If you are looking into hiring an agency of digital marketing for accounting firms, you might want to take a look into the services that you will need the most, and make sure that the agency you hire offers these digital marketing services. It is important that you are acquainted with them so that you can informedly decide which types of services you want to be included in your firm’s marketing strategy.
1 – Digital Marketing Services: E-mail
Every accounting firm should have an e-mail newsletter. As accountants, we must think first of how we want to be seen. We are not selling a product but offering a very valued service. Our firm has to be approachable but still, show some formality. In our case, e-mail marketing should be our main concern. You can send regular updates to your long-time clients and invite new people to contact you through e-mail and learn about your services. E-mail marketing is considered one of the best channels for conversion.
You will get the best results if you earn your e-mail subscribers by offering them something in return. For example, you can work on a monthly newsletter that covers a topic related to the services you provide and is informative to your audience. You can even complement this with other types of marketing, which we will develop below. But remember that your e-mail list is one of the best assets you have. Use it wisely.
2 – Digital Marketing Services: Social Media
Social media platforms are also a necessity nowadays for your digital marketing efforts to bloom. You should make sure that your social media presence reflects the personality of your firm. Promoting your services as an accounting firm on social media is a big step and should be done well. You should be able to start conversations that increase your audience’s awareness of your services. Each social network has its distinctive features, and some platforms are better suited for your company than others.
You will probably find a better audience if you focus your marketing efforts on social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn than if, for example, you choose to have social media presence on Instagram. You should know which the characteristics of the user-base of the platforms are before you hop on them. In the case of accounting, and Instagram account would not be as profitable as a Facebook account since Instagram’s user-base caters mostly to people who do not need our services. That is something to be aware of if you hire a marketing agency. Do not fall for offers that will not really help you reach your desired audience.
3 – Digital Marketing Services: Content Marketing
Think of content marketing as telling a story about your firm. The idea behind it is to make your potential customers aware of your services through storytelling, and its main aim is to get your audience to take action. This is your story, so you should have complete control over it. Find an agency that will help you mold your image and through the art of storytelling.
What will content marketing help you with? It will attract attention to your services and generate leads. It will also help you expand your client base and generate or increase online queries. And most importantly, it will increase your firm’s awareness and credibility, and engage an online community with your company. As you can see, content marketing goes hand in hand with the services we have already mentioned, and with other services that you might be interested in, such as SEO.
4 – Digital Marketing Services: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
You might have heard about SEO and wonder what it is all about. In short, we could define SEO as the practice of enhancing content or web pages in order to make them appear in search results on different search engines, such as Google and Bing. It is a little-known fact among people who do not work in digital marketing that both Google and Bing decide which web pages they show for a search string based on the keywords included on the web page and all the other pages that link or refer to your website. Remember that there is a strong bond between SEO, social media, and content marketing. If you want one of those services, you most likely will need to have the other two.
5 – Digital Marketing Services:  Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Even though they might sound like the same thing to you, SEM and SEO are very distinct services. The basic difference is that one is free, and the other one is paid. So as an accountant you know this entails a big difference. Search Engine Marketing has to do with getting paid traffic from Google, Bing, or other search engines. That is, advertising within the framework of the search engine. If you buy an ad in a search engine platform, your page will have a place assured in the top list of search hits. In the case of Google, which we all know is the biggest search engine in the world, we are talking about using Google Adwords to your advantage.
6 – Digital Marketing Services: Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
Other platforms (for example, social networks) also offer forms of PPC ads that are similar to SEM. These advertisements turn up in the feed of your target audience. These are paid ads on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
7 – Digital Marketing Services: Affiliate Marketing
This type of marketing is similar to PPC, but instead of paying for visits to your page, you pay for conversions (that is new clients). This is less risky for you because you do not pay for every person that enters your site, but for every person that becomes your client. The most popular way to work with affiliate marketing is contacting bloggers or internet celebrities –who might or might not be related to your niche– and give them a percentage of your what you make with every new client that contacts you through their link.
