Proven CPA Firm Marketing Strategies

Are you struggling to get more clients for your accounting business?

You’re not alone.

A study by Hinge Marketing found accounting and financial service firms were the slowest growing of all professions studied.

While the tech sector grows at a 15 percent median rate, the accounting business slogs behind with a growth rate of 11 percent. Additionally, accounting and financial services were found to generate the least amount of leads from digital sources—an important factor in business growth and success.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Hinge also found the difference between high-growth and medium-growth businesses is accounting firm marketing. High-growth accountants invest more time and money in their CPA marketing efforts.

Marketing for accountants is what develops the all-important know, like, and trust factor. Clients can find you through social media or blog posts, learn more about you, and decide you’re the best accountant for the job.

In short, the better you get at your accounting firm marketing, the more you can squash industry-standard growth rates and boost your profitability.

Why Should Certified Public Accountants Advertise Their Services?

Shopping online isn’t only for e-commerce businesses.

Fifty-five percent of consumers conduct online research before making a purchasing decision. If you don’t have a digital presence, you’re leaving money on the table and creating a barrier between you and your potential clients.

With 2.14 billion digital buyers, there’s a huge pool of people you could tap into by having a digital presence and doing some marketing for your CPA business.

Besides the earning potential, CPA firm marketing has other benefits like:

• Instilling trust: You set yourself up as an authority and expert by having a professional website with sales pages and blog posts.
• Building brand awareness: Almost 92 percent of people use Google to answer their most pressing questions. By investing in SEO and getting your CPA business on the first page of search results, you can grow your brand awareness without a huge paid ad budget.
• Making better first impressions: In the digital age, your website is your first impression to potential clients. If it’s slow, outdated, or uninspiring, your site visitors will leave, and you’ll lose the sale.

10 Marketing Tips for CPA

Ready to take your CPA firm marketing to the next level? Here are some of the best marketing for accountants strategies to grow your brand awareness, attract the right customers, and scale your business.

1. Create an SEO-Friendly Website With a Strong CTA

Because so many buyers go online to conduct online research before purchasing, a website is no longer a “nice to have.”

It’s a must.

An SEO-optimized website does three things:

Search Engines Send Organic, Qualified Traffic

Sick of cold emailing tactics or leads without intent on opting in for your services?

By going all-in on SEO and targeting keywords your potential clients are using, you can attract the right customers (who are ready to sign a contract) straight to your website.

Not sure what SEO is or how to do keyword research? Check out my ultimate SEO guide, which takes you through absolutely everything you need to know for effectively marketing your CPA business, and (hopefully) getting all the way to the front page of Google.

Turns Visitors Into Leads

When someone is knee-deep in research mode, a professional-looking website goes a long way in the decision-making process.

With a strong call-to-action (CTA) on your homepage, you can stop people from leaving your site without scheduling a call, or filling out a form to find out more.

Here’s a good example:

Notice the “Schedule A Call” button. It’s above the fold (meaning you don’t have to scroll to see it), and it encourages visitors to take action.

If you scroll to the bottom, you’ll see another CTA to schedule a call.

Want help setting up a CTA? Use one of my eight foolproof CTA tactics.

It Sets You Up as the Go-To Expert

Marketing for accountants starts with a robust website that builds reputation.

Once your website ranks for the right keywords on Google (i.e., words and phrases your customers are using), it tells the user you’re an expert and creates brand awareness.

When someone sees you as an industry thought leader, it establishes trust. This sets up one of the natural laws of business: People do business with those they know, like, and trust.

2. Create a Blog for Your Website

When it comes to marketing for accountants, creating a blog is an incredibly effective tactic.

Why?

Your blog posts rank in the search results.

When you’re ranking on the first page of Google, you get more visibility, website traffic, and qualified leads. For your customers, blogging is beneficial because it answers their questions, gives them quick wins, and helps them find solutions to their problems.

It’s a win/win for everyone.

How do you start writing blog posts that end up on the first page of search results?

First, you need to do keyword research to understand what problems your audience is trying to solve.

Take the keyword “hiring an accountant for taxes” Here are some blog posts from CPA firms on the first page of Google.

By using blogging like these CPA firms, you can identify the challenges your clients are facing and create blog posts that add value and convert visitors into clients.

Keyword Research Resources:

Next, you need to write your blog post and optimize it for search.

