marketing Accountex London was back at the Excel Centre in London. The Consortium team share their takeaways from the event for accountants.

Consortium does more than marketing. Get the best-rated training for your team and get the most out of your business's social profiles and networking:
https://bit.ly/3MQ9yZK

Lara Jane Squires and Louise Gilbert will be attending the LawNet annual conference and awards this Friday 1 July.

We're very honoured to be a LawNet preferred supplier and one of the sponsors for the event. We're looking forward to meeting new people, seeing old friends, doing some networking, and hearing some of the great speakers that are lined up.

For more details about the event, visit https://bit.ly/3ynMhuk

Lara Squires and Lou Gilbert will be attending the LawNet annual conference and awards this Friday 1 July.

We're very honoured to be a LawNet preferred supplier and one of the sponsors for the event. We're looking forward to meeting new people, seeing old friends, doing some networking, and hearing some of the great speakers that are lined up.

For more details about the event, visit https://bit.ly/3ynMhuk

Keeping clients is cheaper than winning new ones. Having a marketing and communication strategy is more than just efficient - it makes good sense. We have some alternatives to emailing clients that might better fit your style and help strengthen your client relationships.

Get in touch with us to find out more!
https://bit.ly/3Ql3WKg

When was the last time you organised your Mailchimp audiences? It could save you money!

Archiving unsubscribed or non-subscribed contacts could bring your audience count down so that you stay within your price plan. Ideally, you should have one audience and use segments, tags, and groups to identify your different targets.
https://bit.ly/3xPD5Ph

Raising the profile of law firms is our speciality. ⚖️ Your clients trust you to guide them through the legal process. You can trust us to guide you with your marketing.

How well do your email campaigns perform? 📈

The answer to this question is likely to vary of course as there are a lot of factors at play, but it's a good idea to keep an eye on how well your emails are performing - check the dashboard on your email marketing software to find out, if you don't know.

Latest research by Campaign Monitor suggests that in the UK, the average open rate is 22.9% and the average click through rate is 2.4% - this is across all industries.

When looking at the professional services sector across all markets, the research found that open rates were 19.3% and click through rates 2.1%.

If you'd like to improve your open and click through rates, there are a few areas to look at:

- Is your subject line short and compelling enough to make the reader want to open the email?
- Do you have clear calls to action?
- Do you play around with what days of the week and times of the day you send your emails?
- Is your audience segmented and is your content therefore relevant to them?
- Is there a better sender name e.g. a named email account rather than a generic one?

Get in touch with our team if you would like some pointers to improve your email marketing.

Take a break and meet other women working hard 💪

Join us for a virtual Ladies Lunch Club this Friday 24th of June. Finish off the week with an hour of good conversation and the support of women who get it.

This picture is from last week's 'Spa at the Bar' event in Worthing!

Happy Father's day to all our friends and clients. We hope you have a wonderful weekend with your families!

The Consortium of Professional Advisors is pleased to present its first webinar just for law firms.

Client Money: Risk vs Reward, hosted by Paul McCluskey from Gemstone Legal and Alex Holt from Cashroom

This webinar is ideal for Compliance Officers for Finance and Administration and finance teams in law firms of all shapes and sizes. If you're interested in efficiently handling client funds and reducing the risk to yourself, and your firm, then Alex and Paul have tips and guidance you'll find useful.

Reserve your FREE TICKET now for the webinar on Monday 4th of July at 12 pm: https://bit.ly/3aaax9s

Who are the CPA?

The CPA are a diverse group of suppliers to the Legal Sector that provide insights into Law Firm operations and work together to provide solutions. The CPA members include:

Alex Holt from Cashroom, Amy Bell from Teal Compliance, Andrew Hookway from Extech Cloud, Brian Boehmer from Lockton Companies, Leah Steele from Searching for Serenity, Paul McClusky from Gemstone Legal, Philip Lewis, and our very own Lara Squires from Consortium - More Than Marketing.

If you are a law firm, join the CPA LinkedIn group here: https://bit.ly/3NQJkI9

Welcome to Lisa Pickard CertCIM who joins Consortium - More than Marketing as our new Marketing and Account Manager! Look out for more about Lisa on our page on our website in the next week!

We're excited to working with you and getting to know you Lisa. https://bit.ly/3hJRFhM

Which, and how many hashtags to use, can be confusing when accountants first start out with their social media marketing. The answer - as always - will depend on the platform you use and what you're trying to achieve when it comes to your social media activity.

What are hashtags?

In a nutshell, hashtags are words or phrases that help categorise topics. Adding the # symbol before a word or phrase turns it into a clickable link which can then be searched by users. For example, by including in your post on social media, other users can find content from all users on that specific topic.

Generally speaking, the broader the search term the higher the competition and the more likely your content is going to 'drown' in the sea of other posts on the same topic. More specific hashtags may not be as popular, but they are better when targeting a niche audience or specific topic.

How many to include?

There is no hard and fast rule and it's worth testing this out over time, but here is a rough guideline.

Twitter: Up to 2, these can be included in the actual body text due to the character limit
LinkedIn: Up to 3, ideally at the end of the post
Facebook: Up to 3, ideally at the end of the post
Instagram: Up to 30, ideally at the end of the post

Where in the post to put the hashtag is personal preference and doesn't impact the performance of a post, just bear in mind how easy or difficult it is to read, and what looks neater. Just remember not to include any spaces or punctuation.

We recommend identifying some key hashtags at an early stage and then using them consistently, as well as being aware of 'trending' hashtags if you've got something useful to say about that topic. There are some helpful hashtag research tools that can help you identify popular and related hashtags.

Got any questions on hashtags or your social media marketing in general? Leave us a comment and we'll try and answer it.