Are you keen to take your accountancy firm to the next level? Do you feel a little overwhelmed by the digital marketing arena? Fear not, online marketing is as applicable to accountants as is to any other profession and you can execute a workable strategy, with a few simple pointers.Â
Whether your aim is to generate and covert leads for new business or instil confidence in your current customers to achieve client retention, you need an online marketing strategy. Whilst the traditional methods of mailing and advertising are still effective for this industry, you really do need to be embracing some of the more current online marketing activities.
Here are some of the tactics you should be employing to grow and retain your accountancy clients.
Activity: SEO
What is it: The process of optimising your websites pages for specific content, to improve your chances of being ranked in the Google search listing, when potential clients search for your products or services.
Why is it important: Websites receive traffic from different sources, e.g. ‘referral’ from other sites, ‘direct’ from people heading straight to your site and ‘PPC’ from ad campaigns. Organic (SEO) traffic usually carries the highest portion of traffic – understandable given the amount of people using search engines. If you’re not optimised for search, you’re missing a huge trick.
How is it done: Pages are optimised on an individual basis, with unique content that is relevant to a specific keyword. Pages should be coded correctly with structured data and the right tagging applied. Page content should link to other page content, with internal links, using relevant anchor text.
Activity: Content Marketing
What is it: The method of creating and publishing content that seeks to stimulate interest. This could be to solve a user need, provide critical information, generate leads and even convert to sales.
Why is it important: You can target different audiences with different content, you can foster trust in your brand, get brand endorsement and advocacy through shares and appear current, innovative and active.
How is it done: All content must have a purpose. This means working back from your objectives and designing content that aims to meet these. For example, if you want to get more interest a younger demographic in a service to manage their finances, you could create a fun video or an online tool they can play with.
Activity: Offsite Marketing
What is it: It’s still online, but it’s the activity you do away from your own website. Offsite covers things like guest blogging, citation listings, review management and social media.
Why is it important: What you say on your say on your say is very much controlled by you. Granted, you can add testimonials to back up your work and instil confidence, but really, it’s what people say about you elsewhere that both users and Google are really invested in. You can’t control all offsite content about you, but you can do things to help manage it.
How is it done: Firstly, ensure you are listed in local business listings. You can ask customers to leave reviews on these listings, as well as your Google My Business profile. On social media, if you see anything negative posted, you can reply and offer solutions.
Do you want to learn more about online marketing for accountancy firms? Whitefish Marketing is an established Kent based digital agency with expertise in helping businesses to grow their audience online. Give our friendly team a call on 01303 720 288.
