Best 25 Accountant Marketing Ideas from the 2018

1. Offer Free 10-Minute Consultations

Alexandra Bohigian, Marketing Coordinator, Enola Labs Software

CPAs should prove themselves as thought leaders in their industries. You do not have to be working to get a huge accounting firm so as to make a name for yourself. When people are looking for a CPA, it is frequently tricky for the individual to determine whether they really need a CPA and why they need a CPA. Ten-minute consultations take only a little bit of time and may be an excellent tool for building rapport with potential clients. These consultations will frequently become paying customers, so it can be a really cost-effective advertising tool that most CPAs can manage by themselves without hiring outside assistance.

2. Speak at Industry Events

Erica Stritch, VP of Marketing, RAIN Group

Among the best ways to get in touch with new customers is at industry events. Better than attending an event is procuring a speaking spot. When you’re the one on point, you’re automatically considered an expert in your customers’ minds. It permits you to stand out against the ocean of CPAs and bookkeeping firms. But don’t expect to talk and have the phone start ringing with new clients. During your presentation, provide to discuss a white paper or research the business has generated that digs deeper into the topic. Have a way to collect attendee info and send them this content bit in the days after the event.

Give to walk their team , or talk about how it relates to their own organization and what you have seen other companies in their business do that has worked. Finally, have an event follow-up plan in place to keep the conversation moving.

3. Identify and Proactively Reach Out to Industry Influencers

Carrie McKeegan, Co-Founder, Greenback Expat Tax Services

The best method to bring in new clients is via word of mouth and people that are already predisposed to trust you. Many marketers think those relationships just occur by chance, but actually outreach is key here. Identify your industry influencers and proactively contact them and offer to write for their blog. Offer to allow them to try out your service, etc.. Make sure it’s real —I am not talking about paid advertorials focused as exemptions! You want to reveal how good your service or product is so they naturally recommend you as a believer within your company.

4. Promote Your Experience Beyond Just Books and Taxes

Mike Goossen, CPA, CFO, CEO, Columns 4 Success

Each CPA or bookkeeper has more work than they know what to do with throughout tax season. To prevent this, I’ve used my desktop as a former CFO to market as an”Outsourced CFO.” This is an agency that a business should use year-round to manage their fiscal position, not just to prepare taxation. I place myself as an expert in business finance and planning, not only accounting.

5. Show Your Experience with Podcasts…

Michelle Ngome, Connection Enthusiast, Line 25 Consulting

Small business owners encounter CPAs all the time, but have no way to measure their experience. What better way to demonstrate a firm’s expertise than by having a podcast. Podcasting has taken within the electronic landscape for the past several years. It has observed 10%-20% in continuous increase with 112 million Americans listening to podcasts in 2017. Obtaining a portion of faithful podcast listeners can work wonders for a business. Podcasting is a great centerpiece in regards to education, lead generation, content and social media marketing.

Looking for inspiration for your own podcast? Check out our list of best small company podcasts and find out what makes them popular and interesting for small business owners.

6. …or on YouTube

Geoff Hoesch, CEO, Dragonfly Digital Marketing

While I feel a multi-pronged strategy is essential for any marketing effort so for it to be successful, a fantastic place to begin could be videos explaining different tax situations and what they mean to small businesses or people on your state and municipality. I recommend creating a YouTube station for those videos and featuring the movies in blog articles that elaborate on the content from the video. If you reside in Alexandria, VA, you could do a video on land tax rates in Alexandria, or even the tax benefits of a Virginia529 Invest plan.

You don’t have to spend a lot of cash to generate the videos; should you use a 4k smartphone to the video, which you or a worker probably already have, you may then buy a good lavaliere mic and a ring light on Amazon for about $150.

7. Create an Advisory Committee Involving Long-Term Customers

Blake Christian, CPA, Partner, HCVT

Consider establishing an Advisory Committee composed of a few long-term customers and trusted business associates who you can use as a sounding board to fine-tune your business’s strategic plan, marketing plan and possible new service offerings. Make it worth their while by having meetings in fine venues and at suitable times to minimize the committee member’s company or household inconvenience.

