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How digital marketing can help accountants grow their firm

05/23/202305/19/2023 by scmarketing

As the business world continues to evolve, so does the way we market our services. For accountants, it’s no longer enough to rely on word-of-mouth referrals and repeat business. In today’s digital age, an effective online presence is essential to attract new clients and promote growth. But where do you start?

In this article, we explore some of the most effective digital marketing tactics for accountants and how they can help to grow your practice.

Create a user-friendly website

The first step to a successful digital marketing strategy for your accounting practice is to have a professional and user-friendly website. Your website should clearly outline your services, your expertise, and your contact information. It should also be optimised for search engines, ensuring that potential clients can find you online. A user-friendly website can help improve your search engine ranking, and make it easier for visitors to navigate your website.

Take advantage of our Free Website Review or get an estimate of the cost for creating a new website with our pricing calculator.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

If you’re looking to gain more visibility and attract potential customers, then incorporating search engine optimisation (SEO) into your marketing activity is a must.

Utilising SEO tactics can help improve your website’s search engine rankings, ultimately resulting in increased organic traffic and higher conversion rates.

Investing in SEO can yield significant returns on investment. By implementing strategic keyword research, creating high-quality content, and ensuring technical site optimisation, you’ll be able to improve rankings and stand out from your competition. Don’t underestimate the power of SEO, as it can make a significant impact on your marketing efforts and overall business success.

Create a persona

Understanding your target audience is crucial to the success of any marketing campaign. One of the best ways to achieve this is by creating an online persona, an imaginary character that embodies your target audience and current client base. By giving this fictional persona a name, age, occupation, and hobbies, you can truly get to know your ideal customer. This enables you to personalise your marketing messages and choose the right language and channels to reach them effectively.

With a clear understanding of your target audience, you can fine-tune your marketing strategy, making it more efficient and ultimately driving better results.

So, start building your marketing persona today and transform the way you reach out to your customers.

Set up a Google My Business page

Google My Business enables you to manage your online presence on Google, including search and maps. By having a complete and accurate Google My Business listing, you can improve your visibility in local search results and attract more clients. Your Google My Business page should include your business name, address, phone number, hours of operation, and customer reviews.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a cost-effective way to stay in touch with clients, promote your services, and stay top-of-mind with prospects.

One of the great benefits of email marketing is its versatility: you can repurpose existing content, highlight updates to your services, inform clients of any changes in tax laws, and offer helpful tips and advice. However, to truly succeed, it is vital to personalise your approach. Take time to understand your target audience, consider their specific needs and interests, and then tailor your messaging accordingly.

By sharing relevant news, insightful statistics, and other valuable content, you can elevate the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign, build trust, drive tangible business outcomes, and increase the likelihood of repeat business and referrals.

Pay-Per-click advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a great way to reach potential clients searching for accounting services online. By using targeted keywords, you can have your ad displayed on the search engine results page (SERP), driving traffic to your website.

With PPC advertising, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, making it a cost-effective way to attract new clients.

Social media marketing

Managing your firm’s online reputation is essential nowadays, as potential clients are likely to find you through search engines. As two of the largest search engines in the world, Facebook and Twitter can help to increase your visibility and brand awareness significantly. Even though these social media platforms may not always lead to direct sales, they are still an impactful way to reach your audience and build your brand.

LinkedIn is an invaluable tool for accountancy firms that should be taken advantage of. However, it’s essential to remember that LinkedIn is a networking platform, not a sales pitch. Connect with potential clients, partners, and peers to create a strong business relationship rather than merely pushing products or services. By establishing your presence on social media and observing what competitors are doing can ensure your firm stays relevant and noticed. If you’re not already actively maintaining your social media platforms, it’s time to start.

Digital marketing for accountants

In today’s digital age, a comprehensive online presence is essential for accountancy firms looking to grow their practice and attract new clients. By creating a user-friendly website, setting up a Google My Business page, leveraging social media, email marketing, and pay-per-click advertising, you can enhance your online marketing efforts and reach a wider audience. By incorporating these tactics into your marketing strategy, you’ll be well on your way to online success and growth.

Lockdown a year on – appreciating the simple things

03/23/2021 by scmarketing

As we reach the ‘one year on’ anniversary of the first lockdown, we thought we’d take a moment to reflect on this ‘unprecedented’ year.

Remote working

Like many businesses, Smart Cow has worked remotely for almost the entire year with a mini hiatus after the first lockdown which allowed some time back in the socially distanced office.

But as the majority of the year has been spent adapting to remote working, which involved (like everyone) the rapid adapting to Zoom meetings and utilising platforms for collaboration for sharing documents, messages, planning and well everything else.

So, as our homes became our office / home / school / social hub, we missed the coffee break chats and general office catch up after weekends. So, we conducted a mini straw poll around our virtual office to get a glimpse into our year.

In short, what we’ve learnt about each other is that it’s the ‘little things’ that became our highlights. Getting back to basics and enjoying the simple acts that perhaps had begun to pass us by in this fast-paced world.

So, here’s a short summary, which we’re sure many people reading this will be familiar with.

The simple things that became special moments reclaimed

Daily walks were a must and precious moments for some. Re-discovering the vast choice of green spaces that Croydon and Purley have to offer.

A simple early morning coffee in the garden with a favourite mug and cafetiere.

With some combining the two with this last lockdown turning a walk into a ‘coffee crawl’ supporting local Croydon cafes that were able to remain open.

Observing how it became so quiet and peaceful, especially in the first lockdown with much less traffic.

Taking time over conversations was perhaps another special moment and re-discovery.

How technology helped with socialising

Prior to the start of the pandemic, we were already using Zoom for some of our meetings. Although it still felt a strange with online meetings, we knew this was the way things were going to go in the future. So, roll on 2020 and perhaps we did not realise just how soon this would become the norm for everyone and we would be longing for the face to face meetings again.

