Is There a Digital CMO in Your Accounting Firm’s Future?

Will Inbound and Content Marketing Change the Roles and Responsibilities of Professional Services Firm Marketers?

So, I’m on my way to the Association of Accounting Marketingannual summit in Las Vegas where I’ll be speaking to marketing managers and partners in CPA firms about inbound and content marketing, lead generation and industry game changers. Truth be told, after the events of the day are over, I might sit down at the poker tables.

I’m more than ready having won nearly $21 last night in the monthly home game I play in. All in quarters.

Getting ready for the Summit, I spent a lot of time thinking about how different things were and how different the topics were at the AAM conference five years ago. And I can’t help but think about how different professional services firm marketing is going to be 5 years from now.

I recently read an insightful article on the Harvard Business Review blog called “The Rise of the Digital CMO” that made me curious and concerned at the same time. Curious because it painted a picture of an environment where the Chief Marketing Officer of the future plays a vastly different role in a business environment where digital marketing and analytics become more prevalent and visible at the C-suite level. I’m concerned because accounting and other professional services firms are behind the curve when it comes to things like inbound and content marketing, and it’s likely that many will fall even further behind because of the complexities, investments required, and lack of resources to keep up the pace change of changes in new marketing technology.

In the article, author Jake Sorofman writes that, “Many CMOs see their digital future, but struggle to make the case across the executive ranks, where resistance is born of unfamiliarity, fear, or misperceptions about what digital marketing means for the brand.”

Marketers in accounting, consulting and other professional services firms should be moving aggressively towards fully integrating inbound and digital marketing into their marketing programs, but as Sorofman notes, expect resistance. However, resistance to changes in marketing approaches or changes is not new, it’s just that with the today’s pace of change, the longer that resistance lasts, the more difficult it will be for firms to catch up when they realize the inevitably of change.

Right now, it’s critical for marketers to educate partners on changes in the marketing environment and their impact on the firm. If I were to recommend a first major step, it would be to change the firm’s website from an online brochure into a fully functional marketing hub (see our whitepaper on “Best Kept Secrets of Successful Websites”.). Then you can add other digital technologies and approaches that will contribute to growing the firm’s top line.

Pursuing digital marketing is much less of a gamble that taking a seat at the poker table. But who knows – I might even come home from the Conference with another pocketful of quarters!