8. Be Creative with Your Marketing in Networking Events

Sheryl Johnson, Founder, BD-PRo Marketing Solutions

Little CPA/accounting firms generally rely on networking as one method to build connections and meet new clients. A unique marketing idea would be to use customized decals to leverage the area to the back of your business cards to showcase a particular service or to draw the attention of a particular target audience. The trick is to incorporate a call to action. So for example, you might say”Download your free copy of’8 Ways a CPA Can Save You Money. ”’ Or, possibly talk about the three ways that your CPA firm is radically different from other firms and supply a complimentary consultation. The benefit of using a sticker is you may vary your message based on who you are networking together and test various activities to find out what spurs the most attention.

9. Use Your Present Engagement to Improve Your Marketing Strategy

Chris Jarvis, Writer, Speaker and Founder, Jarvis Tower

For smaller companies, the growth of services is no longer a novelty or a luxury—it is an absolute necessity. Whenever you’re collecting information from your customers to prepare their own tax returns, you need to ask them to get their top goals and concerns for the year.

Are they interested in:

• Adding a new owner, partner or investor in 2018?
• Would they wish to market the company in another few decades?
• What are the three biggest financial concerns for this season?
• What is their growth objective?
• Perhaps they upgraded their estate planning in the previous couple of years?
• Can they understand the opportunities under the new tax bill?

Once you know what your customers want and need, the next step is to react to them. You want to piggyback on your trusted adviser status and concentrate on teaching your clients. You’re not likely to turn your own tax planning staff into gifted authors, and therefore don’t attempt. By partnering with a talented writer in the financial services space, you are able to provide a weekly newsletter, a monthly training and quarterly live events in which you connect with your clients.

10. Boost Your Website for Mobile Users

Tabitha Jean Naylor, Owner, TabithaNaylor.com

More than 50% of people now access the internet via a mobile device. Accounting firms must have responsive sites that have all of the very same functions on the move as they do if people are at a desktop. Accounting firms have to ensure that their landing page includes contact info, the major services they perform, and some kind of call to action such as scheduling a consultation. A tidy, actionable website is one of the most effective attractors for prospects to participate with a company, and bookkeeping is just the same.

11. Co-Sponsor Local Events with Good Clients

David Gosselin, Partner, DBBMcKennon, CPA

Among the most effective marketing techniques can be sponsoring events that a good customer also sponsors. For small CPA firms, brand name recognition is non-existent, so don’t assume people understand who you’re. Little CPA firms typically rely on word of mouth advertising and referrals. So ask your customers what and when they are sponsoring events and try to get a booth near them. When a person they talk with asks that they use, the way they do it, etc.they can simply point to a booth and say,”This is my go-to CPA firm.” That is instant authenticity.

12. Use LinkedIn for Business-to-Business Marketing

Kent Lewis, President and Founder, Anvil

LinkedIn the least exploited in terms of Implementing influencers. With more than 13,000 connections , I’ve become a bit of an expert on the stage and see this as a big opportunity for 2018 and beyond. Secondly, the platform is ideal for business-to-business advertising. There’s not any other platform that can target prospective clients with advertisements based on employer, job title, place and other important factors. Lastly, the platform is ideal for creating awareness and credentials via thought leadership (posting updates and writing articles on LinkedIn Pulse). I’ve written extensively on digital advertising and LinkedIn specifically.

Want to know more about LinkedIn advertising? Have a look at this Fit Small Business guide to setting up your LinkedIn profile and begin connecting with other companies to attract more leads now.

