In a survey conducted by Semrush, over 1,500 marketers agreed that content marketing benefits them and helps them reach their goals of:
- Generating quality leads
- Attracting more traffic to their website
- Improving brand reputation
- Improving client engagement and loyalty
- Sharing a value proposition in a way your prospects want to consume
In an accounting firm, content marketing provides an even more powerful opportunity as you can educate potential clients and create trust.
With all these benefits in mind, why do so many sites remain static with rarely updated blogs?
The answer is pretty simple. Accounting firms often have a small marketing team (or none at all), and have to prioritize immediate impact activities. Content marketing, while powerful, is for the most part a long-term impact activity.
But let’s change that thinking today. While the long-term benefits are certainly the best part about content marketing, there are also some immediate payoffs. Either way, check out these reasons below, and you may want to consider creating a regular publishing schedule for your firm.
6 Content Marketing Benefits in an Accounting Firm
1. Differentiate your firm from the rest
In the accounting world, it can be difficult to show potential clients that you’re not the exact same as any other accounting firm.
You may provide unique services for a specific type of business, but if you’re not clearly communicating it – does anyone know?
Here are a few perks to differentiating yourself from your competitors:
- More effective marketing
- More ideal clients
- The ability to charge premium prices for your services
- Loyal clients who appreciate you because you are different than the rest
When you create strong content, you differentiate yourself because you’re able to speak with a specific voice to your audience. This voice should repel bad clients, but resonate with your ideal clients.
2. Educate your audience, earn their trust
When you start creating this content, not only should you work to create unique content but you should also aim to educate your audience. Financial topics can be intimidating and frustrating for entrepreneurs.
Create content that helps them make sense of their numbers. This will build credibility and establish you as a thought leader.
Additionally, when you create and provide useful content, business owners see the value in what you bring to the table and are much more interested in your services. Educating your audience is a win-win for both you and your potential clients.
3. Grow organically
When you get to a place of organic growth, clients will be knocking at your door for services, instead of the other way around. It’s something you should be striving for but growing organically doesn’t happen overnight. You have to publish regularly to grab the attention of search engines.
The best way to do this is to create content that is relevant to your niche. From there you can target unique keywords, which will help your content get seen in searches. This leads to another win-win situation because your content will serve as a valuable resource to business owners within your niche, and in turn, will spark organic leads.
4. Create a funnel
Creating content is all about providing useful information to get potential clients interested in your services, with the end goal of signing them up as a client. However, oftentimes a potential client will find you when they are not in the right stage to make the commitment.
This doesn’t mean the client is lost forever. With the help of great content like:
- Resource guides that are easy to download
- Regularly scheduled newsletters
- Up-to-date social media posts
…you will be funneling clients towards your website and staying fresh in their minds until they are ready for a partnership.
5. Be dynamic and engaging instead of static
Creating a website and social media accounts is great…if you use them. But many website are static, meaning nothing changes which causes the site to grow stale. As a site visitor, if a site looks stale, with out of date content, you start to question whether the business is still thriving.
The good news is you can combat this by creating and posting new content so your website and social media accounts don’t look like a ghost town. Regular and up-to-date content shows you are still serving clients and you are happy to provide the information they may need.
Stuck on what to post? Try sharing things like:
- The latest trends
- Changes in tax laws
- Tips on essential aspects of your services
Each of these shows you are a part of the conversation and care about what is going on within your niche. Plus, the recurring posts show you are still actively serving clients.
6. Create partnership opportunities
If you are in a specific niche, one of the best ways to grow is with partnerships or co-marketing.
For example: If you do accounting for an e-commerce business, you can create a referral relationship with a company that does marketing specializing in e-commerce. The idea behind this relationship is they may be able to pass potential clients to you, just as you may be able to pass potential clients to them. It typically works out that both parties will say, “I’ll send you a referral if someone brings this up” and then nothing happens. Your partnership looks good on paper but isn’t very effective.
However, if you’re proficient with content, you can collaborate by creating a resource for the partner to share, then offering to do the same to share something with your own audience. You will both be creating unique and useful content to better serve your niche.
Enjoy Content Marketing Benefits Today
Like planting a tree, the best time to start with content marketing is 5 years ago. Since that’s not possible, the best option is to start now.
Fortunately, content marketing benefits pay off quickly and only get better over time.
At Full Stadium, we have a team of writers and marketers focused specifically on content marketing for the accounting industry. Head to this page to fill out a form and we’ll see if our services can help your firm.
