As your firm strives to attract new clients, having a comprehensive marketing plan is an essential part of your success. Although it takes more work than merely launching a website and hoping for leads, marketing for accountants creates an average return on investment of over 300%!
The best channels for marketing for accountants will vary depending on your ideal client (we’ll talk more about this later), but in general, your strategy should include a mix of:
- A mobile-optimized, professional website
- Search Engine Optimization to help you rank on local Google searches
- Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to drive prospects to your website
- Pay-Per-Click advertising tailored to your location and designed to beat your competition .
- A social media strategy that portrays your firm as a helpful and valued resource
- Interesting marketing content (newsletters and blogs) to show off your firm’s expertise
Implementing these items will help you build brand recognition, stand out among your competition, and book new appointments—all while increasing the satisfaction of your current client base.
Building a Modern Accounting Website
In the early 1990s, an online presence was not critical. You could run a successful business with only a storefront, the occasional direct mail piece, and a Yellowpages listing. Today, any business that is not easily found online will struggle to keep up with their tech-savvy competition! Did you know that over 63% of Americans will look at your website when deciding whether to hire you ?
To delight potential clients, compare your firm’s website against this checklist:
- Is my website mobile-optimized? Does it resize correctly on desktops, laptops, phones, and tablets?
- Does my site have a clean homepage that speaks to my ideal client?
- Does my site fully describe the services we offer, with a separate page for each item?
- Does my site have a separate page highlighting client reviews and testimonials?
- Does the footer include contact information, locations, and links to our firm’s social media pages?
Bottom line: Once your firm has built a website that checks all the boxes above, you’re ready to focus on creating a comprehensive plan to optimize your marketing for accountants.
Evaluating Your Ideal Accounting Client
Regardless of how long your firm has been in business, taking the time to define your ideal client is essential to perfecting your marketing for accountants. Knowing who you want to target and the best marketing channels for that specific group will improve your conversions, and ultimately increase your revenue.
If you’re unsure where to start, take a look at your current clients and the services you sell the most. Is there a specific group you assist more than others? Here are some specific things to keep in mind as you develop your ideal client profile:
- Are these clients in a certain age range?
- Where do they live?
- Do you want to focus on specific occupations or industries?
- What is their average income? Average portfolio size?
- What prompts them to reach out to you?
- What services are they looking for?
Although there are more audience demographics to track, creating this rough draft of an ideal client profile will help you streamline your marketing for accountants!
The Best Marketing Channels for Accountants
Local Search:
The Central Focus in Marketing for Accountants
Ultimately, the most important consideration as you set up your marketing efforts will be your location. Though the world is increasingly digital, most clients still want to hire a CPA or accountant in their immediate area. In fact, 93% of prospects go to a search engine to conduct their research, and Google currently holds 90.1% of the search engine market share.ii
Given Google’s popularity, it’s essential for your firm to rank on the first page for local searches. If someone searches “CPA in your city,” your firm needs to appear on the first page in order to have a chance of winning their business. There are two ways to show up on the first page of Google for local search: You can either use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to rank organically, or you can use pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements to appear at the top of the page.
Search Engine Optimization:
Using SEO to Rank your accounting website on the First Page of Google
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a strategy that coaxes the search engine bots to rank your website over others. With thousands of new web pages being added every day, you need to clearly demonstrate the value of your content to these bots. Fortunately, by implementing a targeted SEO strategy, it’s possible to achieve this! Here are a few tips to get your firm on the right track:
- Ensure each page has over 300 words of content
- Choose one or two important keywords to target per page
- Make sure your pages are not competing for the same keyword
- Use each keyword in the URL, page title, and at least once in your paragraphs
- Be sure to aim for a keyword saturation of 1-2%
- Include meta descriptions and header tags on each page
- Be mindful of internal linking and strategize how to share link authority between your pages
- Create and resubmit your XML sitemap whenever you make major changes to your site
If this sounds like a lot to organize, that’s because it is. Managing SEO for any website is a full-time job, especially since the best practices for SEO tend to change every quarter. In fact, Google is constantly implementing updates and algorithm changes that can cause your local search rankings to plummet, so you’ll want to keep up with any developments by listening to marketing podcasts and webinars on a weekly basis. Optimizing your SEO is a huge part of marketing for accountants, so it may be worthwhile to hire a team to take on this challenge for you.
