10 Powerful Game Changers for Marketing CPA, Consulting and Other Professional Services Firms

Your Marketing Budget is Never, Ever going to be the Same Again!

When it comes to CPA, consulting or AEC marketing, the dramatic shifts occurring in strategic approaches and the frenetic pace of change driven by the availability of more and more powerful (and sophisticated) digital marketing tools is unbelievable.

So I’m not sure whether those tears I see are those of the joy of new possibilities, or those of the pain of change … or maybe a little bit of each.

Just when professional services firms are starting to open their minds (and wallets) to the possibility of marketing, they’re being told that spending on print advertising, telemarketing, direct mail, and a bunch of other long-in-the-tooth marketing tactics are passé. Finit. Morte.

Professional Services Marketing is Headed in New Directions

I put together a list of what I consider to be the top 10 game changers for marketing accounting and other professional services firms that are going to have implications for budgeting in 2014 and beyond. HubSpot and CPA  Academy were kind enough to sponsor a webinar about these called “10 Marketing Game Changers for Professional Services Firms – What’s in Your Budget?”

My thanks to both of these companies!

If you’re interested in either seeing the whole presentation (where I go into more detail about each game changer), or just getting the slides, click on one the buttons … no form required! Here’s my list:

Media channels that firms use and the type of messaging they deliver is going to change as boomers leave and millennials take over … hey!! I can Tweet that because it’s under 140 characters!

Funding for content in the form of blogs, white papers, video, social media interactions, and so on, will is consume a bigger and more significant portion of the marketing budget.

VIDEO

Smart money is flowing toward digital marketing and away from spending on traditional marketing – is it time to get rid of that “legacy” spending? 

SLIDESHOW

When it comes to marketing communications, people want less Interruption and more permission … they want to find you, and you have to earn – not pay for - their interest.

Analytics are going to be a key driver in the way budgets are developed and in the way prospects are qualified and treated because in a digital environment, you can measure everything … including ROI!I

Websites are going to migrate from being online brochures to the hub of the firm’s marketing efforts … and they’ll become a monster hungry for content that will always want feeding.

Firms are going to put a lot less money into branding and lot more money into digitally-based lead generation campaigns – from landing pages to automated lead nurturing.

Firms are going to discover marketing segmentation and automation, and invest in the marketing technologies that move us ever closer to 100% customization and personalization of marketing messages.

We’ve all become publishers and now, because of the shareabiity features of social media, our lofty thoughts can reach hundreds, thousands or even millions of eyeballs with virtually no effort required other to have social media accounts to  post clever, interesting comments.

Speed to response is becoming important because those  first to respond are generally those who get business …is it time for a social media specialist on your staff?

Tears of Joy or Pain?

For a lot of marketing professionals, these changes will bring tears of joy, but it’s my guess that for the firm’s management team, we’ll be seeing tears of pain when they see how much has to be done, or how far behind their competitors they are. I did, however, find a place where you can buy handkerchiefs in volume for as low as $0.24 ea … online!!

It’s an inevitability that your CPA, consulting or AEC form will need to re-engineer parts (or all) of your firm’s marketing program. Start your process of change by learning about new strategies like inbound marketing. And not last not least , bear in mind this guidance from Jack Welch:

“Change before you have to.”