Changing Your Firm’s Marketing Game Plan in 2015 Means Changing the Where, How and Why of the Marketing Budget

6 Budget Items Your CPA or Professional Service Firm Needs to Move into Inbound Marketing

For a lot of CPA, consulting and other professional service firms, it’s getting closer and closer to doing the marketing budget for 2105.

I can tell because the folks over at Pepto Bismal are starting to crank up production for all of the marketers who are going to be challenged (once again) by dragging their partners kicking and screaming into the era of digital marketing. But maybe there’s a way to avoid slugging down that half bottle or so of delicious pink ambrosia with a couple of simple questions starting with this one: “are we satisfied with our growth and new business rate?”

If the answer is yes, then the marketing solution is pretty simple – do more of the same in 2015 and only adjust your marketing budget for inflation. That may not be the most career satisfying response for a professional service form marketer, but it beats buying a case of Pepto.

If the answer is “NO”, and doing more of the same is not going to get the firm to where it wants to be in terms of growth and new business, then it’s time to change the marketing game plan and take a lot closer look of how to build and manage the firm’s digital marketing assets within the framework of an inbound marketing strategy.

If you’re uncertain about whether or not you need to change your game plan, then take a stab at answering these 10 questions. I’ve also put them into a no form requireddownloadable PDF that you can circulate within the firm.

What Needs to be in a CPA or Professional Service Firm’s Marketing Budget?

If you’re going to change your game plan then you’re going to need to change your marketing budget.

Let’s start with a little surgery and cut out those items that may be legacy spends whose time is past. This could include sponsorships, advertising specialties, paid media, underused trade association memberships and so on. Remember: in inbound marketing we’re using our budget to get found, generate leads, and nurture those leads from prospect to client. Outside of budget being allocated to partners for 1:1 marketing (networking, schmoozing, letting your clients and prospects win the last 6 holes on the course, etc.), every marketing expense should be filtered through the lens of a get found-convert-nurture strategy.

Getting rid of strategies and tactics that don’t produce a measurable ROI should free up some marketing dollars. Here are 6 things that make for a better spend and a much greater opportunity to see a return on your marketing investment:

(1)    Inbound Marketing Manager

Inbound marketing has a lot of moving pieces, from managing and maintaining the necessary marketing technology like HubSpot, to managing the firm’s digital assets like its social media accounts. Most firms today are tacking these responsibilities on top of an overburdened marketing department. You have a couple of options: either change the focus of the department’s resources and appoint someone to oversee the inbound program, or make a hire whose exclusive responsibility is to manage the firm’s inbound program.

(2)    Content Marketing Resources

Content is the fuel of inbound marketing, and most firms are finding that they need to use outside resources like eNewsletters powered by BizActions or a ghost writer who can work with partners and subject matter experts to craft blogs, whitepapers, presentations and so forth. There are scads of different types of content (check out some ideas here) but trying to carry a content marketing burden internally will prove to be difficult, if not impossible, for most firms.

(3)    Robust e-mail platform

Email marketing is now the primary way that CPA and other professional service firms build their brands and generate leads. It’s becoming impossible to manage a robust email program through Outlook or through the incredibly poor marketing modules found in many accounting firm time and billing software packages. Firms have quite number of email marketing options – HubSpot, MailChimp, BizActions, Constant Contact – to name a few. Where most firms fail lies in the process of underfunding or not funding the onerous task of building and maintaining a clean email list.

(4)    Marketing Automation Technology

This is the big buzzword these days, and we see firms tripping over one another to get involved by leaping before looking. You need marketing automation in order to nurture prospects through the sales cycle, and there are vendors of marketing automation technology that make a very good product. However, the dirty little secret of marketing automation is that it is a content monster that requires budget for the development and placement of a lot of different types of content – from drip emails to offers, case studies, landing pages, and a lot more.

(5)    Integrated Lead Generation Campaigns

We think that firms should be budgeting at least one integrated lead generation campaign per quarter. Done properly, there are a significant number of moving pieces involved in a lead gen campaign (get more info here) that need to be coordinated and timed and measured. Your budget needs to accommodate marketing technology for managing and measuring the campaign, as well as securing a diverse range of content. That might include using a writer to develop a central offer like a whitepaper or eBook to having a resource for using social media to promote offers over the extended life of the campaign.

(6)    Website re-engineering or redesign

The last budget item is for redesigning or re-engineering the firm’s website. The key issue we see with so many new firm websites these days is that they’re built on vanity, not strategy. Sure they look great, but our perspective is that they should be the centerpiece of the firm’s inbound marketing strategy with key responsibilities for converting site visitors to leads using gated offers, as well as serving up keyword driven content for search engine rankings.

Don’t Put that Pepto Back up on the Shelf Just Yet

Changing your firm’s game plan to inbound marketing is not going to be easy or simple. It’s likely that you’ll be facing resistance from partners – especially older partners – who may not have the desire to do something new and different. It’s going to take time to see results from the new game plan and a measure of commitment and faith that it will work. But you will get more visibility and you will see more leads and sales, and best of all, you’ll be able to cut down on that nasty Pepto Bismal habit.