Where to Market Your Accounting Business

There are over 1.4 million accountants in the United States, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates an annual increase of 6%. The demand is high, but there’s a strong supply to meet it, creating immense competition among US accountants, and making it difficult for newly qualified professionals to break into the industry.

If you want to get noticed, you need to aggressively market your services.

Online Marketing for Your Accounting Business

We don’t need to explain the benefits of online marketing. We’re long past that. Most of your customers are online and they’ll use the web to find you, vet you, and even book you—it’s a no-brainer.

There are several ways to boost your presence on the web:

Build a Good Website                                                                                   

Customers want to see a website; they want to contact an official email. Sure, some customers will be happy with a social media page and a Gmail address, but most will turn tail and run to the nearest competitor if that’s all they see.

Thanks to services like WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix, it has never been easier to launch a site. If you opt for WooCommerce (built on WordPress) or Shopify, you can even take bookings and payments.

Don’t have the time to play around with content platforms? We can do the work for you with website design services to cater for individuals and firms of all sizes.

Run an SEO Strategy

Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for ranking high in search engines like Google and Bing. It’s often dismissed as something that only big brands need to concern themselves with, and many professionals assume it’s not for them if they don’t have the marketing budget to fight for competitive keywords.

However, if your customers use Google to find the services you offer, you need SEO.

If you’re writing blogs, you’re already engaging in SEO, as it’s those articles and the keywords within that Google indexes. But a comprehensive SEO campaign will account for various elements to boost your rankings:

• Technical SEO: Addresses issues that prevent your site from ranking, including poor navigation, indexing problems, and low site speed.
• Off-Page SEO: This aspect focuses on building authority, which in turn will put you in good stead with the search engines.
• On-Page SEO: Includes blogs and guides, as well as fundamental content like FAQs and service descriptions.

A good SEO strategy is scalable—you don’t need a monumental budget if you’re a sole proprietor targeting local customers.

Get in touch with us today to discuss your SEO goals.

Launch Paid Advertising Campaigns

Paid ads drive targeted traffic to your site, social media page, or services. As with SEO, Google is king, as the Google Ads network includes the Google search engine (your ads will display as high-ranking “sponsored” results), Google display ads (banner and text ads shown on websites and social media pages), and video ads on YouTube.

You mainly pay for engagements, including link clicks, purchases, and email queries, and Google uses advanced AI algorithms to display your ads to the most appropriate individuals.

Try Social Media Marketing

Social media campaigns can get expensive, but they are also customizable, and you can set your own budget.

If you have a big budget, you can target everyone looking for accounting services within a certain city or state. If not, platforms like Meta will allow you to target people in certain geo-locations with specific interests and needs.

Create a Newsletter

It takes time to build a newsletter list, but it’s time well spent.

Use pop-up notifications to request email addresses on your website. Offer freebies like eBooks in exchange, or simply ask existing customers to add their names to the list.

Every now and then, you can send them marketing emails to encourage more purchases. But remember, no one wants to read a newsletter that constantly tries to sell them something.

Give your readers useful information—links to blogs and helpful guides, snippets of facts, industry updates—most of the time and sell to them the rest of the time.

Use LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social media site for professionals. Building a large network on LinkedIn will put your name and services in front of business owners and entrepreneurs looking for accountants.

Don’t just create a profile and leave it. List your experience and qualifications, write blogs, post useful information, and show anyone who’s looking that you know what you’re talking about and are worthy of their business.

Offline Marketing for Your Accounting Business

When it comes to professional services like accounting, many sole proprietors and small business owners still prefer to shop for suitable candidates offline. There are also some great offline marketing strategies to target locals:

• Meetups for Startups and Small Business Owners: Startups are always looking to expand their networks, giving them access to well-positioned professionals and investors. Connect with them at local and national events and hand out those business cards.
• Sponsorships: Sponsor a local sports team, charity event, or business seminar to get your name out there. Focus more on the relevancy of the audience than the cost of the placement.
• Print Publications: Although this can be an expensive option, it’s worth your while if the publication targets entrepreneurs and small business owners in the local area. Remember, a circulation of 1,000 highly targeted readers is better (and often cheaper) than 100,000 general readers.
• Referral Programs and Word of Mouth: Professionals love to recommend high-quality services to fellow business owners and entrepreneurs. You could wait and hope that your current customers will send business your way, or you could incentivize them to recommend you using a referral program.

Summary: Marketing Your Accounting Business

The best marketing methods for accounting businesses take time. SEO is a prime example, as it can drive highly targeted organic traffic to your site while ensuring you’re not paying for every click, engagement, or lead, but it can take weeks to create an effective SEO strategy and months before you see any results.

You could balance this by trying multiple methods, but you only get out what you put in, and if you’re devoting a small slice of your marketing budget to SEO, you likely won’t get the results you seek. Keep this in mind and get started sooner rather than later.

If you get the ball rolling today, your company could be the one that locals see when they look for accounting services in your area.