Digital marketing for accountants and accounting firms offers a wide range of creative options. From search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertisements, content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, local SEO, video marketing, blogging, and more are explored in this article. Accounting is a relatively competitive industry, with industry experts taking the top spots in search engines and social media. Fortunately, there are many places where you can excel and even beat your competition if you know how to market your organization.
Before you begin your digital marketing campaign, you need to understand the options available for digital marketing for accounting firms. Keep an open mind and believe there is always an opportunity to market your organization or services. People may tell you that PPC will not work or that social media marketing is not for accounting firms. This is not always true. Your ability to find the gap will help you push your company forward in a market that is already saturated.
Digital marketing for accounting firms can be tailored for optimum results with data-driven marketing, conversion rate optimization, lead nurturing tactics, etc. You can also increase your overall marketing efforts with omnichannel marketing, personalized content strategies, and account-based marketing targeted specifically at a single customer or a small demographic. Being a high-value industry, and also an industry with repetitive customers, your efforts into marketing your accounting firm will provide better results with a more personalized approach. While AI-driven content marketing strategies and automated marketing are important and effective in the initial stages of the funnel, they are more general and focus on a larger audience. These are strategies you should work on during the initial phase of your marketing campaign.
Online Marketing for Accountants – Exploring Marketing Channels and Methods
SEO, Blogging, and Content Marketing
Marketing a website starts with content creation, and content creation begins with keyword research. We recommend that you target the easiest keywords to write content to market your products and services during the first few months. While you may have to target general terms like “small business accounting” and “filing tax returns,” which may be your core services, limit the competitive keywords to less than 5% of the total content during the first few months. Create a content strategy based on the keywords you generate to create content. Each piece of content should be based on a keyword cluster and should be grouped or created as a content cluster. Creating one article per topic is not an option in today’s SEO world. With topical authority and semantic SEO being important, creating a cluster of content on related topics based on a main topic helps with ranking competitive keywords easily.
Once you have a list of content, you should put your entire focus on marketing it. This begins with search engine optimization. Start with technical SEO, followed by local SEO, on-page SEO, and finally off-page SEO in that order. SEO helps businesses build authority, drive targeted traffic that is free, and establish a brand over time.
Blogging has evolved as one of the prominent methods for content marketing. While it’s impossible to create content directly on your website for a wide range of topics without cluttering it, a blog enables you to create content easily, organize it, and market it effectively without compromising the design and structure of your website. A blog also provides a section on your website where your audience can come to read content on your expertise. This could be anything related to accounting, tips on how to file taxes yourself, and the latest news on taxation, accounting, and more. All these topics will add value to your website and your organization.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing creates a greater impact on people who are looking for accounting services than search marketing, especially when you have to create a brand identity. Social media marketing helps create awareness and establish authority and trust in prospective users about your services and products. For accounting firms, these are important factors. Social media can be used to acquire customers immediately, but its effect on building a relationship with prospective customers outweighs search engine optimization.
Create a strategy with long-term plans in mind when it comes to social media. Educate customers and give them valuable content that they can use for free. Do not expect anything in return. Provide free information, build trust, and display your expertise in the industry. For accounting firms and accountants, the best way to show your expertise is to update your customers on the latest news on accounting law. With new laws changing very often, you have a great opportunity to help your audience with the latest in accounting law. Also, consider creating content around helping your audience. For instance, how to save on your tax, how to invest wisely, where to invest, etc. While providing content, do not sell a service or product. Just provide information for free. Your aim is not to sell products but to increase your reach with your audience, build trust, and establish yourself as an authority.
Email Marketing
Follow your social media marketing with email marketing. Email marketing is not dead. Every single email address you acquire from valid leads can be converted to customers. Acquire email addresses from websites, blogs, and social media when possible. Try to run campaigns to give freebies in return for email addresses. Run an email campaign once every 2 weeks during the off-season and every week during the season. Seasons are usually tax months and 2 months prior. Follow up on your email marketing at all times.
PPC Marketing
Paid marketing on search engines and social media is known to convert to customers, especially during the initial phase when your website has not been established at all. It’s impossible to drive SEO traffic to a new website. These are times when paid marketing and PPC help a lot. Run your PPC campaign locally and create new campaigns with a wider audience. Always tweak and measure your PPC campaign for the best results.