13. Bring Your Site into 2018

Samantha Russell, Director of Sales and Marketing, Twenty More Than Ten

Having a site is a no-brainer for today’s small companies. It’s time to ditch your brochure website, that’s so 2000. For your site to be a thriving component of your organization and digital marketing plan, you need to step up your game. It’s true—customers and prospects will not be happy with just another insistent CPA website. Besides ensuring that your site is responsive, scalable, UX-friendly and can prove ROI, you also will need to invest in optimizing content.

Since SEO continues to evolve and Google rolls out much more algorithmic updates, achieving top listings with local search results means altering how you create content, optimize your website and track performance. As a small accounting firm, a strong local SEO strategy will be crucial to creating new business.

14. Host Financial Planning Seminars

Jacob Dayan, CEO and Co-Founder, Community Tax

If you are finding it hard to acquire new clients outside of tax season, think about hosting a seminar or perhaps a series of classes that educate potential clients tips on handling their money. In the end, the goal of the seminar is to gain new customers, so while the convention may focus on how attendees can better manage their cash, make certain to also incorporate the way you can assist them. Provide them sufficient tips that they may gain from attending the seminar, but not too many they don’t want your services in any way.

By way of example, focus on budgeting and overall financial planning, then let them know all the advantages they can receive from choosing you to handle their taxes, which is much more complicated. While this is a much more involved method to promote your company, it will probably yield some fantastic leads.

15. Partner with a Financial Advisor

Dan Timotic, CFA, Managing Principal, T2 Asset Management, LLC

CPAs are among the most trusted advisors. 1 area where CPAs haven’t penetrated well is wealth direction. Why? Most financial advisors are simply salespeople seeking to sell something to a customer, and that could negatively impact the relationship between the CPA and their customer. If a CPA finds the ideal adviser, they could add significant value to their customers, and in turn, their clients can refer more people. As a fiduciary, it is my obligation to do what is in the best interest of my clients.

When partnered with the right advisor, the CPA will provide a broader service to their customer and also increase their involvement with that client by generating greater dependence in addition to raising earnings. One important thing to consider when partnering with an adviser is how they will communicate their suggestions and strategies to both CPA and the customer.

16. Request endorsements from Your Satisfied Clients

Carmine Mastropierro, Owner, Mastrodigital

Small accounting firms should concentrate testimonials to obtain new clients. This strategy is demonstrated to increase conversion rates and trust. Ask customers to leave a real review on your service and compile them for future visitors to see. This societal proof aids in converting leads because they can see different companies have experienced positive outcomes.

17. Select the Right Platform to Promote Your Business Online

Linda Pophal, Consultant and Owner, Strategic Communications, LLC

When seeking services such as accounting services, we want to connect with people—not companies—thus make it more about them than about you. Marketing of your business can best be achieved through thought leadership that’s accomplished through content marketing. Set a strong presence online in places where your target market is likely to be, and probably to be searching for, the information that you have to provide. As an example, if focusing on accounting for individuals/families, this might be Facebook. If focusing on accounting for company, this will likely be LinkedIn.

18. Set Up an Online Learning Platform

John Kogan, Co-Founder and CEO, Illumeo, Inc..

Most CPAs, from individuals to big businesses, should look at making live webinars and on-demand online classes on a plethora of topical taxation and taxation problems with an online learning platform such as ours to help set their new. Our community includes tens of thousands of corporate finance, accounting and taxation users that are the ideal”prospect” target for CPA firms. When one of our customers attends a webinar, or requires a path where the CPA or their company’s brand and contact information is on the materials and said during the presentation, it provides both new exposure and, at times, direct lead production for them.

Start looking for a platform that’s free for your firm to engage in to keep the expense of utilizing this strategy to a minimum.

19. Always Include a Headshot with Your Testimonials

Rally Stanoeva, Head of Marketing, Rewind

Hopefully, you are already asking each of your customers for a testimonial. But be certain you’re also requesting them to get a photograph that you’re able to include alongside their testimonial. It does not need to become a professional headshot—in fact, a more”real” photo can help to add validity to your testimonials. And do not bury testimonials on a secondary page of your site. The photos and quotes need to be front and centre in your homepage.

