6 Key Trends About Niche Marketing Campaigns for Accountants

Inbound Marketing is Going to Revolutionize the Way CPA’s do Niche Marketing

I just returned from the annual HubSpot Users Group Conference where 1,000 marketers from all across the world gathered to hear about some of the absolute cutting edge tools, technologies and resources available for capitalizing upon the fundamental shifts in the way that prospects shop and buy.

I saw and learned about some powerful-jaw-dropping-eyeball-popping stuff that is perfect for accounting firm marketing, or for that matter, professional services firm marketing in general. Here’s the gist of it: there’s a powerful movement afoot where businesses are using creativity, innovation and powerful new marketing technologies to pull prospects into the top of their sales funnel, and employing even more powerful marketing technology in the middle of the sales funnel to nurture leads to sales.

The movement is called “inbound marketing”. Inbound marketing is going to revolutionize the way you do niche marketing and at the same time, marginalize the marketing programs of your competitors. My prediction is that a number of firms are going to “get it” right away and will realize huge advantages of being an early adopter.

Some of the key shifts I see happening over the next several years in CPA marketing program are going to happen at the niche level, as this is where inbound marketing has the greatest opportunity to deliver the most results for the lowest costs.

Here’s a list trends that I see happening as firms install and build inbound marketing capabilities:

1. Budget money will flow away from corporate branding activities that produce little ROI to funding lead generating activities at the niche market level
2. At the niche marketing level, while some funding and resources will still need to be allocated to niche level brand building, most of the budget will be re-allocated to very specific and highly targeted lead generation campaigns.
3. Firms will install and depend upon powerful new marketing technologies like HubSpot that will provide the necessary infrastructure to do inbound marketing
4. Niche practice managers will make a commitment to using thought leadership as a means for promoting and differentiating their niche practice and building the personal brands of the subject matter experts in that practice.
5. Niche marketing programs will be  built upon a content strategy where professionals in the niche are going to be made accountable for publishing their thought leadership in the forms of blogs, whitepapers, podcasts, webinars and more
6. Firm management will have hard data and metrics on the effectiveness of the niche marketing program and expenditures – right down to the lead generation campaign level – forever changing the roles, responsibilities and skill set requirements of marketers.

Like any innovation in accounting firm marketing – or marketing for any professional services firm for that matter – when it comes to inbound marketing, especially for niche marketing purposes, some firms will “get it”, but the vast majority will take a very typical wait and see attitude before trying something new and different.

If you’re unhappy about the growth of your niche, I’ll leave you with a fundamental question: will doing the same things in your marketing program that have got you to where you are today result in getting you to where you want to be tomorrow?