“If you’re targeting everyone with your marketing, you’re targeting no one.”
That’s an old but still a very relevant quote.
With your firm, who is your ideal “Avatar” business client? That’s the first question where all marketing begins.
There are many ‘niches’ or types of business clients, for example;
- Start-ups
- First year operators
- Solopreneurs
- Home service businesses
- Light industry manufacturers
- Medical professionals
- Established businesses $5,000,000 to $50,000,000 in revenue
Targeting them all with your marketing, by not targeting any specific niche, even though your firm may be servicing them all, isn’t smart.
Targeting is what ‘positioning’ is about.
Positioning is about placing your business in an attractive position in your ideal prospect’s mind when they look for or find your business.
While the majority of accounting firms generate low numbers of leads from their website, their experience is why they feel online marketing is not an effective form of lead generation.
The trouble with experience, as a basis for any action, is that a person only knows about what they’ve experienced and assume nothing else works.
A lot of accounting firms websites are built from the old school of thinking, which is to self-promote on the website.
Self-promotion is where the website is full of facts and features but has no benefits, which motivates people to inquire and buy.
A fact is an accounting firm provides tax advice. A fact is the business has been operating for ‘X’ years.
A feature example is providing a face to face meeting once a year with every business client.
A benefit however is when you use words that are the language of “you…” as in ‘what you will enjoy when you deal with ABC Co is complete – complete peace of mind with all your tax responsibilities.
If you’re not using “you” with your website, you’re probably communicating with facts and features only, which reduces the attraction of website visitors to leads.
The Purpose of Marketing
The true purpose of marketing is to educate and attract prospects so they are ‘warm’ to buying.
When an accounting firm is self-promoting with frequent use of the word “we…” that’s not going to warm up a prospect with a benefit, no matter if there are 100 or 1,000 words on the page.
Good positioning is about attractive your ideal prospects with benefits.
Something all business owners have is a desire to be understood by their advisor - by their industry type and size of business, plus to obtain assistance to their challenges, fears and frustrations.
A great way to position your practice to be more attractive is to describe their currently fears, concerns and aspirations with text in marketing.
When you can describe someone’s fears, concerns and aspirations clearly in writing, you immediately become more attractive to that person because you help them to feel understood.
When you can describe how a person feels, they automatically start to think you can help them, because you’ve been on the same path, or accurately relate to their experience so they can benefit from you.
Let’s look at an example of the target of medical professionals.
What a medical professional wants, is to be a medical professional, not a bookkeeper, admin officer, an equipment purchaser, or paperwork shuffler.
The less they can do of all these things in their practice, the happier they will be.
That means the dialogue on a web page targeting medical professionals needs to talk about what they will receive from the accounting firm, with the words “you…” used as much as possible.
Website Wording Example
“You don’t want to be involved in all things financial as a medical professional. That’s a whole separate role in itself. With our included bookkeeping services you’ll receive one simple report on a page every month so that with a quick glance you know exactly where you are financially, without having to ask more questions. This will save you or your practice hours of your time, to be a better medical professional.”
This is a simple example, but it demonstrates the use of the word “you.”
Also consider what emotion-based reasons prospects want an accountant for.
People want more certainty in their life. They want less guesswork, to save time, less stress and nasty surprises.
These are the outcomes they want to buy from advisors.
Different target markets can also have different emotion-based reasons for making a buying decision. The previous list of business ‘niches’ would have different emotional interests and needs so it’s a good idea to match emotions to your target niches too.
Understanding that people really buy emotional benefits and using content to represent your business that way is what great marketing is all about. Marketing that attracts many more ‘warm to buy’ prospects.
Check out your website now and look at its word usage.
A Top Tip
Count how many times the word “you…” and “we…” is used on your firm’s website.
Ideally you will have 5 times more “you…” words than “we” and not have the word “we” on it at all, but instead have ‘our…’.
If you’d like to know more about this topic of positioning click here to access the report 5 Growth Opportunities for Accounting Firms in 2019.
Link it to: https://www.profittrans4mations.com.au/accounting-firms-growth-opportunities/
The free report contains specific details related to positioning of accounting firms with examples - based on 15 years of working with accounting firms.
Tim Stokes
Author Bio: Tim Stokes is a 36 year experienced business owner and builder of 7 in service industries. In 1997 he began mentoring business owners in all aspects of business growth and lifestyle success with results published in national magazines. He’s no accountant, but he brings a fresh, very practical, intelligent point of view to growing businesses that his principal clients enjoy. He’s authored 12 books and The Academy of Business Mastery business management course with its systems and management tools. He’s respected for his contribution to clients of accounting firms who see the results. Tim believes the most important figure in businesses is the net profit percentage and specializes in increasing it with a full suite of time-proven strategies. Visit Tim's website to learn more about him.