20. Nurture Your Other Trusted Advisors

Jennifer Garcia, Partner and Head of Account Management, Red Bamboo Marketing

How frequently do you ask someone that you trust for a recommendation? Just think how many times you were asked to recommend another expert —whether it’s a lawyer, an insurance broker or even a mechanic. Most small- and – medium-size businesses rely on testimonials by their trusted advisors. So it is important for professional services firms like accountants to take care of companies which also provide services to your target audience, e.g., attorneys, insurance companies, and other outsource providers such as HR and IT. Develop a nurture campaign to other trusted advisors—get to know them and then they will recommend your services to their clients, and vice versa.

21. Amortize Your Price of Trade Shows and Traveling by Meeting Prospects and Referral Sources

Marcia R. Golden, Managing Partner, DJD Golden

The backstory: a CPA customer in a small firm told me he’d walk various trade shows in sectors related to his practice, cease at exhibitor booths and attempt to get someone to speak with him about accounting. When we asked him how that worked for him, his response was,”Not so nicely…,” which begged the question, wouldn’t you wish to know in advance you’d meetings set up with exhibitors before schedule so that you wouldn’t have to”ambush” people inside their booth when they are attempting to connect with attendees (rather than you!) ? Unsurprisingly, he explained,”Yes!”

What we did: he planned to attend ABC Kids Show in Las Vegas, so we developed a record of email contacts of prospects from the printed exhibitor record, with an emphasis on companies in the Metro-NY/tri-state area. Thenwe created an email noting the CPA was attending the show and did the potential have enough time to meet for 15 minutes at their booth or for breakfast/lunch/coffee/drinks, or, even if they weren’t planning on attending the show, would they like to prepare a time to chat at their advantage. Ultimately, we sent out 120 emails, and secured seven meetings for the CPA at the conference and one meeting with a nearby prospect ahead of the series, which caused a $30,000 engagement.

All this was without a single telephone call. Just a well-written, approachable request-for-meeting email.

22. Segment Your Marketing Campaign Based on Your Clients’ Lifestyles

Samuella Becker, CEO and Founder, TigressPR

Tax information is needed year-long for individuals, especially those of high net worth and entrepreneurs. So don’t simply assume your marketing campaign ought to be held in”tax time” to attract more customers. Rather than think of individuals collectively, break off your marketing initiatives by lifestyle or life-changing events. For instance, marriage brings about the marriage of two individuals that are in love and will be financially bound together, even though both preserve their separate bank accounts. So perhaps you want to”team up” with other companies marketing to the recently engaged, be it wedding planners, bakers, florists, travel agents (honeymoon), and more, to host a day-long seminar for brides and grooms to be. CPAs might even want to weigh in up to wedding expenses/advice.

23. Hire a Professional to Compose Your Content

Aside from taking too much of your own time from what is already a very time-sensitive profession, writing is just not the ideal utilization of an accountant’s abilities. You will also find that writing is a job that will need more than your specialized understanding, so unless you have been an avid writer, it will be a lot easier to hire a professional for the job. This article lists the amount of reasons why an accountant should let a professional compose their advertising content instead of doing it themselves.

24. Follow a Step-By-Step Advertising Plan

Small accounting firms won’t always have a massive budget to dedicate for their advertising plan, so it is essential to be strategic and understand what to prioritize and how to work on a financial plan. By focusing on creating the brand, increasing visibility and improving client engagement, little accounting firm owners can create a strategy to maximize their resources. This step-by-step guide on the best way best to market an accounting firm will help you better market your business enterprise today.

25. Understand How to Identify and Correct Common Marketing Mistakes for Accounting Firms

You should have heard of advertising stories which didn’t end well, and they are amazingly easy to fall into if we don’t maintain a watchful eye out for the signs. Understand how to spot advertisements mistakes common to accounting firms and find out how to fix them with this article. By doing so, you avoid the risk of spending more money and time than you originally intended.