Reaching high, consistent growth and developing a standout brand in the professional services landscape requires more than excellent service; it demands intentional and effective marketing. The key to understanding what drives success lies in studying the behavior of top performers.
Grounded in findings from Hinge’s landmark annual 2025 High Growth Study, these awards recognize firms embodying the strategies of the fastest-growing professional services organizations. Our research, which defines high-growth as an annual, compound rate of growth of at least 20% over three years, reveals that these firms grow four times faster and are up to 30% more profitable, offering a clear model for successful tactics and channels.
On a recent episode of Hinge’s Spiraling Up podcast, our hosts recognized exceptional examples of high-growth marketing by presenting five Marketing Superlative Awards to various organizations.
It’s invaluable to see real-world examples of organizations excelling in key marketing areas. The team highlighted why these organizations set a high bar for the industry.
Black Hole Award: Gartner (Thought Leadership)
Thought leadership is not merely a buzzword; it is consistently one of the top marketing priorities for high-growth organizations. Producing educational content is paramount for exposing expertise to new audiences and building trust over time. In a crowded marketplace where differentiation is a constant challenge, insightful content helps buyers notice, remember, and ultimately prefer your business, offering a significant advantage over competitors. High-growth firms prioritize creating content to accelerate their growth and expansion.
This award goes to Gartner for its unparalleled ability to draw you into its content ecosystem. They possess exceptional content development capabilities, consistently producing a seemingly endless array of guides, blog posts, and events.
Their sophisticated marketing automation system, which delivers high-quality content tailored to each user, sets them apart from others. While large budgets, such as Gartner’s, make these marketing strategies accessible, their success highlights the power of personalized content—a goal that all should strive to achieve.
Even with a smaller budget, companies should model their efforts after this approach, recognizing that strategic marketing is tantamount to achieving high growth.
Talent Magnet Award: Burns & McDonnell (Employer Branding)
Attracting top talent is a massive hurdle for professional services firms, as our research consistently reveals. High-growth firms are 150% more likely to achieve the highest level of digital maturity, enabling them to invest in sophisticated employer branding and robust online presences. In competitive industries like engineering, where attracting both new and experienced talent is challenging, developing a strong employer brand is becoming increasingly essential. High-growth firms understand that how they present themselves to prospective employees on their website directly impacts their ability to win the “war for top talent.”
What’s the best way to accomplish that?
Burns & McDonnell earns the “Talent Magnet” superlative for their exceptional employer branding featured across their website. A great example of this can be found on their careers page which effectively draws in candidates at every stage of their professional lives. This is accomplished via authentic employee testimonials, an extensive FAQ, and thorough details about their application, interview, and training processes. Additionally, Burns & McDonnell doesn’t shy away from prominently displaying their many accolades. Awards such as “Healthiest 100 Workplaces in America” and “Top 50 Employers in Woman Engineer” are easily found across messaging and visual features.
Their commitment to integrating HR and marketing is evident in their robust applicant tracking system, showcasing a strong model for attracting and nurturing a robust talent pipeline that directly supports long-term growth.
Acquisition Amplification Award: Akima (Digital Marketing Integration)
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are a significant component of growth strategies for many professional services firms. However, they often present complex digital integration challenges, frequently resulting in poorly managed online presences. Successfully merging digital assets, especially websites and content, is crucial to retaining brand equity, maintaining search visibility, and presenting a unified front to clients and prospects. Data shows that top companies invest heavily in marketing, understanding that seamless digital integration is vital for maximizing the return on M&A investments.
The Acquisition Amplification Award goes to the company that most elegantly handles the digital integration of its acquisitions. Our recipient is Akima, a major government contractor. Akima seamlessly integrates acquired companies into its main website through dedicated subpages. For example, their “RiverTech, an Akima company” page maintains the acquired brand’s equity and keyword viability while signaling its place under the Akima umbrella.
This strategy successfully generates significant branded traffic for individual operating companies, amplifying Akima’s overall market presence and demonstrating a digitally mature approach to growth.
People Powered Firm Award: Maxwell Locke & Ritter (Showcasing People & Culture)
Professional services are fundamentally a people business; personal referrals remain a top source of new business, and buyers consistently seek out trusted subject matter experts. Our High Growth Study confirms that developing thought leaders (Visible Experts®) is a top priority. Organizations that effectively present their people and values online are more likely to build the trust and recognition essential for sustained growth, which directly impacts new client acquisition and team morale.
Many professional services groups struggle to showcase their culture and people online. However, Maxwell Locke & Ritter (ML&R), a regional accounting firm based in Texas, excels in this very department. Their website boasts exceptional visual and narrative integration, which strongly aligns with their core values of respect, inclusion, solidarity, and empowerment.
They prominently highlight community engagement and dedicate specific pages to “Culture” and “Community Involvement.” Given this, it’s not surprising that ML&R’s expert bios are impressively robust and integrated directly into service pages. This key detail offers personal touches, professional insights, and details about their contributions. Their firm’s experts are visible and relatable, allowing ML&R to stand out from the increasingly competitive accounting and advisory marketplace.
Legacy of Excellence Award: Thiel & Team (Demonstrating Past Performance)
Hinge’s ongoing research initiative on buying behavior across professional services has consistently shown that past performance is arguably the most crucial factor when a decision is being made on who to work with. Organizations that regularly do research have a competitive advantage in understanding precisely what past performance data resonates most with their target buyers. For industries such as architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC), a compelling project portfolio is essential; it can be leveraged as a powerful business development tool to secure new clients and drive premium fees.
Our final award goes to Thiel & Team, a boutique interior design, architecture, and procurement firm, for their exemplary demonstration of past performance. While many AEC groups limit their project portfolios to basic visuals, Thiel & Team has made a significant investment in integrating high-quality photography, video, and in-depth storytelling throughout their award-winning brand for each project. Thiel & Team demonstrate that with intentional website development efforts, even small businesses can build an eye-catching project portfolio.
The successful restoration of landmarks like the historic Baker Hotel and Spa serves as a compelling and clear demonstration of their expertise, offering visual evidence of their accomplishments.
Next Steps
We hope these insights and examples from standout firms inspire you and provide you with new marketing strategies to try. Remember, High-Growth firms produce superior performance year after year for a reason: they discover what works and what doesn’t. You can start emulating them and build a marketing program that works more efficiently, with less guesswork.
For deeper insights into what the fastest-growing professional services firms are doing, download the latest edition of our High Growth Study here.
