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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.

Accounting firms: Kick start your inbound marketing campaign

05/06/202109/25/2020 by scmarketing

With so much happening online today, ensuring your accountancy firm has share of voice online is essential for new business and growth. While ensuring your existing clients are well looked after, in this current climate it’s no longer possible to simply rely on repeat business or referrals.

At the centre of all your online activity should be your website, but how do you get potential clients to your site?

Here we give you an overview of how to kick start or enhance your online inbound marketing campaign for your accounting practice.

Set up your Google My Business page

If you haven’t already set this up then make sure you action it as soon as possible. We’ve got a series of videos coming up to give you the ins and outs of this directory but safe to say that as it is one of the largest search engines, then having your business listed with address, contact details, opening times, web URL and services then you are already helping your optimisation strategy to lead people to your business.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Before starting your inbound marketing campaign, make sure that your own website is optimised for search engines. There are many tools available to run against your site to see where improvements can be made to your site is more effective. We found Semrush a great tool, although also many free options and plug-ins you can have for your browsers.

If your website design and build was some time ago make sure that is is mobile responsive. Check how the web pages look on your smart phone and that it’s easy to read and navigate.

We can provide a free website review which will highlight some key areas you can focus on initially.

Also take a look at our Boost your SEO blog for some quick fix top tips for your SEO strategy.

Create a persona

Do you know who you are marketing to? One of the best ways to understand this is to create a marketing persona. This is an imaginary character based on your target audience and current client base.

Once you’ve created a persona it makes it much easier to understand how to market to them, what language to use and what online marketing channels would be best.

Here’s our tips on creating an online persona for your firm.

Website structure

You need to make sure your website is structured to make it easier to navigate so that visitors can quickly and simply find what they’re looking for.

This makes a much better experience for your visitors and also lowers the bounce rate which will negatively affect your site in search engine results pages (SERPs).

We can work with you to review your site so that the website functionality is spot on for your prospects.

Keywords

It is worth making sure you know which keywords are appropriate to your business. Be specific. Think about what you would type in the search function to find what you are looking for to help you get a list of the right keywords.

This forms part of your content marketing strategy. Initially we recommend you review all your website content to ensure that it is up to date. Then consider adding a blog or news feed. The reason we suggest this is that it allows a space for you to add regular, fresh content to your website which will incorporate those keywords.

The more you use the keywords in fresh content, the more chances you have of being found by search engines. If you are an accountancy firm phased in Croydon then makes sure that you regularly say this on your website. But not only that, be a more specific in content and write blogs with keywords in titles or H1headings.

Take a look at our article, why blog, as this has some great tips on keywords, internal and external link building as well as Google My Business.

Inbound marketing agency for accountants

This is just a short overview of the key areas to implement to kick start your inbound marketing. Lay these solid foundations so that you can build on this for your ongoing inbound strategy. Here’s some further reading to help:

We specialise in marketing as well as working closely with many local businesses in Croydon and London area. Take a look at our digital marketing services for accountants including website design and development, social media management, Pay Per Click (PPC) and more.

6 digital marketing tactics for accountancy firms

08/07/2020 by scmarketing

With many of us now remote working and embedded in the virtual world, the importance of presence online has never been so important.

If you’re an accountancy practice looking to ramp up online marketing activity or need a little advice on where to start, here’s our lowdown on the digital marketing tactics to think about and incorporate into your marketing strategy.

Website optimisation

We always start with a website review. Take a look at the content and check that it’s up to date. Then delve a little deeper and check whether all the information is on your website that you would except if you were a visitor to the site.

Don’t make it difficult for people to find things. Don’t be fancy. Make your menu and page content clear so that it’s easy for your website users to navigate. Be informative and professional, yet friendly and approachable.

When reading through your current website content, in the back of your mind always be thinking about what people search for when they are looking for accountancy services. These phrases should then become your keywords. Then make sure you have these keywords within content on your website.

Having keywords in your H1 and H2 headers will also help highlight what’s on that page to search engines.

On the backend make sure that you also have your meta descriptions and alt tags completed. This will also help with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

Read more about SEO with our blogs, Improve local SEO by creating local content and 6 SEO tips to improve search ranking.

Blogs

Don’t ever think that blogging isn’t for an accountancy practice. With the amount of regular updates for businesses from HMRC, and a lot more right now, there’s heaps of information to be talking about and informing your existing clients as well as your prospects. Be factual with content – offer tips, latest government updates, industry statistics and insight.

Writing blogs or having a news page is a great way to get fresh content onto your website which is what you need to help your accountancy practice be found in search engine results pages.

It’s a great way for you to add in those keywords you’ve researched too.

Google My Business

Make sure you’ve populated Google My Business with details of your firm. This is free to do and at the very least make sure you get the basic information up there about your company, such as website, telephone number, contact email and opening times. This all helps with SEO and it’s another place that you can be found in search.

You can have the chance to add updates too. So you can repurpose your blogs and add the content here as well. It adds quality links back to your website which is another thing that search engines look for to help understand the authority of your page.

Pay Per Click

Pay Per Click (PPC) is a great way to help increase traffic to your website. We recommend having a specific landing page created for a PPC campaign so that when people you are targeting click on an ad they will be taken to a relevant page. This helps reduce bounce rates and attracts quality leads.

