Digital marketing strategies for accounting firms

Before starting the text, I need to warn you that this text is part of a trilogy to fully master marketing, sales, and service for accounting offices.

[2/3] FBI sales techniques applied to accounting firms: how to close more contracts through WhatsApp

[3/3] C.O.N.T.A.B.I.L. method to organize (and optimize) the service of your accounting office

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See if you identify with the following situations:

#1 Your office was forced to provide services through the internet, either to acquire new clients or to communicate with current ones.

#2 You are experiencing unfair competition with startups that were already born in the digital world and that are eating up a large share of the market that you have painstakingly built on your experience of more than 20, 30... 40 years.

#3 Are you dissatisfied that your only customer acquisition channel is word of mouth and would you like to have frequent and increasing growth?

Inevitably, the vast majority of accounting firms suffer from some of these problems.

Don't worry, your office doesn't have to do crazy things to grow...

Simple is better than complicated.

Therefore, in this text you will learn how to captivate your client, what is necessary for your marketing operation for accounting offices, what content to produce, and how to make Facebook and Google Adwords advertisements to make your office an eye-catcher for new clients.

How to captivate this new client with marketing to accounting offices?

There is a path that you already know and probably already apply... and two New ways to attract new service contracts.

First, we need to talk about the most used path that probably formed your customer base today: Word of mouth.

You know what I'm talking about, this is an old form of customer acquisition, where your current clients (or friends) refer you to your office. And this is for several reasons, such as price, quality of service, or quality of service.

Speaking of quality of service...

This point is fundamental for an accounting firm, because it is its customer service that brings new contracts closer and holds them back.

For this reason, word of mouth is the best organic form of attraction, because your own clients or friends endorse the way you work.

After all, referring your service to other companies is an index that shows how good your office is for their business.

However, word-of-mouth is not a progressive and constant (much less predictable) form of growth, you need this flow of customer arrivals to be greater.

Therefore, let's learn about two new ways of acquiring customers:

#1 Marketing Content for Accounting Firms

This is a natural way to attract customers.

So, think about organic farming, you plant the seed and the earth bears the fruit. That same analogy occurs with the internet, you produce content and sow social networks, blogs, on the internet in general, and customers, through this content, reach you.

This is a “free” way.

Why is it in quotation marks?

Because you will Invest time.

And your time also represents money, since your office sells services. And you'll need to dedicate your time or hire someone to do it for your office.

How are you going to do that?

First of all, you need to exercise the writing skill you used from school and start producing text for the blog, this is fundamental for marketing to accounting offices.

Your blog doesn't have to be visually complex, but your text needs to have keywords to make it easier to find your content in a Google search. Because this is going to be your main capture channel.

For example:

• Taxes you didn't know you had to pay, but you must.
• Checklist of documents to open the MEI.
• Why is accounting for MEI important to pay less taxes?
• What cases does the MEI need to file an income tax return?
• When to switch from MEI to ME

Topics that are of interest to your client.

Don't post about “how to make a balance sheet”, for example, so you NO you're talking to your client, but rather to other accountants. And that's a different audience you want to attract.

After this well-assembled strategy, with a blog with quality texts that talk about accounting (with what your client wants to read), you can start creating content on other networks.

But isn't that a lot of work?

That will go to you Save a small fortune in long-term ads, and once you've built the foundation, Google will do all the work for you. The text will attract new customers on its own.

After all, there's no house without foundations, and the blog is the foundation of your marketing strategy for accounting offices.

In that second moment, invest in YouTube.

Note that you can simply take the content you'VE ALREADY PRODUCED and adjust it to the video format. Simple, isn't it?

This way you will optimize your time and double your reach, because the audience that watches YouTube is not the same as the one that will read your blog (they are two different environments that attract different audiences).

But why does YouTube need to be your second point with your audience? Because YouTube is the second largest search network in the world.

This means that when someone has a question about a specific topic, they will search on Google or YouTube. And you will be present in both.

Then, now that you have your structure for attracting new customers in place, you need to promote it on other social networks.

You need distribute your content on social networks such as Facebook and Instagram from calls both on Feed How many of us Stories (that's what these image and video formats are called on these platforms).

So, first of all, you need to...

Define who you are going to talk to, who is your ideal customer? Because the content will be directed to his interests.

Do you want to know more about the ideal person and customer?

