An introduction to marketing for accountancy practices
Why market your practice?
Marketing techniques – in brief

The culture in many professional firms until as recently as 20 years ago had it that ‘Marketing’ was ‘newfangled’, unethical even. For the more enlightened firms, even in the late 1970s and early 1980s marketing, public relations and advertising was collectively ‘something that clients do’ and not really for the professions - as professionals, accountants did not need to market their services; their abilities would be praised by clients and they would win new clients through word-of-mouth recommendations.

Change of thinking
Professionals’ thinking has changed rapidly since the early 1980s and Practice Development, Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Media Relations, Direct Mail, Brand Development, Database Management and the Internet have all entered the general and specialist practitioners’ lexicon.

Professional rules now allow most forms of marketing
Professional rules in New Zealand allow all of the forms of marketing outlined in this APS Guide. The fact that professional bodies in the New Zealand and in many other countries have opened the marketing floodgates over the past 20 years has led to the professional world becoming more and more competitive. Consequently there are two distinct choices for firms today:

if you are happy with a comfortable, reasonably-successful practice, you can sit back and ‘not market’ for growth;

if you want to build the sort of practice that has a recognisable brand (that means more to your clients and prospects than just the individual partner that looks after them), that will attract quality recruits and clients you have no choice but to develop, plan and execute a formal marketing strategy linked directly to your business vision, revenue and growth goals.

A guide to available marketing techniques - made simple
Over the next 12 months, this APS Guide will take firms through the forms of marketing available to them so that they can pick and choose what techniques might be relevant to their practices and what they are setting out to achieve. We have called the Guide “The APS Guide to Professional Marketing” because we believe that once you have had an opportunity to run through the monthly instalments, you will be able to run your own professional marketing campaigns, in-house or with the assistance of an agency (your choice!).

Either way, you will have all the necessary tools to brainstorm, plan, document, execute and measure a fully-rounded marketing strategy for your firm.

Word-of-mouth and the practice Nameplate
From the outset of regulation and self-regulation of the professions in the 1880s there was a common feeling that professional practices should rely on their qualifications and professional capabilities to build their ‘businesses’.

As a professional practitioner, if you did a good job for a client, word-of-mouth recommendation would enable you to win new work. A nameplate outside your door would let passers-by know the nature of your profession and they could walk in off the street to instruct you in a matter.

In essence these forms of ‘marketing’ for professional practices are still the bedrocks of practice growth today - word-of-mouth recommendation is still the best way to win business and as for the nameplate, read ‘advertising’.

Although many commentators would have you believe it has all become much more complicated in today’s world, in fact, all that has changed is that there are a large number of categories under which marketing or advertising are labelled.

The important thing is not to get too weighed down by the jargon of marketing and advertising.

All practices market themselves on a daily basis
Many professional practices ask the question, ‘Should we take a more formal approach to marketing our practice, everyone else seems to be doing it?’. The fact is, anyone in practice is always marketing their firm. For example, if you have a round of golf with a friend and mention how pleased you are with your practice’s growth, or take a client to lunch, you are marketing your firm; in short, whenever you talk about your practice you are publicising your capabilities and putting yourself in a position where you may win new work; pure marketing in its simplest form.

The basic reasons for marketing your practice
The reasons for marketing your practice are the same as they have always been - to win new work. But there is more to it that that – and accountants need to take a broader view of marketing if they are to gain the full benefits. An accountancy firm is a business like any other. On this basis we can apply a generic rule of marketing, The 5 Key Aspects of Marketing:-

With this in view, the real question firms should be asking themselves is, “How far do we want to go in marketing our practice?”. Once the principals of a practice have answered that question they can begin to determine how much time and money they should invest into the marketing process.

There are a large number of marketing or practice development techniques and methods available to practices - the important thing to remember is that they are there to underline the quality of your practice’s work (which should lead to recommendations), build the strength of your brand and lift the public profile - and perception - of your practice. Remember, your aim is to be more than just a collection of practitioners sharing a name – you need to build something stronger than that (your brand!).

So, let’s take a brief look at each of the techniques available to firms, just to set the scene.

1.   Media Relations
‘Media Relations’ is first and foremost about raising the profile of the practice through the press, radio and television. Coverage obtained through Media Relations campaigning is not paid-for, unlike mainstream advertising.

Professional firms have scope to write articles in local, national, business and trade sector publications and sometimes to comment on local business issues on local radio and television.

The pinnacle of a well thought-out Media Relations effort is to gain some coverage in the national newspapers and on national television and radio.

Remember, editorial coverage of you, your principals or your practice shows that you are experts on a particular subject - business people seek out experts. If you can act as a commentator on a particular trade sector or industry through the press, business leaders within that sector will get to know you as an expert and, if you persevere, you will win new work.

Successful media relations campaigning looks effortless - but it starts with a lot of hard work gaining the confidence of journalists and editors.

