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Digital Marketing

Any firm (big or small ) must have a digital presence. This includes an authentic website, compelling content, useful emails, and engaging social media pages.

Marketing is not just about generating leads; it's also about fostering better relationships with existing clients. Your marketing activities support and nurture them; encouraging retention, increased engagement, improved revenue, and referrals.

So, even if you’re not looking for new clients, marketing to your existing client base will help you position new services and provide leveraged education and support.

Start by answering these two questions

Carefully consider your answers to these questions:

  1. Who are you talking to? Think about your ideal clients; their industry, location, size, needs, etc..
  2. Why would they choose you over another accounting firm? It could be your specialisms and expertise, your location, the way you work with clients, or your client care.

These answers should impact every marketing decision you make, including the tone and focus of content you write, where you place your messaging, and the offers you promote.

 

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Websites still matter

Your website is usually the first place someone connects with you, so give a great first impression.

Consider these fundamentals:

  • Make information easy to access - contact details are important!
  • Ensure key messages are front and centre - what is the first thing you want people to know? State your point of difference clearly above the homepage fold so visitors feel they’ve come to the right place
  • Use keywords and phrases that will resonate - what would your ideal client type into a Google search when looking for your services? Think about your specialty, location, or unique service offering, and include these in website or blog copy and page metadata
  • Calls To Action (CTA) - guide visitors through your site and encourage them to engage you via CTAs, e.g. ‘Contact us’ or ‘Register for our webinar’
  • Navigation must be easy and intuitive - simple and clear navigation helps visitors find what they’re looking for and roam for longer
  • Be mobile-friendly - mobile accounts for half of web traffic; be responsive to mobile devices
  • Consider load time - load time plays a huge part in user retention
  • Testimonials are critical- let others sing your praises for you
  • A picture paints a thousand words and a video paints a thousand pictures… video can be low tech, ideally short in length, and it should tell a story
  • Be authentic - avoid stock photography and generic same-same content and personalise your About Us page to build trust and humanise your offering

 

Content marketing positions your value

You’ve got to give value before you extract it.

Educating your clients and followers is a great strategy. Producing interesting, entertaining, or useful content regularly, such as articles, eBooks, and videos, and giving them away for free is a great inbound marketing strategy to boost SEO and attract fresh leads.

Great content should speak to your reader’s interests, fears, and aspirations. For example, blogs addressing common pain points or social posts providing cashflow improvement tips or a webinar on building prosperity.

Slice and dice your marketing assets across multiple platforms to build your profile, support your clients, and encourage engagement.

Website: Draw people in with regular blogs and send EDMs and post on social with a blog synopsis and link to access the full article via your website.

Add ‘gated’ content to capture prospect information, e.g. publish useful guides, eBooks, calculators, and tools that visitors can access upon providing their contact details - direct traffic to these resources from social posts.

Email: Send relevant updates, reminders, guidance, webinar invites, timely content (e.g. new year reflection content), and new service information. Always include a CTA, e.g. ‘Register now’, ‘Book a complimentary call’ or ‘Find out more’.

Start with the services you think recipients will benefit from or the marketing outcomes you’re looking for and reverse engineer content to encourage these outcomes. For example, if you want XX webinar registrations, warm up your audience with EDMs that position you as an expert in the webinar topic before inviting attendees. Or, if you want to drive Business Planning, send emails that position the value of an annual plan and tailor your CTA.

Social media: Post short, sharp and visual content across a range of topics, supplementing your efforts across other platforms. Post links to other content (from reputable sites), office antics, client success stories, testimonials, thought leadership, and anything reflecting your brand.

Go beyond your platforms:Broaden your reach by guest blogging, vlogging, podcasting, etc. with aligned strategic partners, industry associations, or media publications to further demonstrate your value.

 

Marketing trends we’ve seen

The rise (and rise) of the webinar.

Covid changed our marketing behaviour. Apart from throwing out the content in our 2020 Marketing Plan (ongoing hardships and business disruption rendered many topics tone deaf), our marketing habits significantly changed. Webinars don’t only genuinely engage clients and prospects, they provide a clear marketing pathway by producing marketing assets that can be reused and recut - creating a beautiful long marketing tail.

Our BOMA usage data, capturing BOMA content sent and impressions, clicks, likes and shares generated, shows a dramatic increase in accounting firms sending curated content and inviting their followers to attend webinars. We expected some growth as the pandemic hit… but we didn’t anticipate the growth to continue at a staggering pace throughout 2020.

Covid forced great marketing habits that bore results and marketing momentum.

 

BOMA saves time and builds marketing momentum

BOMA is a digital marketing tool specifically designed for accountants.

Market your firm better and fast track a return on your marketing efforts by hitting the ground running with an all-in-one digital marketing platform that has an extensive library of content articles specifically written for you to share with your clients.

The hard work is done, including social posts for your different platforms… simply choose an article, change up the image, give the text your own spin and send quality content across platforms in mere minutes.

Run social ads via BOMA, create lead capture forms, and analyse campaign performance. With personalised support for every customer, BOMA is the easy way to support clients and build your profile.

Gappies get premium Gap content that’s carefully crafted to generate interest in your Business Advisory services and drive registrations for your webinar offering. With The Gap and BOMA, your Marketing Plan is quick and easy to build and deliver on.

 

Get your Guide to Digital Content Marketing and download BOMA's Digital Marketing Content Planner to get started:

 

Download Banner - Digital Marketing for Accountants & Bookkeepers (2)-1

 

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."

- Henry David Thoreau

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