Pay Per Click for Accountants:
Using PPC to Appear on the First Page of Google
Putting in the technical SEO work can take up a lot of time and resources, but Google has a “cheat code” to shoot you to the top. When you Google any services or products, you’ll notice that the first few listings are advertisements. This can be an easy way to build brand recognition and bring in new clients, but you also need to be careful that you’re not throwing money down the drain.
The Most Common Questions About PPC
How Much Does a PPC Ad Cost?
The cost of a PPC ad depends on the popularity of the search term and how many other companies are bidding for it, as well as your “Quality Score.” Typically, expect to spend $1-3 per click on each ad.
How Much Should I Spend It Each Month?
On average, small and medium-sized businesses spend between $9,000 and $10,000 per month on PPC, but you can start at a lower number (like $500-$1000 per month) and increase as you start to see returns on your investment.
What Keywords Should I Use?
Choosing the best keywords requires constant testing. It is important to constantly try new keywords and delete ones that are costing you too much per click.
What Are Negative Keywords?
You may want to exclude some keywords to streamline your budget, especially if your firm name alludes to the wrong industry or location (we’ve seen issues with names like “Fish,” “Antonio,” and “Cook”)!
When Should I Remove a Keyword Group?
It’s wise to monitor your ads account constantly and make changes based on Google’s data. If you notice the cost per click of a specific keyword has spiked, pause the ad for a few weeks and try again later.
How Often Should I Check My Google Adwords Account?
If you decide to run your Adwords account yourself, check at least twice a week for underperforming keywords or changes. Also set up strict monthly spending limits so Google doesn’t exceed your budget!
What Is Google’s Quality Score?
Quality Scores have an enormous impact on your paid search campaigns, so take the time to learn their ins and outs. Much like a credit score affects how much interest you pay on a loan, Google uses your quality score to decide how much you pay per click. Here are the key items they consider when building your score:
- The click-through-rate you receive on each ad
- The relevance of each keyword to its ad group
- The quality of your landing page and the keywords it displays
- The relevance of your ad text
- The historical performance of your Google Ads account
Social Media Marketing:
Using Social Media Marketing for your accountanting firm
Though social media marketing is the most time-consuming, it’s also one of the best opportunities to connect with both potential and current clients. It is important for your accounting firm to highlight your industry expertise, your strengths, and even your personalities to stand out from the crowd.
Though your preferred social media channel will depend on your target market, you’ll likely want to focus the bulk of your efforts on Facebook. With over 2.5 billion active users, Facebook is the biggest social network in the world, and having an active profile is essential to marketing for accountants.
Here are some Facebook best practices to get you started:
- Post at least five times a week to maximize engagement
- Ensure your contact information is up to date
- Provide a call button directly from your page
- Respond to comments and reviews on the same day they come in
- Allow prospects to contact you through Facebook Messenger
If you’re unable to post five days a week—understandable for a busy firm—you may want to hire a company to manage this for you. CPA Site Solutions has an affordable social media service that provides you with customized posts and a social media expert to monitor your account.
Marketing for Accountants Never Ends!
Even after you acquire a client, you want to remind them of the value you bring to the table. An easy way to do this is to create new case studies, articles, and branded content. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of producing these yourself, CPA Site Solutions can help you implement a content library, email newsletters, and blog posts to keep your firm top-of-mind!
One of the challenges of marketing for accountants is that it never ends. Your firm should continuously produce new content so you don’t fall behind the competition, and you’ll want to market across all channels so you build brand awareness!
However, it’s important not to think of this as a chore, but rather as an opportunity. If you continue to delight your clients and build brand awareness, you can overtake the competition that isn’t willing to invest the time and resources into marketing for accountants.