2.   Advertising
Advertising as a marketing discipline can be broken down to include TV, Radio, Billboard, National Press, Regional Press & Trade/Industry Sector Press. Internet advertising will be looked at under ‘On-line Marketing’.

Most professional firms are not be interested in TV, National Radio, Billboard or National Press advertising due to excess costs of production and expensive advertising rate-card prices. The need for smaller practices to target more carefully their local markets is also a major factor.

Advertising can be a great benefit to professional firms, however. Attracting new staff through recruitment pages of business and professional publications has a strong track record of success. Not only does a practice attract new staff it also shows it is expanding, thereby creating a perception of success.

Advertising new business gains in trade/industry sector press shows your practice as a specialist in a particular sector, giving the perception of 'expert' status to your office.

3.   On-line Marketing
On-line marketing through the internet and by user of email is available to professional firms and can level the playing field in terms of cost. All businesses with sites on the internet have access to the same number of web-users. Unlike mainstream advertising where prices charged by publishers and broadcasters are based on the number of viewers and readers, the internet as an advertising and marketing medium is not restricted on this basis to those with the deepest pockets.

Marketing on the internet is set to grow exponentially over the coming years as businesses and individual consumers become more widely conversant with the simple nature of the technology involved. While some commentators believe that the internet is not a proven marketing medium – particularly for service organisations – there is a growing school of thought that it will become more and more important as a variety of media converge – in particular the telephone, television and the World Wide Web.

Your practice may not be able to make great gains at this point in time but, as the technology develops, the rewards will be easier to plan for and generate. Watch this space!

4.   Direct Mail/Marketing
Direct Mail enables marketers and advertisers to target specific groups of people as individuals and reach them on a one-to-one basis, through the mail to their home or place of work.

This direct approach can be highly successful for practices, particularly when launching a new service to a particular client type.

Success in Direct Mail/Marketing is determined by the quality of the database used to market to your targeted group of individuals. If you have an integrated ‘one-firm’ database, you have the opportunity to carefully target clients with select service and product offerings. However, before you attempt this, there needs to be a concerted effort across your firm to define the client data that needs to be stored – and a concerted effort to update the database to match the defined criteria.

5.   Seminars/Conferences
Seminars and conferences are used by many firms and provide an opportunity to show the real face of the practice to clients and potential clients alike.

Practices with lively, confident speakers can reap the rewards in terms of business won and a raised profile.
When organising a seminar or conference it is important to remember that the quality of your audience will be determined by the quality of the database you have used to market the event to.

An unsuccessful seminar can be one where 100 people are in attendance but who are not really in your target group.

A successful seminar can be one where five people are in attendance all of whom need to know what your practice has to say on the subject in question.

Outside speaking opportunities can be of enormous business-winning benefit to practices also. If invited to speak at a seminar or conference organised by a third party you will automatically be perceived by those attending as an ‘expert’. Remember, perception is reality and business people seek out experts to work with.

6.   Client Satisfaction / Care Programs
Very often professional firms are inexperienced in looking after their clients in the way that a manufacturer or retailer might see as being essential to ensure on-going sales.

Identifying the honest truth as to whether clients are happy, or unhappy, with services that professional firms provide and the people that deliver them can mean a big difference to the future direction and prosperity of your business.

Client Satisfaction Surveys go a long way towards identifying problem areas with clients and enable firms to be seen to be mindful of client satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, with the services provided. Knowing what clients think about service and delivery also gives firms an enormous opportunity to increase revenues – the techniques are proven and should be adopted by all.

If you currently do not run an annual Client Satisfaction Survey, you are missing out on the best opportunity to continuously improve your firm, because you can measure your improvement (in clients’ eyes) year-on-year.

Client Care is an important item to be included on the schedule of any professional firm’s marketing output.

7.   Entertaining
There are all sorts of entertainment activities that practices can get involved in which form part of the overall marketing mix.

Professional firms should look at the benefits of lunches, corporate hospitality, wine tasting evenings - the list is endless. The point is that professionals have been employing these sorts of marketing techniques for years to the extent that they sometimes feel like a part of the annual calendar of events. Many of them are seen as fun for team members and clients alike - and the power of that should not be underestimated.

Most importantly, the success of some of a practice's entertaining activities can be gauged while some cannot. The annual golf day may or may not bring in lots of new work but it may retain a client who was considering a change.

About the author:
Charles Hornor is marketing adviser to the APS Group in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, via his company StrategyCo. Charles has helped accounting firms to develop their marketing strategies and promote themselves since 1986, in all parts of the world. From 1995 to 1999 he was Executive Director responsible for building MSI Legal and Accounting Network into an international force (200+ firms worldwide). He now lives in Australia and works with many professional firms in developing Marketing Strategies, Marketing Activity Plans (MAP™) and Client Satisfaction Surveys. Charles can be contacted at charles.hornor@strategyco.net