So, Zoom very quickly became a part of everyone’s vocabulary – even the grandparents. So, not just vital for office communication, video became part of our social routine as we all embraced Zoom meet ups with friends and family. The Friday night drinks could still continue virtually with wine and beer tasting and Christmas work parties.

How did we get creative and discover new things?

Like many, cooking was a theme for some in the office. Being able to cook fresh homemade meals from scratch every day for lunch and dinner has been enjoyed by half of the team.

The garden or balcony has been a highlight for some getting involved in gardening, potting colourful plants and growing herbs. With one team member painting garden items and the back of their house! She says “it was a now or never situation”.

Perhaps no surprise, but films were on top of the entire team’s list. Embracing classic films or re-watching old TV shows to relive the series they enjoyed growing up. Some formed film clubs in their home to make sure they explored new genres and discovered new favourites.

Getting creative trying a few new hairstyles was a highlight for one of the team.

As well as learning about stocks and crypto currency – we will be asking for his tips!

Drawing was a theme for half of the team with the exploration of digital painting for one and weekly life drawing sessions run by experts @sirenslifedrawing attended by another.

Best purchases

The RODE wireless mic is great for the sound on video creation and for Zoom meetings, really cuts out loads of the background noise
Booking the expertise of Phil Curtis for remote personal training helped with changing mindset about personal health, which equated to up to 2 stone in weight being lost by one team member
Disney+
Sketchbooks
Proper filter coffee
Slate stones for the garden
Toilet roll!

What we’re looking forward to…

What we’re most looking forward to is life returning to as ‘normal as’ possible as soon as possible and getting together with family and friends.

We have missed those face to face catch ups with groups of friends and are looking forward to going out for a meal, popping to the pub, having a natter in cafes, enjoying a film at the cinema, and supporting community hubs.

We long for our local businesses to return and look forward to being able to support them as soon as they are open, if not already of course, as we’ve all enjoyed takeaway food and pay it forward campaigns to show our support for when places re-open.

It’s not just about craving to socialise, it’s about having these places to socialise in that is so vital. This is what makes up the heart of our community so get out and support when you can – shop local and support local.

Importantly, promote your favourite local businesses:

Share posts on your social media channels to help widen reach
Write testimonials and reviews on their Google My Business pages
Book ahead for your haircut and meal out
Buy their products or services

As a local Croydon business based in Purley the BID is a community group to be aware of

As a local Purley business Smart Cow is part of the Purley Business Improvement District (BID). The Purley BID enables the Purley local businesses to make a difference and significantly improve the area as a place to live, shop and work.

So, as we’re all from around Purley and Croydon, the local businesses are so important. With so many great, shops, restaurants, pubs, shops and activity places it is worth exploring when lockdown is lifted. Look at the Purley BID business directory and sign up to its new Purley Loyalty Card Scheme for the latest offers.

What is PPC and why use it?

03/02/202102/17/2021 by scmarketing

You’ve likely heard of the phrase PPC in relation to marketing but perhaps not really thought much more about it and how it could help your business. So, here’s some insight into PPC or shall we say, Pay Per Click advertising.

What is PPC?

Pay Per Click is online paid advertising which offers a targeted way to reach your audience. It gets its name from the fact that advertisers pay when someone clicks on an advert that they have running.

The most common form of PPC that advertisers use is paid search such as Google Adwords. This means that the ads will appear in relation to a relevant search that someone has conducted to find products or services.

There’s also banner advertising and remarketing where ads will appear on a partner website or follow you around when you’ve visited a company that’s running remarketing ads. These are also referred to as display advertising.

While Google Adwords is the most popular, you can of course also run PPC campaigns on other search engines such as Bing as well as social channels like Facebook or Instagram.

Why use PPC?

There’s a few reasons to consider PPC for your business.

If you need a boost in search engine results pages (serps) to help your search engine optimisation (SEO) or want to specifically target an audience segment then Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) can help your firm be found. It can help your business stand out in local search results against your competitors.

PPC can be very targeted to your specific audience. Just think of all the information you may have shared online about your age, gender, interests and location, all this and more can be used to market to specific people.

Unlike a traditional advertising campaign you can continually change online ads to reflect analysis. For instance, with Google Ads you can review regular recommendations for tailoring your ads even further. This means you can add and remove keywords or negative keywords, change the content of ads or snippets to help optimise performance.

Google Ads tips

For your Google ad search campaigns, create more than one expanded text ad so that the best ad can be found.
Create responsive search ads as well as text ads. This enables Google technology to create the best combination of title and text into the ad based on which is performing well.
Structured snippets allow prospects to see a preview of your services. This helps with standout on the search page.
Google display ads also offer a way to reach a wide number of people. These ads show across over 2 million sites, videos or apps – part of a Google Display Network. Ads will appear based on online activity.

Google AdWords certified

Each year at Smart Cow Marketing we ensure that we are Google AdWords certified and this year we are now a Google Certified Partner and the only Google AdWords Partner in Croydon.

While gaining the AdWords certification qualification year on year highlights our indepth knowledge and expertise on the fundamentals of setting up and managing successful AdWords campaigns. Being a Partner shows that Google trusts us even more with the support we offer clients.

This is probably one of the most important certifications there is with regards to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and in particular Pay Per Click advertising. It is an important credential for marketers and one that is not lightly awarded. Receiving a Google AdWords certification means that Smart Cow Marketing continues to be recognised as being experts in digital marketing and PPC.

PPC agency Croydon

With many marketing tactics whether organic or PPC advertising, we can help guide you. We can provide a tailored digital marketing proposal for your business needs. Book a free consultation.