What does this mean?

According to a user’s query, there is a formula search engines use to understand the content and decide where it should show up in the results. By following basic on-page SEO principles, you can make sure your blogs are optimized for ranking on the first page of Google.

SEO Blogging Resources:

3. Start Using LinkedIn

Do you have a LinkedIn profile?

Out of the 930 million working professionals using the platform, you probably fall into two camps:

1. Yes, you’ve created a profile, but it pretty much collects dust.
2. No, and you don’t want to add another social network to your plate.

However, LinkedIn is more than a social media network. It’s one of the best places to connect with your potential clients and land work.

Forty percent of B2B marketers say LinkedIn is the best place to find high quality leads.

Follow these steps to spruce up your LinkedIn profile and attract paying clients to your CPA business.

Update Your Profile for SEO

Yup, SEO extends beyond search engines. It’s relevant to social media marketing, too.

You need to optimize your profile with keywords your potential clients use to find you.

The better your LinkedIn SEO, the higher up you’ll appear on search results.

Post on LinkedIn

Whether it’s status updates, sharing business news, or writing thought pieces, creating content on LinkedIn is a powerful lead generation tool.

You can tag your posts with hashtags to boost your reach, and the more engagement it gets, the more the algorithm pushes your content out to a wider audience.

By increasing the number of eyes on your posts, you increase your chances of leads finding your profile and reaching out.

LinkedIn Marketing Resources:

4. Create YouTube Videos

If you’re confident on camera, why not include YouTube into your accounting firm marketing plan?

After all, research shows 83 percent of small and medium business owners say YouTube has helped them grow their customer base. 83 percent also say of businesses with a YouTube channel says it’s increased their local visibility.

Consider creating an accounting firm marketing strategy around YouTube. People come to the platform to learn, get inspired, or have fun. What makes YouTube such a lucrative platform is this: The content is searchable on Google.

In 2006, the search engine giant bought the video-sharing site for $1.65 billion. In 2022, it generated almost $30 billion from ad revenue alone. Integrating the platform with search results makes YouTube one of the fastest-growing social media platforms, making it easier for CPAs to rank higher in search engine results, reach a wider global audience, and establish themselves as a thought leader.

Like Google, SEO also plays a part on YouTube.

To see success on the platform, you need to use the same keywords your audience uses to search for you. Consider using keywords in these places:

• Your speech (YouTube scans your words)
• Video title
• Video description
• Tags

These views turn into leads and are an excellent way to grow your brand awareness and establish trust with your audience.

Bonus: Once you hit 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time, you can sign up for the YouTube partner program and earn money from your uploads.

YouTube Resources:

5. Claim Your Google Business Page

Google Business Profile can help your CPA firm marketing by increasing visibility in local search results.

That’s a lot of opportunities for your next client to find you. Let’s say someone searches “CPA in New York.” If you’ve set up your Google Business Profile page correctly, it shows up in search results like this:

These cards make it easy for people in your area to find you, contact you, and become your next customer.

All you need to set up your profile is a business name, location, and category. Once Google authorizes it, you’ll start appearing on local search and Google Maps.

Your customers can leave reviews, add photos, ask questions, save your listing, and see important information like your contact details.

In the above example, Miller & Company has put “CPA of NYC” in their title and made their description “25+ years in business.”

Again, this is SEO. These keywords help Google understand your listing and show it for the correct search results.

To learn how to set up your Google Business Profile account, optimize it for local SEO, and what mistakes to avoid, check out these resources:

6. Build Your Email List

While building a presence on YouTube and LinkedIn are solid marketing strategies for accounting firms, those platforms could close down tomorrow.

If that happens, you’ll lose access to your audience.

The solution? Building your email list.

One simple way to do this is adding a signup form like in this example from Healthy Taxes on your website to drive subscribers.

Once a prospect subscribes, you can then seal the deal with a special discount and a call to action.

To encourage sign ups, create a lead magnet and use it to entice your website visitors to subscribe. Your lead magnet should focus on a problem your audience wants to overcome and present a quick win.

For example, if you help freelancers with their tax you could make a checklist for how to prepare for tax season. At the end of your lead magnet, include a call-to-action to hire you for those that want to skip the admin and let someone else handle it.

