- Accountants in a traditional firm with a strong word-of-mouth referral network. The purpose of a website is to showcase their firm and they need a professional online presence.
- Accountants setting up their own practice. They need a website that can help generate leads to grow their client base as quickly as possible.
The accounting industry is certainly undergoing rapid transformation, and becoming more competitive.
A website and a digital marketing strategy can take you beyond geographical borders, and conversations with both groups of accountants come back to discussions around the importance of content marketing.
Simply put, content marketing is where a business creates content that’s designed to attract and engage with a target audience. It’s this content that can form the basis of your digital marketing strategy.
Websites
To begin with, it’s a good idea to regularly take stock of your online presence. Your website should help show your personality and help your firm stand out. Your unique point of di fference needs be clearly stated. Make sure your website showcases your brand to the best advantage and that you can easily capture leads for new clients making enquiries.
Consider how e ffective ‘calls to action’ on your homepage are for encouraging engagement, and make sure you check that your content is fresh and up to date as well. Regularly updating your website is great for SEO (search engine optimisation) purposes, and also helps to position you as an industry leader if you regularly provide updates on industry-relevant topics.
You only get one chance to make a first impression. Your website will often be viewed on a mobile device, so being mobile-friendly is a must. Then consider the visual appeal of your site, how easy it is to navigate, and the way your content is written. From there, you’re ready to put together your digital marketing strategy.
Marketing is simply communication
Some of the accountants we talk with just find the whole idea of ‘selling’ their services and products quite daunting. We hear comments like:
- “I don’t have the time”
- “I’m good at numbers, not words”
- “I tried for a few months, but nothing
really happened”
Marketing is about communication – communicating the value of your brand, your products and services. It’s also about communicating your passion for who you are and what you do. Industry leaders are also generous with sharing their expertise, giving rise to the catchphrase ‘education is the new marketing’.
If you can write a regular blog post about a subject of interest to you, or industry trends, that can be a really good place to start. Find your voice.
eNewsletters
As you start to build your database, consider ways you can add value to your current clients on a regular basis.
We recommend integrating your website with Xero Practice Manager, for example, for automatic synchronisation of your contacts. You can set up market segmentation to get targeted email content to different industries.
The key is regularity – if you can touch base with your clients on at least a quarterly basis to provide value, you’ll be front of mind for those referrals, too.
Social media
Social media is an effective way to expand your referral network. Many accountants we speak with are just beginning to explore social media options to find out what works best for them. LinkedIn, as a professional network, is a great place to start. Set up both your personal profile and a company page; you
can also join relevant groups and contribute to discussions. When you write that blog post on your website, you can then post the blog’s link on LinkedIn. It’s a great way to connect with your network and start to build your reputation as an industry expert.
Find out where your potential clients are. A Facebook company page can work well, especially if you encourage current clients to ‘Like’ your page.
Give Twitter a go – before you know it you’ll be hooked. The very best thing about Twitter is the hashtag, which connects you to a topic. If you are at an industry event for example, you can have an instant connection to all participants, connected by the #hashtag. Take a look at #Xerocon and you’ll see some interesting conversations!
Using a hashtag in your tweet can also get your comments out to a wider audience; link back to your website and that blog post you wrote and you’ll start to see the power of social media. You can get down
with Google Plus and get your teeth into Instagram or Pinterest, among others, if these help reach your clients.
The key is to commit time each week to some social media activity. Then set up a process via services such as Dlvr.It for automatic posting of your content straight out to your chosen channels, and start driving traffic to your website.
Benchmarking
Test and measure as you go to see what works best for your accountancy practice. Start with Google Analytics, and if you really want to dig deep you can set up custom URLs for each social media channel.
Analytics are freely available, either directly for each channel, or as an overview if you use Hootsuite or similar for bulk scheduling and posting. It can be very interesting to see your most effective blog post titles, or most popular tweets. And that gives you confidence to focus your efforts.
Make a start on actively marketing your business, and persevere!
