How To Market Your Accountancy Business

In these harsh economic times two types of accountancy firms are going to emerge – those that are doing well (growing and thriving), and those that are stagnating (standing still or in decline).In other words, your business is either growing or dying. There’s not really any inbetween…
Growthr
Growth comes from finding and keeping customers. There’s nothing more ‘to it’ than that. Your business will fall into decline if you fail to adhere to this principle. Even if you offer a fabulous service to your existing customers, your business will inevitably shrink, because customers close their business, they die, they move away, they change accountants. Sometimes, they grow, and you can get to bill them for more work – but to rely on a customer base to grow, in order for you to grow – is a dangerous strategy. One has to be more proactive and to take matters into your own hands. By marketing and promoting your accountancy services, you’ll attract customers to you, which will strengthen your position and your business. If you want to be here this time next year, then this is something which you have to be doing now.
What is Marketing?
Marketing is about getting your message out to your key target audience – about what you do, and why you do it better than anyone else! Creating a USP (unique selling proposition) is important. If a potential customer rang you today, and asked you ‘Why should I choose you and not Joe Bloggs across the road?’ you need to have a compelling reason as to why they should CHOOSE YOU and not your competitor. If you don’t know why – find out now. You need to have a differentiator, otherwise on what basis will you be competing on? Price? Not the best way, because generally, there’ll always be someone cheaper than you.
Optionsr
You can market your business online (blogs, articles, websites, videos, FaceBook, Google, podcast, pay per click, emails) or offline (newspapers, telemarketing, postcards, fax, press release, radio, networking, exhibitions, seminars, word of mouth), or combine the two e.g. write a blog about something topical in the industry, do a seminar on the topic, which is recorded and then posted on your website, and ‘drip fed’ into small sections to your email list of people in short ’90 second’ bite sized chunks.
Whor
The place to start is to consider what an ideal client looks like. Who would you like to work with? What does an ideal client look like? Once you’ve decided on this, then think about the media they consume, when they consume it, and how. And then make a plan as to how you will contact / market to this market.
So, for example, imagine that you like working with hairdressers. What magazines do they read? Where do they go? What stations do they listen to? What websites do they visit? What exhibitions do they attend? What networks are they a part of? This is where you need to be. And if you don’t know where / what they do – then ask them! Do your research! How else will they come into contact with your message? One direct way is to phone them directly or contact them via the post. An indirect way is to be where they look / go.
Ongoingr
You need to set a budget for any marketing activity and to test and measure all results as you go along, so that you know what is working and what isn’t. For every activity, you want to measure your ROI – return on that investment. Every activity should generate you revenue which exceeds the cost. If it doesn’t – review the activity.
97 Ways