CPA Firm Marketing Gold from the Top Stories in Accounting in 2015

How effectively did your accounting firm turn opportunity into new business in 2015?

One of the things I look forward to at the end of every year is the new release of Top 10 Lists of Various and Sundry Stuff That Happened This Year.

From the Top 10 Taylor Swift Moments of 2015, to Top 10 best/worst videos, songs, movies, TV shows, hairstyles, tattoos, etc, this time of the year is a list reader’s paradise. And who could possibly resist the Top 10 Most Bizarre Traditions from Around the World 2015?

Not one to be left behind, every year Accounting Today publishes their annual list of top stories in accounting, and you can see their entire list here. Unlike my somewhat coarse interest in finding out about 2015’s top 10 most expensive pet pampering services, my interest in the AT’s list is purely professional, and my filter is somewhat narrow:

What do these stories say about marketing opportunities seized and missed, and what lessons can firms take away for 2016 that can result in more visibility, more leads, and more new business?

Translating 2015’s Top Accounting Stories into Top Accounting Firm Marketing Opportunities

From a marketer’s perspective, one of the most fascinating aspects of our jobs is that there is a never ending supply of new law, regulations, standards, macro and micro economic trends, and a staggering amount of fraud, financial mismanagement, and just plain malfeasance that represent marketing gold.

One of the most difficult aspects of our job is to get our firms to recognize the opportunity and how we can use it for marketing purposes like:

• Creating new web pages and publishing blogs for raising the firm’s visibility in search engines
• Creating and publishing thought leadership that can serve purposes ranging from branding to lead generation
• Creating a product or service to capitalize upon the opportunity
• Publishing whitepapers, eBooks, videos, and articles for purposes of gated lead generation
• Preparing and delivering seminars and webinars for branding and lead generation purposes

There’s a number of other marketing strategies and tactics for capitalizing upon opportunities, but my purpose isn’t to give you a list. It’s to make one simple point: 

My Choices for 2015’s Top Accounting Stories—a Marketer’s Perspective

Bearing these perspectives in mind, here are my choices for 2015’s top accounting stories that represented opportunities for marketing or new business:

• Tangible property regulations
• Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act—tax and compliance implications
• Supreme Court ruling on same sex marriage—tax implications
• Legitimization of the cannabis industry in certain states
• Tax benefit extenders in the 2016 budget
• Quality of Employee Benefit Audits
• Identification theft relative to tax reporting
• CPA firm staff shortages
• Pursuit of new value to offer clients, beyond the profession’s traditional tax, audit, and accounting services

Do You Have a Carpe Diem Plan and Process?

In my opinion, all of these stories require a guiding hand from your firm’s marketing resources to turn the opportunity into gold. Perhaps it’s time to add a “Carpe Diem” section to the agenda of your regular marketing meetings to enable a discussion of how, what, when, and who will address the opportunity.

It could be a simple as assigning a blog or two for timely publication, or planning and executing a significantly more complex and resource intensive comprehensive, integrated lead generation campaign.

Regardless, what’s required is action.

About this time next year, Accounting Today will publish its 2016 list of top stories. It will be interesting to see how many firms will hop on those stories for marketing or new business purposes, but truth be told, it’s likely that only a handful will have the foresight and commitment to recognize and capitalize upon the opportunities.

I wish all of you great success and best wishes for the coming year and hope that your investment in marketing in 2016 produces results beyond your expectations!

Now wouldn’t that make for a good top accounting story?