As a decision maker in a business, you’ll often have to weigh up the costs, benefits and potential return on investment for new ventures like marketing. It can be difficult to know whether or not it’s worth it, especially if it’s something you’re not particularly experienced with. In this blog, Wildcat Digital’s marketing experts take you through why marketing is so valuable to accounting firms.
So, do accountants need marketing? Marketing is an important part of business for accountants in the modern world as it is becoming increasingly simple for clients to switch companies. Clients have more choice and power now, therefore you need to ensure that your business can:
Read on to learn more about the importance of marketing for accountants. We also provide you with a few great marketing strategies tailored specifically for your industry.
Once upon a time, accounting used to be a fairly stable profession. Clients were plentiful and tended to stick around. Afterall, switching accountants can be complex and expensive. These days, however, it’s much easier to shop around and switch. This gives more choice and power to the client. As such, you need to get your business out there and into the client’s choice set. This requires a good marketing strategy.
Additionally, accountants need to promote a sense of experience, expertise, authority and trust (this is known as E-E-A-T in digital marketing). It’s the kind of industry where simply being seen isn’t enough. You need to prove to potential clients that you’re trustworthy, experienced, and that they’re in good hands with your business. Some clients may also want expertise in a particular area of accounting. Marketing can help you to position yourself however you want to be perceived in order to win over clients.
The bottom line is that, without marketing, accountants simply can’t compete in the modern age unless they are a well established firm. Plus, you have the added challenge of having to compete online. These days, the internet is King. It’s where potential clients seek out business like yours – gone are the days of the Yellow Pages.
So, if marketing is necessary for accountants and the internet is King, how do you market as an accountant? Our experts have laid out their top marketing strategies below, specifically tailored for accountants.
First things first, if you want to compete online, you need to work on your website. It needs to be set up so that it can be found online. This is called SEO. From here, there’s a few digital marketing techniques that we find work really well for accountancy firms.
In the world of accounting, “Cash in King”. However, in SEO “Content is King”. Recent Google algorithm updates now prioritise website content that is well written, helpful and trustworthy. It rewards websites that are written for people rather than search engines.
As such, creating a solid content marketing strategy could be the difference between potential clients choosing your business over your competitors. Good content can help with SEO, brand awareness, lead generation, conversions and customer retention.
It can also help to influence perceptions – remember what we said earlier about experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness? This is where it counts.
If you’re keen to explore Content SEO, our team at Wildcat Digital is ready to fight in your corner. With an experienced team of SEO experts, content specialists and attentive account managers, we can generate and implement an effective Content SEO strategy to help draw in clients.
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is a great way of getting users on to your website. It’s relatively quicker than SEO, but like the name suggests, you pay a fee each time someone clicks on your ad.
PPC tends to achieve quicker results than SEO but it’s not without trial and error. It can take a bit of time (and experience!) to find that sweet spot of cost per click vs. return on investment. Wildcat Digital offers a PPC service that can help accountancy firms draw more traffic to their website’s and gain more genuine leads. To start the conversation and discover how Wildcat Digital can help you reach your target audience, contact us today.
When trying to gain new clients through marketing, it can be easy to forget about your existing clients. As a service-based business, we recommend focussing on your customer experience here. The experience that your clients have with you have a large impact on your brand, your reputation, customer loyalty, retention and advocacy. Ultimately, their experience with your business can influence word of mouth and referrals.
Unfortunately, improving customer experience is not a quick or easy process. You’ll need to work on the following:
If your business has a great customer experience you can capitalise on this with a referral scheme. Existing clients are incentivised to refer you to others in the network with benefits such as discounted services or monetary incentives.
By now, you’ll hopefully have a better understanding of why marketing is so useful for accountants. We understand how overwhelming starting your marketing journey is, so don’t panic if you don’t know where to start or how to implement our recommendations. At Wildcat Digital, we can help with solid SEO and PPC campaigns that (literally) put you on the map. Get in touch with us today for a free consultation.
Content Strategist & Team Leader
