Digital marketing is the perfect marketing method for accountants.
When you are marketing services, especially one as important as accountancy, it is important to establish trust in the client’s mind. They need to have confidence that you have the competency they are looking for.
Digital marketing works best when you are offering something of value and offering something of value, in turn, builds the trust that you need.
What are the aims of digital marketing for accountants?
In truth there are really two big issues for accountancy practices that want to consolidate and then grow their business.
The first is retaining the clients they already have and the second is acquiring new clients.
Smart use of digital marketing can form the cornerstone of both acquisition and retention strategies and won’t cost a fortune.
How digital marketing can help acquire clients for accountants
We know having a great accountant can make a massive difference to clients and the benefit, in my opinion is even more pronounced in the early days of a business.
The problem is that convincing people of the value can be hard, especially when money is tight.
This is where marketing comes in, because whatever stage a company is at in its life cycle, producing valuable and convincing content puts you in the box seats when it comes to signing up a new client.
The starting point is in developing a good website. Note that I said a ‘good’ website.
Frankly, from my point of view, most accountancy websites are pretty awful and to be ahead of the game all you need to do is to have a website that does just what it needs to.
It doesn’t need to have loads of animations and funky designs but it does need to have clear navigation, to look as good on a mobile as on a PC and it needs to have GREAT content because that’s what people are looking for.
This is the centre point of digital marketing, producing useful content that answers the questions that people ask.
Good blog articles, video explainers, podcasts and case studies are really good way to convert lurkers into new clients because they engender that confidence that people need to entrust their business to you.
If you have money to spend on marketing then why not produce a white paper or eBook and promote it to your target market? At the very least it will increase your mailing list but it will also bring in clients that will pay back the investment many times over.
Retaining clients with content
There’s a saying that there’s nothing new in the world and it’s certainly true in terms of marketing.
What has changed though is the method of delivery.
I’ve got to say that any accountancy practice that doesn’t distribute a budget update for its clients or doesn’t have a resources area on its website where they can get information doesn’t deserve to have clients at all.
Newsletters take a bit of time to put together but are an excellent way of producing a feeling of community which leads to increased retention.
A simple client directory listing area where you showcase what people do so that other clients can buy from them is a very cheap method of adding value to your offer that people really like.
A quarterly podcast doesn’t cost a lot but again shows people that you care about them and that they are getting value for their fees.
Want a free guide to content marketing written especially for accountants? Click the image for more information
How much will it cost?
This really depends on what you do and who does it.
If you don’t want to get involved but you want a decent marketing campaign then you are probably looking in the region of £1,000 upwards per month.
If however you are able to produce content yourself or if you just want to add fresh content to your site every week then you are probably looking at £50 per week.
The point is that you can scale your marketing effort to your budget and by putting in a little effort you can produce big results.
How I can help
I’m an expert professional services writer.
I can help you with SEO, blogs, eBooks, White papers and digital marketing designed to gain, retain and delight your clients.
Mail me and we’ll have a chat about how I can help.