A well targeted PPC campaign can help give you a real boost in search results and a way to reach your potential customers.

Social media marketing

A Facebook or Twitter account with up to date detail of your firm ensures you have visibility on two of the largest search engines. Whilst it may not lead to direct sales, they are great brand awareness platforms.

LinkedIn is a great channel for accountancy firms. With LinkedIn it’s worth remembering that you’re networking. It’s not about selling it’s about creating that business relationship.

So, if you’re not already regularly posting on a social media platform, perhaps now is the time to explore this for your accountancy practice. Look at your competitors and see what social networks they have presence. It makes sense to be in the same place.

Read our blog on the different social media platforms and how to use them for more insight.

Email marketing

A targeted email marketing campaign can have a significant impact on Return on Investment (ROI). What’s great about email is you can repurpose content you already have from blogs or it’s a great way to highlight updates to services.

But what’s key is that you make your email campaign personal. Really think about the person who has signed up to receive your emails and what they want to hear about. They are a target audience so think about how your email can benefit them. If it’s sharing news about latest legislation that they should be aware of or some interesting stats that can help their business planning or growth, then that’s of interest.

Our blog on email marketing benefits for your business has some further detail on the structure of your emails, through to the importance of mobile optimisation and analysis.

Digital marketing for accountants

We provide digital marketing for accountants with bases in Croydon and London.

Take advantage of our free website review and download our Beginner’s Guide to Inbound Marketing to help you on your digital marketing journey. Or book a free consultation to chat further about your goals for your accounting practice and we can tailor a proposal for you.

‘New normal’ – 3 marketing tips for accounting firms

04/07/202107/17/2020 by scmarketing

With many accounting firms adapting to working remotely and conducting meetings virtually, now that lockdown is easing with some offices reopening for skeleton staff, it’s time to get on board with the ‘new normal’ and get your marketing focus back on track.

What’s key is ensuring that you continue to maintain the quality level of service for your existing clients as you start to ramp up your marketing activity. While looking for quality leads is important, maintaining a high level of service for your existing clients can reap rewards with additional service requests to help navigate the raft of grants available allows for cross sell opportunity.

So, how do you maintain your quality level of service for existing clients as you look to attract new clients?

Here’s our top 3 online marketing tips for accountants for ongoing engaging client liaison to keep customers and prospects well informed providing you with the opportunity for increasing revenue and growing your business.

1. Marketing automation

Is it time to consider implementing marketing automation into your accountancy practice? This can help free up valuable time as marketing automation can take on those vital but time-consuming and repetitive tasks.

You may be forgiven for one moment in thinking: ‘But does this not take the personal touch out of the equation when the aim is to offer a high level of client service?’

In short, no. One aspect of marketing automation is the ability to pre-set email sequences that cover a range of scenarios such as meeting a contact at a virtual networking session. You can then schedule to send the pre-written email when you’re back at your desk.

But by creating a sequence of let’s say three emails, you can plan to send the second one after a few days with some pertinent insight and then if you do not hear back after the second email, then a third is sent. If there is engagement at any point then this triggers a halt on the email chain so you can jump in to make the next response totally personal.

You can also automate your social media marketing so messages go out in a timely manner.

If you’ve managed with webinars and Zoom meetings, perhaps now is the time to delve a little deeper into the technology available to enhance your business and your client’s experience. This could be a game-changer for your accounting firm.

2. What’s your content marketing plan?

We’ve been through a roller coaster of government announcements these past few months. One thing that’s key with an accountancy practice is your knowledge and insight to navigate the financial landscape.

Let clients and prospects know about your expertise and your guidance. Your accountancy firm is not just about payroll, bookkeeping, corporate finance or VAT returns, you are an advisory service. Therefore, your expertise in understanding all the implications and potential benefits available is a huge help for businesses trying to simply get by, keep their customers and pay their staff. So, communicate this with your client base with updates on your website about the latest news and government announcements. You can also share this content via email marketing or social media with links back to the full blog on your website.

We recommend that you compile a content marketing plan adding key dates in so you know when you can write a blog post about a particular topic and send out timely communication that will help your clients.

For prospects, this continued sharing of information helps to build trust with your accounting practice over other firms. If you’re offering advice that is helping, then you have more chance of getting a call for a consultation.

Regular and new content on your website with keywords that you want to be found forms part of a search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. Including this in your plan will really help give your website a boost in search results pages.

3. Review your target audience

Over this period have you discovered that you’ve been working in one or two sectors of industry more than others? Or perhaps you have had more enquiries about a certain service or from similar sized businesses. Now is the time to review these frequent enquiries and really understand who your target audience is. This will help so much with engagement and attracting quality leads because you can tailor your marketing communication specifically to their concerns. This positions you as the thought leaders in your area of expertise.

Here’s our advice on creating up an online persona (an imaginary person that is your typical target audience).

Digital marketing for accountants

We don’t know what the landscape will be in a few months-time but as it is, with your expertise and a little time exploring your marketing options, you can be a step ahead of the game.

We are a digital marketing agency in Croydon offering a specialism in digital marketing for accounting businesses. Why not take advantage of our free website audit so you can understand whether you need to make any updates to your website so that it is optimised for lead generation.