Content marketing creates quality experiences, that can delight and engage a prospect and enable them to smoothly transition along the buyers journey.
An accounting practice can attract and delight a prospect through education based marketing and authority building, enriching experiences and building trust.
However, the problem that still lies with content marketing is that whilst consumers want education based marketing, the firms themselves have not necessarily approached it from a customer centric point of view, and in turn are providing a lacklustre content experience.
But in all forward-thinking firms, content is a job that needs to be taken seriously, and the content marketing strategy should be developed through process and not just regurgitated facts and figures that many firms are using.
Content-driven marketing is the differentiating factor that should be driving your firms success, and should be approached strategically, rather than as an add on.
For many firms, it is the knowledge barrier that stops you from being a super powerful content marketer. Knowledge on where to start, what to write and how often to write.
One marketing firm will say don’t post too often, another will say post an update on social media every hour of every day and write a blog every day.
This contradiction of advice can lead to overwhelm and procrastination. Dare I say it will also lead you to giving excuses as to why you are not going to do it.
Which is why I have written this article. To help your firm transform its content marketing operations, from a confused and underperforming content marketer, to an accounting firm that capitalises on the benefit of content based engagement.
Content Marketing Thrives On The Compound Effect
Like the interest earned in your bank account, the returns on your content marketing significantly grow over time.
“Content is one of the few forms of marketing that has a compounding return.”
Tomasz Tunguz, a former Google product manager has confirmed.
What this means is that unlike winning the lottery you won’t win overnight. Content marketing is a long game, a long-term investment with substantial returns over time.
As long as you provide useful, quality content, visitors will go to your website, your LinkedIn profile, follow you on Twitter and share your content on Facebook. And the number of visitors to a blog post grows over time. Which is why you need to create evergreen content, and not just write about the latest budget updates.
So Where Do You Start With Your Content?
First of all you need to understand the answers to these questions:
What Business Goals Do We Want The Content To Help Us Achieve?
You have to start with the end in mind. It is easy to start writing and just make noise. What is not as easy is planning from your end goals back to the present day. Always start with the end in mind, and create content to nurture prospects to that end.
- Do you want to ATTRACT more prospects?
- Do you want to CONVERT prospects into hot leads?
- Do you want to CLOSE more hot leads into clients?
- Do you want to DELIGHT your clients so that they stay with you for longer, and refer you?
Who Does Our Content Need To Be In Front Of To Reach These Goals?
Remember not all your content marketing is going to be about getting new clients. If you goal is to keep clients longer you will need to create content that delights your current clients. This content could be in the form of blogs/videos or it could be in the form of events and webinars that you run specifically just for your clients.
What Does This Person Want/Need?
Once we understand WHO our content needs to reach then we need to build out a buyers persona/client persona that we are creating content for. Ideally your content needs to be crafted for one person only.
- WHO is the persona? What traits characterise them?
- WHAT roles do they play? What does their typical day look like?
- WHERE is there a gap in their needs/wants (beyond your products/services)?
- WHEN do they need to close this gap (i.e., where are they in the customer journey)?
- WHY would they care about you, as a company (aside from your service)?
What Will You Sound Like?
Once you understand the ideal audience that you need to be in front of, you need to create content for them. This content needs to sit in line with your overall company “voice”. For example, if you are a young and dynamic team, then is your voice young and dynamic? Or, if you are a young team are you ensuring your “voice” gives off an air of sophistication and deep trust?
Once you understand how you want to be perceived you can then start to form the content around this. Don’t forget the basics too…
Do you use emojis in your content, or swear in your videos?
When you are presenting a webinar what language is the language you will be using?
All of this needs to be thought out and documented so that you can ensure your team are all “singing off the same hymn sheet” and most importantly having a strong aligned brand image.
What Will You Write?
Surprisingly this is the least important of all factors when you are starting out. What you write is not as important as who you write for or how you will sound. If you have got those foundations in place the “what” becomes easy.
The “what” is all about answering the right questions at the right time that your ideal client needs them answering. For example, if your ideal client is a property investor and their number one priority is saving tax, the content that you create needs to be around this point.
If your ideal client is a start-up business then the questions they will be asking are possibly: “Should I be a limited company?” and, “How do I put my spare room (AKA office) as a monthly saving?”.
All of a sudden, when you understand your ideal client, content ideas can naturally flow.
Where/How Often Will You Post The Content?
If you don’t have a written plan of where and how often you will post content then you will end up being inconsistent. You need to have a plan and work the plan.
Which channels will you use? For example:
- Your website/blog
- Guest blogging
- Social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram)
- Podcasts
- YouTube
- Webinars
- Live Events
How often will we get the content out?
- We will post on LinkedIn ___________ times a week
- We will get __________ number of guest blogs a month
- We will write ___________ number of blogs a week
- We will interview __________ number of experts a month for our podcast
When you know what you need to do, you can get busy doing.
Conclusion
Like any successful undertaking, content marketing requires some advanced thought and planning in order to achieve the best results. But, ensuring you have covered the steps above you will be well on your way to having a documented scalable strategy, and a plan to put it into play.
To download our ebook and get a list of 100 marketing ideas for your accounting practice click here for the 100 Ways To Market Your Accounting Firm
What do we do at TwentyTwo?
At TwentyTwo Agency we specialise in helping you create a strategy, attract ideal prospects, convert them into clients and get remembered and referred. Our specialities include content marketing, blog writing, email newsletter management and social media management. We are a content marketing and digital experience agency for accounting firms. We ensure you get remembered, recommended and referred.
To find out if we can help you, reach out to our team by emailing [email protected]
