Advising clients may be your main responsibility, but it’s not your only one. You also need to source said clients. Effective marketing for accountants is key to landing clients and growing your firm. So, do you know how to market an accounting firm?
Marketing for accountants: 5 Strategies
Looking for low-cost marketing strategies for accounting firms? Or, do you want to create an accounting firm marketing plan that won’t take up all your time? There’s something for everybody.
Accounting firm marketing strategies include:
- Paid advertising
- Blogging
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing
- Word-of-mouth marketing
1. Paid advertising
If you have the budget, your marketing plan for accounting firm may involve paid advertising. Under a paid advertising strategy, you purchase advertisements. Paid advertising generally refers to digital (aka PPC) ads, but it may also include newspaper and TV ads. In short, paid advertising requires an upfront investment.
PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, is a strategy where advertisers bid for ad space and pay when someone clicks an ad. You can run PPC ads on search engines (e.g., Google) or social media.
Consider the ads at the top of a Google search result. Normally, you may see anywhere from two to five ads at the top of your search results. These are PPC ads. When you click on one, the advertiser owes the publisher.
So, just how good is pay-per-click advertising? PPC advertising for accountants could give you an up to 200% ROI rate. Not to mention, 79% of marketers say PPC provides a huge boost to business.
If you decide to include a PPC plan as part or all of your marketing for accounting firms strategy, you could bid for keywords such as:
- “Accountant near me”
- “Accounting firms”
- “Accounting firms in [city]”
Oh. And one more pretty big thing to consider with PPC advertising: You need a strong website. That way, people who click on your ad can learn more about your accounting services.
2. Blogging
Once you get your accounting or bookkeeping business website up and running, you can introduce an additional element to your marketing for accountants plan. A blog.
Not convinced? Companies with blogs produce an average of 67% more leads each month than companies without them. And, 70% of people prefer learning about a business through articles over advertisements.
Having a blog on your firm’s website comes with numerous benefits, such as:
- Getting your pages to rank in search engines
- Increasing brand awareness
- Educating current and potential clients on interesting topics
- Sourcing new clients
So, how do you make your blog work for you? You can make your blog work for you by following a publishing schedule, optimizing your articles with relevant keywords, and including a call to action (CTA) in each article. CTAs could include free consultations, whitepapers, or subscriptions to an email newsletter. This brings us to…
3. Email marketing
Email marketing is another strategy you can use to keep in touch with leads. In fact, 79% of B2C marketers use email to share new content.
Through email marketing, you can build brand awareness as well as secure, nurture, and convert leads. So, how does it work? After collecting email addresses from leads, you can keep in touch with them by sending them reminders about your services, coupons, new articles, or other events.
And to collect email addresses, you can include forms on your website or in the office that ask for emails. Again, you may offer things like free consultations, whitepapers, or newsletters in exchange for a lead’s email address.
For effective email marketing, follow best practices such as:
- Writing attention-grabbing subject lines
- A/B testing your emails
- Keeping emails short
- Including a call to action in each email
When it comes to marketing accounting services, email can be a great strategy to stay in front of both current and potential clients. Not to mention, you can use it to upsell and cross-sell services (e.g., payroll services) to your current client base.
4. Social media marketing
Ready to take selling accounting services social? With social media marketing, you can. Billions (4.62 billion as of January 2022, to be exact) of people worldwide use social media. By signing up for social media accounts for your accounting firm, you can get your services in front of social media users.
You can use social media to promote services, articles, or news updates. Want to do a little paid advertising on social? You can do that, too. With paid advertising on social media, you can buy advertisements that target a specific audience (e.g., business owners).
So, what social media platforms should you use when marketing bookkeeping services? You may consider common channels including:
Optimize your social media accounts by adding your address, email address, and phone number; list of services; and business website. You should also include your mission statement and any other selling points of your firm.
5. Word-of-mouth marketing
Digital marketing for accountants is a fantastic way to build a client base and collect leads. But at the end of the day, your current clients can be an integral part of your marketing plan. How so? Through word-of-mouth marketing.
Word-of-mouth marketing (WOM or WOMM) is a strategy where you can encourage clients to positively talk about your firm. Through WOM, you may see increased brand awareness and new client signups.
To get your word-of-mouth marketing plan up and running, you can:
- Create a loyalty program to get clients talking
- Start a refer-a-friend program and give clients incentives such as service discounts, a free additional service, etc.
- Give gift cards to clients who leave you reviews (e.g., Google, social media, etc.)
Best practices on how to market accounting services
Now that we’ve covered some of the top marketing strategies for accounting firms, you may be ready to implement them.
Best practices on how to sell accounting services include:
- Deciding what strategies to pursue (e.g., social media marketing)
- Putting together a detailed plan
- Setting a budget
- Measuring how effective your marketing efforts are
Measuring your efforts is a key part of your marketing strategy. That way, you can adjust your accountant marketing plan to remove what’s not working and boost what is.
This is not intended as legal advice; for more information, please click here.