Read Sell more with Marketing on WhatsApp.

Another strategic point for creating content for social networks, especially for Instagram, is the creation of entertainment content.

So, you're probably thinking, “Am I going to need to do a little dance on Instagram's Reels?”

Only if you want to. And that doesn't detract from you as a professional in any way. However, this is not the only way to create content, there are several viral tags that has nothing to do with dancing, just search.

In fact, you can even make a quick tip of up to 30 seconds on one of the topics we've already discussed above, as long as it's in a light and relaxed way.

That way, you and consequently your office will be reminded whenever someone thinks about accounting.

To think better about the topics and the form of communication, it is also important to do research on how your competitors are behaving and what they are creating.

For example, today Contabilizei is a reference in the creation of content for social networks in the field of accounting offices. Or rather, it's an online accounting reference.

But it's also worth drinking from other sources, so you can create content that is unique and essentially yours.

Another way to boost your business, but this time in a faster way is...

# Marketing announcements for accounting firms

Within paid traffic, there are basically two major companies that you should advertise with:

#1 Google

#2 Facebook

In this text we are just going to delve into Google Ads because there is already text here on the blog talking exclusively about Facebook Ads.

Google Ads: marketing for accounting offices

Where to start?

If you're starting out with Google Ads, you first need to create an account to start both your search network and YouTube campaigns.

Oh, it's important to say that this tutorial is only possible if you have a Google account, or a Gmail account, but rest assured, it can be done on any account, it doesn't need to be in the domain of your office account.

So, let's go step by step:

1 — Access https://ads.google.com/intl/pt_BR/home/

2- Click “Start Now”

If you are already logged in to your Google account, that is, you have your Gmail open, Google Ads will log in automatically, without the need to log in.

3- Choose the option “generate more registrations or sales through your site”.

This will make Google understand that you want to take people to your site and fill out the contact form to talk to your attendants.

4- Click “Next” (blue button) to continue

5- Fill in the company name and website

And here's an observation:

Ideally, you should have a website before you even think about marketing for an accounting office and advertising on Google. However, in the last case, if you don't have a website and you can't make one right now, you can link to the Facebook or Instagram page. But I warn you that this is not the best option for advertisements..

6- Click “Next”.

7- Then, choose the area where your ad works.

Do you answer online? Can it serve all states or do you have any location restrictions?

If you are not limited by location, I recommend leaving the location for the whole of Brazil, so the cost of your campaign will be lower, because it covers more people than a campaign with a very specific location.

8- Keywords

Choose words that your potential clients would choose when searching for an accounting firm.

A good place to better understand how keywords work is on the website of Neil Patel.

Some examples of keywords:

Simple national, São Paulo invoice, state registration, accounting, accounting, CNAE. sa, INSS table 2020, balance sheet, DRE, company name, letter of resignation, letter of resignation, accountant, balance sheets, RPA, pro labore, accounting office, accounting offices, ICMS table.

9- Now is the time to write your ad in practice!

Now you can take your creativity out of your pocket and write a text that captures your client's attention!

I'm going to leave here some announcements from other accounting firms that I took from Google:

10- Select a budget

Google will recommend budget amounts in 3 segments, and I recommend that at the first moment, you select the cheapest option. That way, you'll have the breath to test what's working or not and change your campaign.

An important warning is that: Google isn't spending a penny of yours yet, you haven't set up your payment method yet, so rest assured.

11- Click “Next”.

12- Review

You've already finalized your campaign, now review whether everything you chose makes sense in terms of location, campaign goal, and ad language.

13- Click “Next”.

14- Payment details

Now, you need to fill in the payment details. Remember to fill them in with true and correct data. This prevents account lockouts and accounting issues.

In this case, we recommend that you enter your company's details, with CNPJ.

About payment, we recommend payment via bank slip, because it makes everything safer and error-proof and you avoid losing money.

To do this, choose the “manual payments” method and then exchange the credit card for a bank slip. After that, just download the ticket and click “finish”.

Okay, as soon as you pay your first bill and add money to your account, your campaign will start working for you.

There is also the possibility of running YouTube campaigns. But remember: it is only possible to create campaigns for YouTube after doing this first campaign above.

Now...

How to do Video Campaigns?

Before setting up a campaign itself, you first need to link the channel to the Google Ads account, this account doesn't have to be yours specifically, but there is a need to have the account linked to the channel that contains the video you want to promote and that account is usually yours.

