First, we like to focus on accountant specific digital marketing strategies that actually work in 2020, and will continue to be profitable in the foreseeable future. We begin the initial process with a digital audit starting with:
1. Your Firm’s Website
Your website is the foundation for your entire digital marketing strategy, so naturally this is the first place you start. This is where you should be capturing incoming leads and forming new relationships.
Yes, the aesthetics of you website might be great but you also need a comparable strategic strategy as well. Does your website have a strategy guidelines? Are website changes well thought out or do they get made on a whim ? Are you a small firm in dire need of an optimized website with an updated look and mobile capabilities?
Take some time to get strategic with your website and align it with your firm’s objectives.
- Are you looking to break into a new niche? What offers can you develop to generate leads?
- Is your team capable of handling an influx of leads? Do you have systems in place?
- Map out a call to action on an individual page basis focus on your ideal clients' pain points
2. Content Marketing
Content marketing is a buzzword that most firms are familiar with, but the biggest issues you'll face is with implementing a successful and sustainable strategy. As the name implies, content marketing is focused on creating relevant content for your CPA firm; such as beneficial new tax laws, valuable IRS updates, and smart calculators. Please do not underestimate the importance of a good content strategy - the more engaging the better! The old school methods such as referrals still make up a good bulk of new business but a recent study by Hinge determined over 50% of referrals rule a firm out without ever reaching out.
There are a plethora of firms cranking out blog content and not seeing results. Why? Most firms aren’t creating the right kind of content with the right mix. Your prospects are looking for meaningful, insightful, and extremely valuable content that answers their questions or solves a problem. Don't get stuck creating "boring" tax updates that don't provide any value.
Here’s what you can do:
- Create a valuable foundation asset. Think about this initial strategy as a foundational piece; content should be no less than 2,000 words and the top should showcase your firm’s in depth knowledge. This strategy will serve as your inspiration for creating content in the coming months. Most firms struggle with content creation because they don’t have a source to draw inspiration from - this hack will solve that problem while giving you real content inspiration for months.
- Now with your foundation asset created, you will have the ability to spin off your content into smaller, relevant topics that will keep you TOP OF MIND with you prospects and clients. This content should include blog posts, infographics, FAQs, Webinars, in-depth articles, emails, promos, etc!
- 1 foundational asset every 6 months
- 3-5 blog posts per month
- 25-50 social media posts per month
- 1-2 webinars per quarter
- 1 infographic per month
- 1-2 case studies per quarter
Yes, this looks like a massive commitment, but that's what you have me for! My team will take care of all of the above so that you can focus on growing your business! Firms that commit to this strategy alone see over 200% increase in firm visibility.
3. SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is arguably the most important aspect of organically ranking and growing you firm's visibility. The goal is to tell Google the story of your page, this helps build trust and relevance within the search engine. The purpose is to make it easy for search engines to understand what each page is about and what keywords/phrases you want to be associated with.
Try some of these DIY hacks:
- Custom URLs that contain keywords are important, but they also help prospects on a search result page decide if they’re going to click your listing.
- Your page should contain an <h1> tag at the top of the page that informs prospects and Google what the page is about.
- Interlink your content together using anchored or buried text.
- Make sure your content is related to the page title and <h1> tag
Getting Started:
- Determine 3-5 topics or you want to focus on - this will help show the prospect your expertise.
- Build out your foundation topic page and supporting content around each page.
- Optimize your content for desktop, tablet, and most importantly mobile.
- Monitor the analytics and improve as necessary
4. Paid Search Marketing
Investing in Google Ads, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is still the most reliable ways to get your marketing message in front of qualified leads. What exactly is a qualified lead? This is a person that is ACTIVELY searching which signals they are further along in the buying cycle, or close to making a decision. By utilizing PPC advertising we can capture this "low hanging fruit" by positioning our paid ads at the top of the search results! I can assure you that majority of your competitors are not investing in the lucrative stream of REVENUE and that is a HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY! By utilizing paid search efficiently, you can start generating high quality leads that are relevant to your firm and have a higher probability of converting into clients! The most exciting part is that you can start doing this today. Google Ads can have quite the learning curve and there are so many advanced workflows that it can make your head explode.
In the meantime, you here are some ways that you can jump in and start increasing your visibility and revenue.
- Pick a service centered around a niche that you want to focus on. This helps you save money by keeping things focused.
- Build a landing page with a tool such as Leadpages (paid), Unbounce (paid), or Wix (free). This is extremely important, most companies just send their prospects to their homepage or a generic services page, HUGE MISTAKE. The human brain is very easily distracted online that's why ads and pop-ups are so powerful! You should spend time researching and customizing landing pages to really take advantage of your incoming traffic.
- Create a custom offer. You want to entice people to take action. Think beyond simple consultation to something of value, what else can your firm offer? A business plan review? Free bookkeeping review?
- Monitor, analyze, test, and repeat. The biggest mistake one can make is to employ the "set it and forget it” mindset. In order to cut down on wasted ad spend you must monitor your results and test new strategies such as: testing new ads, landing page, and calls to action!
Paid search is one of the best ways to bring in leads especially if your firm wants to experience MASSIVE growth. PPC also offers the opportunity for your firm to experiment with smaller investment. Want to test a new niche or service? Create a landing page and begin a PPC campaign to determine if there is any interest; this can help your firm decide if this new stream can be profitable.
5. Paid Social Media Marketing aka Facebook or Instagram Ads
Let's be honest most accounting firms are terrible at correctly leveraging social media. A recent study by Social CPAs found that only 20% of firms use social media, and only 50% of those tracked leads generated from social. Once again, this is a HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY!
In today's social media environment your target audience pretty much lives on social media and they’re using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn more than ever. The ability these platforms give you when it comes to creating hyper-targeted ads is second to none!
Many companies have found their sweet spot in the social media space by creating relevant ads that target your prospects down to industry, company size, revenue, location, income, and more!
Social media advertising is by far the MOST COST EFFICIENT marketing channel. I've literally run campaigns that have spent less than $85 in ad spend and netted over $1100 in sales after only 2 weeks! Leads can cost cents on the dollar when setup correctly compared to other paid avenues.
Try some of these social media strategies:
- Pick a network to start with. We recommend either Facebook for starters (you need to have a free business account to run ads - this only takes a few minutes)
- Pick you Goal. Brand Awareness, Lead Generation, Traffic, etc.
- Strategize for your ads content. Late stage offers, such as free consultation, do not have much success here so I wouldn't advise trying it here.
- Define your audience and make it as small as possible. A lot of firms target an audience that's too large i.e. 10k+ prospects is too broad. Don’t! The smaller you can make this the better and more targeted your ads are. Aim for an audience reach of 1,000 – 2,000.
- Leverage lead capture right on social media. Don't waste time setting up different landing pages here or send prospects to your website – Facebook and IG ads capture the user's information right on social media.
- Create a custom email campaign to begin nurturing the leads that enter your sales funnel!
#BeGreat #FocusOnTheMission
-TC