The Top 5 Most Effective Tactics Used by Aggressive/Progressive CPA Firms for Lead Generation

Is Your CPA Firm Marketing Program Ahead or Behind the Curve?

One of the areas we investigated in our recent Survey of CPA Firm Best Lead Generation Practices gave us some insights to what CPA firms consider to be the most effective types of offers and tactics for generating leads. In fact, a few weeks ago, we published a blog post (“The Top 3 Tactics CPA and Consulting Firms Use to Promote Offers for Lead Generation”) showing what firms considered to be the most effective ways that firms use to reach eyeballs to promote or “advertise” an offer: on the website, e-newsletters, and e-mail.

In today’s post, we do a little bit deeper dive and look into what the survey said about how firms are generating the leads – the specific tactics they use to turn an opportunity from a suspect to a prospect – someone who gives the firm permission to market to them. In our main report and Executive Summary we present an overview of what we found, but we thought our reader might find it interesting to see what the most aggressive/progressive CPA firms had to say about the most effective tactics (the “how’s) of lead generation.

**What are the Most Effective Tactics Progressive/Aggressive CPA Firms Use to Generate Leads*?**

Networking/referrals 92%
Industry organizations 77%
Content marketing 72%
Company website 67%
Seminars 62%
Speaking 59%
Dedicated business developer 56%
Meet/greet 56%
e-newsletter 54%
Search marketing 51%
email 44%
Public relations 41%
Social media 38%
Webinars 33%
Blogs 31%
Civic organizations 31%
Sponsorships 26%
PPC 21%
Direct mail 18%
Online video 18%
Tradeshows 18%
Telemarketing 10%
Mobile mktg 8%
Paid advertising 8%
Cold Calling 5%

% of firms self-identifying as progressive/aggressive that rate the tactic with very effective or effective

Here are a few interesting observations you can use to benchmark how your firm compares to progressive/aggressive firms when it comes to lead generation:

The most effective way to generate lead is, and will remain to be networking and referrals. This doesn’t mean, however, that it should be the only arrow in your quiver when it comes to lead generation
Of the top 10 tactics, 4 of them fall into the digital marketing arena. 5 years ago, tactics like content marketing and company website and search marketing would not have made the top ten list, and five years from now, we predict that these tactics will be #2,3 and 4 in the top 10 list
Mobile marketing comes in very low in the ratings of lead generation tactic effectiveness. With more and more people using smart phones and tablets than ever before, it’s time for smart marketers to build a strong mobile presence
Of the bottom 10 tactics, traditional tactics such as cold calling, paid advertising, telemarketing, and trade shows are falling off the chart

Aggressive/progressive firms are shifting their marketing resources, budgets and thinking more and more into using digital marketing as a primary driver of lead generation for the firm. But digital marketing also can serve in firm and personal branding roles, as a vehicle for publishing thought leadership, and as a means to differentiate the firm on a number of different levels.