From Hunches to Hard Data

A billboard with artfully curated imagery, a clever strapline, and your firm’s logo in the corner. A laser-targeted digital campaign that buyers can’t seem to escape. Etching your firm’s name in bold type onto the local football stadium.

To most partners in professional services, these are baffling indulgences. None have heard of Byron Sharp or John Dawes, let alone taken a Mark Ritson course. Explaining the rationale for brand investment is less like herding cats and more like teaching them algebra.

And yet, the tide is turning. Professional services marketers are securing budgets for brand promotion that would once have been unthinkable. What’s the secret?

One such firm is Womble Bond Dickinson. Dale Gorley, Head of Marketing, has helped lead a transformation in the firm’s approach to brand and market positioning.

Gorley explains what’s different. “Before we shifted our strategy, our marketing was fragmented – highly regional, overly tactical and out of step with how clients actually buy. The breakthrough came when we recognised the reality of the 95–5 rule: that only about 5% of potential buyers are in-market at any given time. Growth comes from consistently appealing to a broad audience over time.”

The firm has undertaken a number of distinctive campaigns using new positioning with the accompanying ‘A Point of View Like No Other’ strapline with the aim of building deep memory structures and recall, tying together rational selection with emotive associations.

A key element in that transformation was the introduction of brand tracking. Gorley explains: “Rather than relying on opinions or assumptions about what clients thought, we now have solid, independent data that provides real clarity. These insights encouraged us to question long- held beliefs and brought clarity to purchasing decisions. It turned out that some of our client perceptions were markedly different from what we had believed.”

The investment in brand tracking was not immediately comfortable. “The first time we signed it off, I remember thinking ‘That’s an expensive project!’ But the intelligence we gained made us sit up. It’s been especially valuable to benchmark ourselves against our competitor set. Those comparisons have been strategically useful and help us understand how we can differentiate effectively.

Quarterly KPIs and annual brand tracking provide clarity on progress, showing how the firm is perceived by different sectors and decision- makers. It highlights the challenges the firm faces with specific audiences. Moreover, it also provides the confidence to tailor marketing messages and offerings to the needs and priorities of buyers.

Building a practical brand strategy

At HaysMac, Verity Gregson, Marketing and BD Director, has overseen a substantial refresh of the firm’s brand. While Chorus Insight undertook client feedback surveying to establish a baseline for brand perception and sentiment, she emphasises that tracking does not end at launch.

“You have to take time to understand how you are perceived in the market. If you develop a brand that doesn’t reflect the client experience, you’re setting yourself up to fail,” she warns. “We wanted our identity to be a true reflection of our people, our work, and our values. The market will quickly sense if it’s just an advertising facade.”

Along with a shortened firm name, Gregson’s team rolled out a new website and domainname – a decision that initially posed challenges in search visibility but soon turned into an advantage. “We’ve seen a huge increase in site visitors, dwell time and engagement,” she says. “LinkedIn followers have more than doubled, employees are sharing more content than ever, and we’ve already seen more inbound enquiries.”

Tracking is not just limited to quantitative metrics. “We monitor what resonates. For example, our brand pillars – ‘for business, for people, for good’ – each have visual identities that people across the firm have connected with in different ways. We’ve adapted based on what’s taken hold. A brand is a living thing.”

Funnel stage	Example third-party tracking	Example in-house tracking
Awareness	Unprompted brand recall Prompted brand awareness Specific campaign recall	Website visitors Share of search Social growth rates
Consideration	Brand consideration rate Perceived brand differentiation Unprompted brand recall Prompted brand awareness Specific campaign recall	Website engagement Pitch activity
Preference	Competitor preference ranking Category entry points	Client feedback Prospect debriefs
Purchase	Recent purchase activity Stated purchase intent	New matters Client referrals

Getting objective truths

Using internal data as well as external independent tracking makes sense because it’s not uncommon for internal surveys to only reflect what people hope to hear. Typically, partners overestimate awareness of their firm by a factor of three, and sometimes more, making independent tracking data essential.

Chorus Insight’s brand tracking service has emerged to meet this need. It gives firms independent evidence of their brand position by tracking awareness, consideration, preference and purchase intent across key buying audiences, sectors and regions. By surveying professional services buyers, firms obtain a clear view of marketing effectiveness which enables them to optimise future campaigns with forward-looking, actionable data.

As leading professional services firms are coming to appreciate, brand tracking is more than a marketing metric. It is the keyto unlocking sustained investment in brand building. It provides the hard numbers that leaders need to make informed decisions. In a market where only 5% of buyers are ready to act, the rest must be helped to remember. Brand tracking is how firms stop guessing where they stand and start getting recalled and then selected. Brand building is finally paying off.

Graham Archbold is the founder of Chorus Insight, a specialist market research consultancy that helps professional services firms improve client experience, brand perception and employee engagement.

This article was first published in PM Magazine [September/October 2025]. For further details, please visit www.pmforum.co.uk

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