For this purpose:

1- Click on settings

2- Select Linked Accounts

3- Click on YouTube and add an account on “+”

4- Search for the name of your channel and add

Now that your video is linked, you can now advertise on YouTube. But your video must be in public mode or as unlisted.

The video you want to advertise cannot be private!

Having said the prerequisite, we can go ahead and make the video announcement itself:

1- Click on campaigns and click the “+” to add a new campaign

2- Select “video” as the campaign type

At this point, Google Ads will want to help you by making a quick set of goals, such as “product and brand consideration” and “reach and brand recognition”.

But the ideal is that you create a campaign without goals, so you can more customize your campaign needs.

3- Fill in “campaign name” and “budget”.

Within the budget, there are 2 display method options: standard or daily.

So what's the difference?

In the standard method, Google will distribute more evenly throughout the day, while the accelerator will concentrate expenses quickly. This works well for quick campaigns, for example, a flash promotion.

4- Select the duration of the campaign (start and end date).

It's important to make clear that this is not a mandatory step. If it is a lifetime campaign or has no specific date, you can leave this field blank without any problem.

5- Choose the networks that your ad will be linked to.

That's a crucial part of your setup!

5.1 — YouTube search result

This is a type of video where, when searching the search network for the keywords of the advertisement, your video will appear at the top.

So, for example:

5.2 — YouTube video

Do you know when you click on a video and a video appears a few seconds before and you have to skip it?

This is the option you need to choose to place advertising inside another content video.

5.3 — Video partners on the display network

This means that your video will not only appear on YouTube, your video may appear on other sites.

Which one to choose?

The ideal is that you have a strategy.

Do you want to deliver denser content that actually helps, or a video designed to generate curiosity and made for those watching not to jump?

Ideally, you should run different campaigns with different intentions.

6- Choose language and country.

7- At the bid, you can leave it with a maximum CPV, which is the cost per view.

8- Give the ad group a name

9- Choose the maximum amount of the cost per view.

A good example is R$0.15. So, he doesn't spend all his money at once on a few views.

10- Fill in demographic information, target audience, keywords (how your audience would search) target audience, topics, and channels.

This is the part where you will delimit your audience and where your video will appear.

For example:

#1 If your strategy is a search strategy, based on the keywords, your audience will find you;

#2 If you want to appear inside a video in the channels tab, you can select videos from other channels that have activated monetization for your video to appear during advertising moments.

And even within the channel option, once you select the video, it can be In-stream (the one that appears before the video and you need to be careful not to jump) or in Discovery that appears next to the video as suggested.

But pay attention, the ways of reaching your customer converge at the same point.

AND NO they are meant to replace the word-of-mouth you already have, but to enhance the results.

And of course, to maximize your results, you can (and should) invest in a hybrid of these three forms of customer acquisition

This attracts your customers now, but it also builds a long referral queue and organic content (two free alternatives) for purchase, even if you stop making paid advertisements.

Another strategy, which we have already discussed here on the blog, is the way of acquiring customers through digital rewards. For example, we are in the income tax season, your business can make an ebook on:” How to tax income for individuals if you have MEI or ME?”.

In short, you're already classifying and capturing the contacts of people who may be interested in your business. If you want to know more about this acquisition strategy, combined with the sales strategy through WhatsApp groups, see the text of WhatsApp Sales Funnel.

Now that you understand how your new customers are going to reach you, you need to close the sale. You need your customers to arrive to close the contract and the best tool to do this today is WhatsApp.

On WhatsApp you have several tools that will make your service more practical and faster, such as quick answers and encouraging a conversation.

However, more important than that, the WhatsApp It is in the pocket of almost every Brazilian. Therefore, it is an easy and quick way to obtain any response from the customer and much less formal than an email, for example.

So, if you want to deepen and expand the growth of your office, click here and see how to close a new contract for the provision of accounting services when your client calls you via WhatsApp.

As you already know, this article you just read is part of a series of articles whose purpose is to help your accounting office organize and optimize your company's internal and external communication. If you liked what you read and want to continue the journey, take a look at the following links:

Click here to access text from Sales FBI sales techniques applied to accounting offices: how to close more contracts through WhatsApp

Tap here to access text from C.O.N.T.A.B.I.L. method to organize (and optimize) the service of your accounting office