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A senior marketing strategist has cautioned accountants against relying on one or two platforms for their marketing strategy, adding that email is still king.
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Why a multipronged marketing plan is key for accountants
10 February 2022
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12 minute read
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Practice + Pixels chief executive Tyson Cobb advised accountants to broaden their scope of “tactical” marketing opportunities and shift away from the excess reliance on social media to gain exposure.
He suggested creating a holistic strategy that provides accountants with a range of alternative options to market themselves to their clients if one channel should fail.
“Accountants talk about their website ranking on Google or wanting to do lead generation on LinkedIn, which are effective mechanisms but they’re only a couple of very small pieces of the pie,” Mr Cobb told Accountants Daily.
“They might have over 1,000 followers on LinkedIn, which is great, but what happens if LinkedIn shuts down tomorrow and you lose your 1,000 followers? What do you do next?
“But if you build a full circle marketing function, there’s less risk involved. For example, if you’ve built a database that you continuously communicate with via email, you’re still keeping in touch with your large client base.
“Email marketing is still one of the most effective digital marketing channels around.”
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Producing valuable content that is relevant to an accountant’s client base and emailing that to them via newsletters or blog updates is another effective marketing strategy, according to Mr Cobb.
“Circulating articles, blogs, or videos to your contact database through email marketing is one of the very underutilised tactics in a lot of accounting firms but it’s certainly one of the best performing digital marketing tactics,” Mr Cobb said.
To generate this content, however, would require accountants to understand their clients’ requirements, listen to their queries and questions, and identify patterns in their queries.
“Accountants always ask me how they could come up with content ideas to include in their blogs or newsletters,” Mr Cobb said.
“Accountants are talking to clients every day. Surely, there are some common questions that keep coming up. Instead of answering those questions every time each client asks them, answer them in an article or a blog post. That is more valuable to a larger volume of people.”
In addition, accountants could develop the ideal “client persona”, and conduct research around their circumstances every six to 12 months to identify their goals and challenges, and form strategies to enter that conversation by using language that they understand to build trust.
This, in turn, could fuel future content ideas, Mr Cobb added.
“Accountants might use language that’s too technical when they write content. They don’t take the time to put themselves in their clients’ shoes and see it from their point of view,” Mr Cobb said.
“But marketing is all about putting yourself in your clients’ shoes and trying to understand what they want and how they interpret different pieces of information.”
A targeted marketing strategy is going to engender trust in the accountant, he said.
“You’re going to build credibility among your clients because you’re helping them understand something without selling them anything,” Mr Cobb concluded.
To hear more from Tyson Cobb about how to implement digital marketing strategies in your accounting practice, come along to the Accountants Daily Strategy Day, to be held in Sydney and Melbourne in March.
Tickets are selling fast so click here to secure your seat.
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