Building a Useful Marketing Strategy For Your Accounting Firm

By Joe Kovacs, APR, Managing Director, Kovacs Communications

Accounting firm owners should be proud of their expertise. They have the qualifications, experience and record of client success to provide high-quality assurance, tax and advisory services. They know businesses and individuals can benefit from working with them. The only problem is … how do they let others know?

An effective marketing strategy attracts potential clients. But it is not a skill set familiar to many accountants and advisors.

A firm’s owner might ask, “What should marketing achieve? And how do we do it?”

Why Does Marketing Matter in Accounting?

First, it is a good idea to review all the benefits of the marketing function at an accounting firm. Not only does it help attract new business but it can also support various aspects of business success, such as:

Cultivating important industry relationships.
Supporting data-driven strategies for goal setting.
Retaining existing business.
Conducting market research.
Improving brand reputation.

In today’s environment of accelerated mergers and private equity investments, firms committed to staying independent or of creating a more attractive value proposition for a future buyer should intentionally demonstrate a successful growth-focused practice.

Where Should Marketing Planning Begin?

The first step for an accounting firm committed to marketing its expertise is to determine who will be responsible for driving the program. In a lot of firms, this could be a marketing coordinator, an administrative or operations professional or an internal committee of several team members. In some cases, a managing partner might handle the firm’s marketing directly in collaboration with an outsourced marketing professional or agency. Established firms have dedicated marketing teams.

The next step can be determined by answering three basic questions:

What are our revenue goals?
Who do we want to sell to and why do we think they will buy from us?.
What problems do our buyers face that we can solve?

The firm’s growth plan is often the foundation for marketing decision-making. Firms that don’t have established growth goals can start by evaluating their A, B, C and D clients (i.e. segment the current or potential value delivered by each client). They can use this data to determine best-fit client types and how to go to market.

The Challenging “Art of the Start”

The challenging part of marketing – even when you know your firm’s goals, is executing your plan with the right tactical considerations in mind. Decision-making in this area usually benefits from having real-world marketing experience. If you don’t already have an established marketing team, this experience can come from

Collaborating with a marketing consultant with experience in the accounting industry.
Educating a team member on strategic marketing through organizations such as the Association for Accounting Marketing.

Although marketing is important for every business, investing in an individual or group that has industry experience – rather than an agency that may serve multiple verticals, provides you with deep knowledge and an understanding of the industry’s culture, which can provide your firm with a capable partner.

How Can Marketing Planning Be Simple Yet Impactful?

Regardless of your choice to retain a marketing team – train a team member or outsource your firm’s marketing to a consultant or agency, it is important to know where your buyers get information about their business including solutions to the problems they need to solve. Some tactics, such as building a referral network, are essential across most practice groups, but others typically depend on the behavioral preferences of decision-makers and may include:

An informative and optimized website
A social media presence
Email marketing
Participation in industry groups
Speaking engagements
Advertising

As you decide which tactics you need to reach your target market consider:

What messages will attract decision-makers? The right message will offer the solution to a complex problem or offer a benefit for decision-makers.
What call to action will you provide? This lets decision- makers know how to act when they engage your message (for example: call the firm, download a resource from the firm’s website or sign up for a complimentary consultation).
How will your firm serve your customers? It’s not just enough to win new clients; it’s also crucial to provide satisfactory customer service so your clients become loyal and send future client opportunities your way.

The Importance of Measuring Results

A comprehensive marketing program provides valuable tools such as industry research capabilities or the ability to conduct competitor analysis which are valuable. However, if your goal is to launch a strategy sooner rather than later, your instincts and some basic planning processes such as building an ideal client profile and buyer personas, are good enough to get started.

Instead of getting too caught up in the outset of the process, start marketing your firm’s expertise as soon as you feel comfortable. Be aware that revenue is typically a lagging indicator and that you may not see new clients right away. Prospective clients need to get to know potential service providers first, and it takes ongoing visibility and time to build trust.

But you should measure some marketing tactics as early as possible such as:

Email: How many people open your emails and click through to your website
Social media: Are your social networks attracting more followers and connections? Are more people seeing your posts?
Website traffic: Are more people visiting your website over time? Are people downloading your guides and checklists?
Referral partners: Is your list of referral partners growing? Are they making referrals?

Eventually, as your prospective clients continue to engage with your marketing, they will become more comfortable with you, leading to potential engagements. The waiting period can feel uncomfortable and make you wonder if you are making the right decisions. It can take several months before the first opportunities present themselves and, sometimes even longer depending on the decision-making culture within some industries (i.e. it may be conversative), market conditions or other factors.

In Closing

Accounting leaders can occasionally be uncertain about how to deploy the marketing function within their firm due to a lack of knowledge, in-house experience and an overwhelming range of tactical options. Not knowing how to measure short- and long-term success and switching course too early when there are no immediate results can also complicate decision-making.

In its simplest form though, marketing recognizes the problems and needs of buyers, where to reach them and understands how to deliver effective value propositions in its messaging. There may be temptations to change tactics along the way, but by measuring the engagement data along the way you will have a good indication of whether you have made the right decisions. Sometimes, more patience is all that is needed.

An accounting firm that has the discipline to market its expertise the right way should eventually be pleased and benefit from new client work.