Sometimes you don’t have to reinvent the wheel – take, for example, recent research undertaken by Accountex – a leading expo for the accountancy sector. It reveals that leading suppliers to the accountancy profession identify four major challenges to the sector as a whole.
- Standing out in a crowded market – 86% saw this as a major challenge.
- Using technology to reduce manual processes – 82%
- Offering new services – 82%
- Improving marketing & client acquisition – 82%.
Oddly enough, effective marketing is the answer to all four.
Which accountant will remembered in a crowded marketplace?
Just for a moment, visualise exactly that – a crowded market. Every seller is shouting out their wares, you can’t see from one side to the other, each little stall blocks your view of the rest. Which one are you going to remember? The answer isn’t the loudest shouter, nor the biggest stall, the one you will remember will be the one who:
- meets and even anticipates your needs
- is pleasant to do business with
- has a great product that sends you back for more
- is easily identifiable next time you visit that market.
And that’s what effective marketing delivers – instead of just ‘shouting’ like a billboard that conveys the same message (or lack of it) to every passing driver, good marketing is a quiet word in the ear of the right customer, so they stop, browse and buy.
Technology to reduce manual processes
Be honest, I’ll bet you thought about electronic accounting processes didn’t you? Ways for your clients to transfer their files to you easily, ways for you to file for them online? Of course you did. But what we’re talking about here is the technology of marketing so, for example:
- Instead of sending out postal newsletters, posting them online behind a firewall so clients can access them but non-clients just get a snippet and a call to action to contact you and find out more
- Sending your clients infographics that detail the process of filing accounts or changes to Government legislation which the can put on their staff intranet
- Explainer videos that deal with an aspect of tax planning that you know interests your clients.
Each of these is a cost-effective marketing tool that cuts through the time and cost intensive cold-calling etc that so many accountants are still wedded to and is likely to generate more new business too!
Offering new services
Establishing a new service creates a need to market the service – there’s no point offering it if nobody knows it exists! Marketing such services through well-branded media, from a brochure through to a banner headline on your website, gives you multiple opportunities to reach your current clients with a new offering and attract new clients.
Improving client acquisition
As an expert design and marketing organisation, Creative Harmony would take ‘marketing’ out of this fourth point, because marketing offers so much more than client acquisition, but if course it’s a major feature of any marketing programme. As all our recent articles have made clear, effective design and marketing lead to so many great results that no modern business can afford to ignore them. A clear brand, carried through every aspect of your business identity, is vital to accountancy business success.
So if you’re ready to become an accountant with real marketing power, call Creative Harmony today! Call us on 0203 773 9137 or email info@creativeharmony.co.uk so we can move you into the forefront of SEO.
