Highlights from Hinge Research Institute High Growth Study 2020: All Professional Services Edition Executive Summary
More than 1,000 professional services firms from organizations across six continents participated in this study designed to shed light on what drives extraordinary growth in professional services organizations. The participating firms represent all types of professional services with a wide range of firm sizes. Participants have over 70 billion dollars in combined revenues and employ more than one million combined full-time staff.
Noteworthy Findings
- Overall growth was seen across the professional services industries over the five years studied.
- Software and technology companies saw the highest rates of growth.
- The professional services marketplace is in the middle of a digital transformation as digital marketing is increasing across the industries.
- The industries demonstrated a systematic relationship between annual growth rates and the proportion of leads coming from online sources. Specific marketing tactics employed included: social media networking, email marketing, blogging, webinars, case stories, and SEO.
- Frequent research into target markets with the purpose of informing branding strategy and marketing strategy gives the highest growth companies a significant growth advantage. It’s advantageous for companies to research issues and topics relevant to their target markets because it can provide high-value marketing content while positioning the firm as “thought leader.”
- The highest growth firms were 75% more likely to have a visible expert on staff than their low growth competitors.
By comparing your marketing practices to those of high performers, you can start modeling your marketing to the fastest growing and most profitable firms in the world.