What Marketing Should You Be Doing In Your Accounting Firm?

THE JOURNEY

If you have dabbled or embraced marketing already you will have heard of the marketing funnel. Now an out-dated term as marketing has become more about  your customers journey.

What is the journey you want them to take with you so that they can go from pain to solution?

THE MARKETING ROLE

The role of your marketing person/team should be to ensure the following:

POSITION your accounting practice firmly in the minds of your IDEAL prospects. It may be a scary word but think NICHE.
Build AUTHORITY as the go-to practice and/or expert. Building authority can be done through creating content and having a strong web presence. But it doesn’t stop there – if you can be a speaker at key industry events, have a podcast or run regular webinars you will prove you are an authority.

Create AUTOMATION so that you can easily ensure that you are regularly marketing your business in a way that does not take hours every day and leave you burnt out and frustrated.

Once you have your AUTOMATED marketing machine working, the next step is mastering sales conversations. Efficient sales conversations with qualified leads ensure you don’t waste time or effort.

The best way to ensure that your marketing and sales take minimum time with minimum effort is to run CAMPAIGNS – where every three months you have a focus to bring in new clients to your accounting firm.

EVENTS are underutilised and underestimated. The aim of marketing is to get leads, not just to make noise, and events are a fantastic way to get a group of your ideal clients together and show you are the authority.

But beware – your prospects are not as passionate about accounting as you are. They will bite your hand off if you can help them grow their business, so speak on business growth, not how to complete a tax return. One of the best series of events I have ever attended were by The WOW Company, they had guest speakers at the events and businesses learnt a lot. Then the accountancy spoke a little of how they could help, and started their customer journey.

Every day I get asked “Can you recommend an accountant”. Literally every day. My other business is helping start-ups hit their first six figures and every start up needs an accountant. How do I choose a great accountant – the one who is more than an accountant! How can you position your firm to be more than an accountancy?

TO GET LEADS AND PROSPECTS HERE ARE SOME MARKETING MUST-DO’S:

• Nurture your prospect database – make sure you are regularly in contact with them.
• Manage the client experience – use automation where possible to ensure that on boarding and care of new clients runs smoothly.
• Build your brand through brand images and colours, as well as ensuring that your mission and values are widely known and shared.
• Website management – ensure that the wording on the website is written for your prospects and is not written for an accountant. As a business we care about profit and loss, but we do not care how you get us more profit and less loss… show how you will look after us.
• Write articles for distribution across social media platforms, your website and guest platforms.
• Create press releases and build relationships with local and national press.
• Events – my favourite way for accountants to get clients – you need to run breakfast seminars, evening events, lunch and learns, webinars, conferences…
• Ensure that brochures and other marketing collateral are available to help solidify your brand. These brochures need to have a way to sign clients up.
• Ensure that a Client Attraction Map™ is being implemented and measured so a steady flow of leads are pouring into the business.
• Plan and run quarterly campaigns and focus on a content marketing rhythm…

The list above is what we call leveraged activities… Marketing is more than brand awareness – the best marketing also includes a way to sell.

Often marketing is done by anyone available in your accounting firm. For you to have real success you need a hired professional who knows what they are doing, or who can be taught the step by step systems for implementing the leveraged activities.

Awareness campaigns do not generate clients or make you money. You need to be able to measure your activities so you can do more of what is working. And cut out what isn’t.