Opportunities for Top Line Growth in 2017 and Beyond

Business is good in the accounting industry.

Is your marketing department helping you close sales by giving you “bottom of the funnel” content?

There’s a lot of new thinking about the relationship between marketing and sales functions. Quite a few marketing gurus suggest that there needs to be a negotiated agreement about goals, objectives, strategies, tactics and each department’s respective roles in moving a prospect through the sales funnel.

Your Competitors’ Client Roster – AND YOURS – is Vulnerable

Accountants, lawyers, consultants, and asset managers know how difficult it is to retain or acquire new, desirable nonprofit clients … especially ones that won’t leave the flock because of a competitor’s lowball pricing. It’s a good day when a firm lands a new engagement or contract for a big (signature) nonprofit, foundation or endowment fund, or successfully fends off aggressive competitors seeking to mine your client roster.

Content marketing is the art and science of converting the thought leadership of partners and subject matter experts into materials that can be published, promoted and shared. And when you get your content published, promoted and shared, you’re filling the top of your sales funnel with prospects that want to see or hear what you have to say.

If your accounting or consulting firm is looking for more ROI from their investment in marketing and business development you should be considering lead generation campaigns based around the thought leadership of your firm. This is known as “content marketing.”

While many professional services firms have been doing this in some fashion for quite a long time, new marketing thinking and tools like inbound marketing, social media, search engine optimization (SEO) and blogging are putting the need for a constant and consistent supply of fresh, relevant and interesting content at the front and center of new business efforts.

The best and worst content gating practices of the Top 200 CPA firms revealed here!

About once every year or so, I look at the websites of each and every top 200 CPA firm and do a “back of the napkin” assessment of strategic, marketing, and design trends. I also look at how CPA firm websites benchmark against inbound marketing, content marketing, and lead generation best practices of B2B firms.

Overall, I give the Top 200 CPA firms a collective grade of B-.

Marketers Can and Should Deliver More Top Line Results

A few days ago I had a conversation with a 30-something Director of Marketing in a mid-sized CPA firm about inbound marketing. Our conversation slowly turned from visions of driving scores of leads into the firm and the purity and goodness of HubSpot software (sorry for the plug!), to one where I suddenly found myself in the role of mentor and counselor.

5 Strategies That Will Get Your Professionals Committed to Publishing Their Lofty Thoughts

If you’re a marketer in a CPA, consulting or other professional services firm you know how important content is for your firm’s online marketing efforts. While you may be hip to the value of a good blog post, or a whitepaper that knocks it out of the box for lead generation, you may be finding that getting your partners and staff on board to keep your content inventory cupboard well stocked is, shall we politely say, a bit of a challenge?

How to Sell a Content Marketing Program to the Boss

This past week, I had a very interesting conversation with a seasoned professional services marketer about content marketing. Usually when I talk to marketers and Managing Partners about content marketing, we focus on the issue of how to get a content marketing program launched and sustained, and the resources required for getting an ROI on the expenditure.

Inbound Marketing is a Strategy, Not a Channel or Technology

In days gone by, the average shelf life of a marketer in a professional services firm was about 27 minutes. OK, you got me … maybe it was a little bit longer, like 54 minutes, but the truth was that marketers didn’t stick around because of a lack of appreciation due mostly to the marketing illiteracy of partners.

8 Key Things You Need to Know about How Your Firm Stacks Up to the Competition’s Digital Marketing Program

There’s been a lot written and said about how CPA, consulting, law and other types of professional services firms are a few beats behind the measure when it comes to adapting new marketing approaches and technologies like those offered by inbound marketing.