This month I’m really pleased to be speaking to Michéle Quinn, Director of Marketing & Communications at McCann FitzGerald LLP, one of Ireland’s premier law firms. Michéle has a long professional services marketing career where she has held senior marketing roles at firms such as EY and Inizio Advisory.
Here’s her 5 minutes with…
Michéle, let’s start by you sharing with our readers what your role at McCann FitzGerald involves on a day-to-day basis?
“It’s always quite varied which I love, mostly because it’s a Partner led firm so I have lots of different stakeholders to engage with. It’s often a mixture of strategic initiatives like planning campaigns, or firming up flagship events, or more tactically it’s typically reviewing things with the team from design, to a press release or social comms, or meeting with some of the Partners or other functional colleagues.”
Professional services marketers often face the challenge of getting senior stakeholders to buy into bold and creative campaigns. How have you approached, and overcome, that challenge?
“I always approach it from a client/ buyer perspective and think about what they are looking for and what messages would resonate with them. Additionally it’s starting with the end in mind and communicating how this campaign will help achieve the specific business objectives, and bring them on the journey with you.”
You’ve worked in professional services marketing for many years. What do you enjoy most about this sector
“I have indeed and I love B2B & professional services. In particular, I love its strategic nature. It’s all about building trust and demonstrating expertise. You have to understand the nuances of a service, the specific challenges clients face, and how your firm’s unique capabilities can solve them. This requires a deep, thoughtful approach to marketing across all the touch points to connect you to the client or prospect.
It’s also the direct impact of the work that is incredibly rewarding. This is more evident in recent years when there’s been more focus on lead and demand generation. You get to see how your marketing efforts directly contributes to significant outcomes for both the firm and its clients.
Finally, I love the focus on building long-term relationships. Professional services is all about trust and credibility. To be successful in this sector you have to nurture relationships over time. This makes the work more about, thought leadership building a reputation and being recognised as visible experts, which I find extremely satisfying.”
Over your career, what have been the biggest changes you’ve seen in professional services marketing, and how have you adapted?
“The two major changes I’ve seen are a much bigger focus on data-driven marketing based decisions and also marketing as a function being much more strategic and having a place at the leadership table. It’s been a natural adaptation as I’ve just always tried to keep up to date with global industry best practice and what leadership needs from marketing. By being data-driven and demonstrating ROI and value add from marketing-led initiatives in turn earns the function a place at the leadership table as a growth contributor to the business.”
How do you think today’s buyer journey has changed, and what does that mean for how you approach marketing?
“The buyer journey in professional services has become more personalised to the clients needs and based on trust, with more stakeholders involved in the buying decision. It means we always need to be thinking of the state of the journey the buyer and influencers are at, as well as what their needs and problems are – and always approach your marketing from those perspectives.”
Looking ahead, what do you think will shape the future of professional services marketing over the next five years?
“I think it will continue to be more client and relationship centric. It will be built on trust with relevant educational content helping buyers and influencers make their decisions. It would be remiss not to accept that AI will play a much bigger role in professional services marketing.”
As you say, AI is a much-discussed topic right now. Do you see AI as a positive or negative force in supporting marketing within professional services?
“Personally I think it’s more of a positive force with a range of benefits. However, the human always needs to remain in the driving seat and power the thoughts and decisions, using AI as a powerful accelerator and supporter.”
There’s a lot of talk about marketing measurement. If you could only track three KPIs, which would you choose and why?
“Marketing-Attributed Revenue and Pipeline Contribution. It’s the big one to track the overall value and ROI we are contributing to the firm’s growth.
Engagement in our thought leadership content by our clients and prospects. It’s a critical metric to track reputation as a leading authority in the areas of important to these audience.
The attendance of our top clients and targets in marketing related client engagement initiatives such as webinars, events and hospitality. Why? As clients and prospect relationships are so critical, it’s a big part of marketing’s role to help nurture these important relationships.”
What do you see as the most underrated skill for a marketing leader in professional services today?
“The ability to ask the right questions and challenge things – particularly ‘why?’ and what’s the benefit of doing this from a client perspective?”
What’s the best piece of marketing advice you’ve ever been given, and how has it shaped your approach?
“Focus on building the optimum team… not what you have, but one that can deliver what your leadership team needs from your function.”
Finally, what one piece of advice would you give to an ambitious marketer looking to step into their first leadership role?
“Visualise what you want to feel like as the most confident version of you, or someone you respect professionally and “act as if…”