CPA Firm Marketing Budgets: Are You Spending Enough and on the Right Tactics?

Should You be Spending on Generating Leads, Building Your Brand or Both?

To prove the point that it’s possible to blog anytime and anywhere, I’m writing this blog at O’Hare waiting for my flight back to Fairport. Since it’s not snowing, there are no tornadoes on the radar screen, Godzilla is not wreaking havoc along the shores of Lake Michigan, and it’s still too early for Blackhawk fans to overrun the tarmacs celebrating their next Stanley Cup, I figure that my chances of an on time departure and arrival just went north of 16%.

So while I’m waiting, I thought I’d share what’s on my mind – your CPA firm’s marketing budget – and whether or not you’re spending enough and if you’re spending it on useless marketing.

Recently, our friends at Hinge Research released their new benchmarking study on CPA firm marketing spending and organic growth. Now in the interests of full disclosure, I didn’t fork out the three hundred bucks for the full report, so my comments are all rooted in the freebie content, like the report’s Executive Summary, that I could grab.

Asleep at the Wheel – Great Band, but a Lousy Way to Run a Marketing Function

Between the report’s findings of low spending and what marketing budgets are being spent on, I just had to shake my head ... it’s like all of the volumes and volumes of new research, observations and insights on the power of digital marketing had somehow completely missed the mark. Are partners and marketers asleep at the wheel when it comes to strategies, tactics and budgets for getting more visibility, leads and new business out of their marketing program?

To be fair, Hinge’s research did show that bigger firms are putting a lot more budget into digital marketing. But considering that most accounting firms are small, it seems to me that they’re the ones who should be extra special careful about getting the biggest bang for their marketing buck.

And that sure isn’t in advertising, sponsorships and non-educational events. Ok, so putting some coins into individual partner efforts (FORE!!!!) and networking events is probably a good spend, but advertising? Sponsorships (which I don’t believe should be under the marketing budget)? Non-education events? I’m not quite sure what those are, but that’s what I get for not ponying up three hundred bucks.

So here’s my perspective: I think this research points out the fact that for a lot of accounting firms – and if you’ll permit me to extrapolate, other professional service firms too – need to rethink their marketing game plan and budget especially if they’re looking to using their marketing budget to get more visibility, leads and new customers.

Frankly, if your objectives are branding then spending on advertising and events is the right way to go. But it’s awful tough to measure the impacts and ROI of these tactics. It’s been my experience, however, that giving a partner a choice between getting a lead from marketing efforts or spending on an ad for building the firm’s brand, getting the lead will win just about every time.

How are Your Prospects Buying?

A few months ago, DemandGen released a report of findings on new research they did on how B2B buyers make purchase decisions. There are some great insights in this report that can and should have a key impact on how your firm is developing and committing its marketing resources.

Here are a couple of key findings from their 2014 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey

• Web search remains a top source of information
• Nearly two-thirds of buyers indicate that content had a significant influence on a decision.
• 40% of respondents said they waited longer than last year to initiate contact with B2B vendors
• 34% of respondents said the number of team members involved in the B2B purchase process increased over the past year;
• Almost two thirds of respondents said the winning vendor’s content had a significant impact on their buying
• 68% of respondents agreed that the number of sources used to research and evaluate purchase has increased over the past year.

Reading between the lines, I think that what the DemandGen Report is suggesting is that the marketing budget needs to be spent on where, how, why and when your prospects are looking for solutions to issues they have, or trying to find a firm that can solve those issues. That means more funds need to be placed into having a great website, more content, more frequent promotion of the content, finding ways to reach deeper into prospect and client organizations, and lead nurturing.

Shifting Thinking from Marketing as an Expense to Marketing as an Investment

I think it also means making a shift from thinking about marketing as an expense to thinking about marketing as an investment could have a dramatic effect on the roles and value of marketing within accounting firms. Once you make a marketing tactic an expense rather than an investment, you’ve mentally consigned it to being a debit.

Yes, great websites and a great content marketing program can be pricy, but if it results in clients who give you annuity income for years and years, then you’ve spent your marketing budget wisely.

Hey!! Looks like it’s time to board so I’m going to wrap this up, and to my earlier point, you can blog anywhere and anytime. I just hope we take off before the meteor storm hits Cleveland.