Other types of lead magnet ideas include:

• Toolkits
• Reports
• Whitepapers
• ebooks
• Case studies
• Cheat sheets

Once you have people on your email list, you can nurture the relationship and promote your offers and tips via a weekly or monthly newsletter.

Send Newsletters

Yup, I’m talking about newsletters, and why not? People love them!

According to one survey, 90 percent of Americans subscribe to at least one newsletter, and these days, they’re one of the hottest side hustles around, too.

Why the surge in popularity?

Personalization has a lot to do with it. After all, many other forms of online marketing, like social media, lack a personal touch.

Newsletters are also great for nurturing relationships with existing customers and those not ready to make their first purchase.

Another reason a newsletter can be such an effective form of CPA marketing is segmentation.

By segmenting according to demographics, behavior, or interest, you can target your subscribers with specific content and offers, and boost your ROI.

All you need to do is set up a newsletter, write valuable content, track your results, and tweak tIll you get the results you want.

7. Get Reviews for Your Firm

It doesn’t matter what niche you’re in, you can benefit from the power of a review.

When consumers are looking for a product or service, they nearly always go online first. Before they buy anything, they want to know what other people are saying.

That’s why reviews are an essential part of marketing for accountants.

Reviews also offer your business a valuable learning experience. Negative comments can give you feedback about areas where you can improve your accounting business.

Finally, if you want another reason to work on attracting great reviews, here it is: you can use them in your marketing materials (with the reviewer’s permission, of course).

See how DeBlanc and Murphy display their stellar reviews on their website? It’s an effortless piece of marketing for accounting and gives prospects the confidence to choose them.

8. Host a Webinar

Do you want an easy way to share industry insights and trends while offering practical advice and establishing expertise? Why not host a webinar?

Here’s how the CPA Practice Advisor advertises theirs:

This type of marketing for accountants can boost your business by allowing you to further build trust. The personalized approach can be an excellent selling point, too.

When you’re presenting and answering specific questions, you’re creating connections with your audience, which can convert them into clients.

Once your webinar is over, you can redistribute it in other formats like PowerPoint presentations, blog articles, and email newsletters as part of your larger strategy marketing your CPA business.

9. Consider Paid Advertising

Paid advertising, like pay-per-click, can provide effective marketing for accountants.

There are many advantages to using this method. For instance, PPC ads attract targeted leads by tailoring your ads to leads who are searching for accounting services. In addition, PPC ads are affordable, so even if you don’t have a massive budget, you could still get positive results.

The most popular options are Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

Google Ads is good for prospects ready to convert, while Facebook collects lots of consumer data, which may be beneficial if you target a niche (like accounting customers).

One of the most vital parts of PPC ads is choosing the right keywords, so ensure you spend enough time on this part first. You can use my Ubersuggest tool to get some ideas.

Once you run your first paid advertising campaign, you’ll have solid data to measure crucial metrics like conversion, click-through rates, and ROI. This info will help inform your next campaign as you continue marketing and refining your ads.

Just a side note, though: I can’t guarantee you’ll get a return, and the cost of PPC ads can quickly add up if you don’t get it right.

10. Provide Free Tools or Templates

Most people love a freebie, right? Potential customers for your CPA firm are no different.

If you want customers to part with the contact details, you must give them something worthwhile. Typically, this means giving users a free product, like a tool or templates that they’ll find helpful.

As well as getting subscribers, you can also use freebies as a chance to offer paid subscriptions or tools.

Templates and tools you could give away include:

• Financial templates (budgeting, expense tracking, and invoice templates, etc.)
• Tax calculator tools
• Tax deduction guides
• Business plan templates
• Financial checklists

If you’re looking for more ideas, Josh Aharonoff, CPA, has a list of free templates that he’s put together for his leads.

Marketing for Accountants Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

As you can see, digital marketing is no longer a “nice to have.”

The digital world is more important than ever before. Approximately 6 billion people have smartphones, which means your next customer will most likely come from Google rather than a traditional ad in the newspaper.

That’s why you need to spend some time on a content marketing strategy that gets the prospects flowing.

Follow these CPA firm marketing tips, and you’ll learn how to create content that attracts your ideal clients, creates value in their lives, and sets your firm up as the go-to expert.

However, if find you still need help with accounting firm marketing, contact a digital strategy agency.

Which of these marketing for accounting firms tips will you implement in your business?