Effective marketing is vital for any accountancy firm looking to grow and maintain a strong presence in the profession. However, achieving consistency in your marketing efforts is often easier said than done. Many businesses struggle to maintain a regular and structured approach, leading to missed opportunities and a lower return on investment (ROI).
Consistent marketing keeps your brand front of mind and helps build credibility and trust with your audience. It ultimately generates more enquiries, leading to increased fees. In this blog, I show you how to achieve consistency in your accountancy marketing by implementing a structured marketing plan, using tools like content marketing calendars, and leveraging your team and external resources.
Why consistency is key to effective marketing
Consistency is a fundamental aspect of effective marketing. It helps establish brand identity, create familiarity with your audience, and ensure your message is clear and persistent. When your marketing is consistent, it builds credibility and trust with your clients. This trust translates into loyalty and ultimately develops long-lasting client relationships, which can also lead to referrals.
Inconsistent marketing, on the other hand, can confuse your audience, dilute your brand message, and result in missed opportunities to communicate with your target audience. To avoid these pitfalls, it is essential to develop a structured marketing plan that outlines your strategy and tactics over a specified period.
Achieving marketing consistency
Assuming that you have a marketing strategy in place (if not, take a look at my blog, ‘Why a marketing strategy generates success‘, the next step is to ensure consistency in your marketing efforts. This can be achieved by:
- Create a marketing action plan
A marketing action plan complements your strategy and determines what activities must be done and when to achieve an effective marketing programme. It helps you plan and schedule your marketing activities in advance, ensuring you maintain a steady stream of content and engagement with your audience.
- Set reminders and deadlines
Consistency in marketing also requires discipline and accountability. Set reminders and deadlines for yourself and your team to ensure that marketing tasks are completed on time. This could include scheduling regular check-ins to review progress, setting deadlines for content creation, and using project management tools to track tasks. These tasks should form part of your marketing action plan.
- Create a content calendar
Creating credible, engaging content regularly is a critical component of effective marketing. Marketing content can take the form of blogs, editorials, social media posts, videos, webinars, newsletters, brochures, and more.
A marketing content calendar lets you plan your marketing content and messages in advance, ensuring a consistent presence across different marketing channels.
Start by identifying key diary dates, such as the start or end of the tax year, self assessment deadlines, spring and autumn budgets etc., and then add in other dates such as exhibitions, shows you are attending or events you are organising. Finally, fill the gaps with regular posts, such as blog updates, client testimonials, and industry news.
Having a content calendar in place allows you to plan ahead, create high-quality content, and avoid the last-minute scramble to post something.
Share the load with your team
Marketing is often a team effort, and sharing tasks can help maintain consistency. Assign specific tasks to different team members, such as blog writing, social media management, or email marketing. Blog writing should be assigned to individuals with particular expertise in certain areas, such as R&D tax credits, IHT, corporate tax, HR, etc. This helps to produce an array of content that showcases the firm’s expertise. By dividing responsibilities, you can ensure that no single person is overwhelmed and that your marketing efforts continue even if someone is out of the office.
Use external marketing support
If your tax and accounting team lack the skills or time to handle all aspects of marketing, consider outsourcing specific tasks to marketing professionals. This could include hiring an experienced and qualified marketer to create regular content such as blogs, social media posts, newsletters, etc. Outsourcing allows you to leverage external expertise and resources, ensuring your marketing remains consistent and effective.
Accountability: The key to effective marketing
Marketing accountability is a big challenge for smaller accountancy firms that don’t have an in-house marketing person. Without someone to ensure tasks are completed, marketing efforts can easily fall by the wayside. To address this, appoint someone within your organisation to oversee marketing activities or use an external marketing consultant. This person should ensure that the marketing plan is implemented and everyone stays on track.
Additionally, consider setting up regular meetings to review your marketing progress. These meetings provide an opportunity to assess what’s working and what’s not and to make adjustments as needed. By keeping marketing top-of-mind and holding everyone accountable for their marketing actions, you can ensure that your efforts remain consistent and aligned with your business goals.
Conclusion: The path to consistent and effective marketing
Consistency in marketing is essential for building a solid brand, engaging your audience, and driving growth in your accounting firm. By developing a structured marketing plan, using tools like content calendars, and leveraging your team and external resources, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are consistent and effective.
Remember, consistency doesn’t happen by accident; it requires planning, discipline, and accountability. By following the strategies outlined in this blog, you can create a marketing approach that delivers results and maximises your return on investment.
If you would like assistance in producing consistent and effective marketing content, I would be happy to have a chat to discuss your needs and how I may be able to help. Please email me at vicki@momentumforprofessionals.co.uk or call me at 01822 833300.
