If you are an independent accountant or CPA, or if you have your own accounting firm, your number one priority is probably advising your clients. However, if you want your business to grow, you also have to attract more clients through sales and marketing. Marketing for accountants sounds like an easy job, right? Well, when you Google “how to grow your accounting practice” or “marketing for accountants” you get over 200 million results filled with numerous tips and tactics!

We’ve worked with many tax professionals, and we know for a fact that marketing doesn’t have to be that complicated. That’s why we’re sharing our 3-step growth process with you. So, how do you grow your tax practice?

Step One: Specialize

The first step to growing your business is to figure out what you’re actually good at and what you can do to create the most value in the marketplace. Oftentimes, we see tax practices make a big mistake by serving anybody and everybody. They can serve a W2 client all the way up to a high-net-worth individual. The problem is this is a big spectrum, and the type of marketing message that you need to attract each one of those clients is different. You need to ask yourself what your specialty is, and who you want to attract to your business.

There are two easy ways to figure out your specialty, so you can start marketing your accounting practice:

1. First, figure out what services you want to be providing and specialize in those services. In our Tax Practice Growth Cheat Sheet, we give you a list of the 4 most profitable services in tax and accounting that we’ve seen.
2. Second, you want to define the niche or industry that you want to be working with. Just like your services, the marketing message you need to reach each of those industries is completely different.

Step Two: Automate

Once you have decided on your specialty, you want to automate and systemize. According to Salesforce’s 2020 “Small & Medium Businesses Trend Report”, 48% of small businesses rated customer acquisition as their biggest challenge, and automation is one of the best ways to overcome this. One of the best places to start, especially if you are looking for growth, is automating your marketing and sales processes.

There are a couple of ways to do this:

1. Start by creating automated sales and marketing funnels. This way, when a new lead comes into your business, they can follow a series of steps to learn about your services. You can do this through content, such as PDF downloads or on-demand webinars. The goal of your marketing and sales funnel will be to build trust, add value, and create awareness for your services. 
2. Next, we encourage you to automate your customer onboarding. This will help you create consistency and a great customer experience. 

By automating your sales and marketing processes and your client onboarding, you will have a set way to attract and retain customers. Thanks to these automations, you won’t be overwhelmed with repetitive tasks every time a new contact approaches your business, leaving you with more time to take care of other parts of your business.

Step Three: Advertise 

The third and final step to growing your tax practice, is advertising. You need to put your business in front of new prospects consistently and predictably. Of course, you could focus on social media marketing, writing blogs, or sending newsletters. But that’s not going to get you the speed and growth you need to build a highly profitable six-figure tax practice. 

Every single business that we work with finds success when spending some of their marketing budget on digital advertising. They typically spend 10-20% of their topline revenue or topline revenue goal to try to get growth in their business. This way they’re always bringing in new qualified leads, nurturing those leads through marketing and sales funnels, and ultimately converting them into profitable clients.

Conclusion

Marketing for accountants and accounting firms can involve a wide variety of strategies. However, if you are looking for a sustainable and continuous way to grow your practice, you want to make sure you have the basics covered: specialization, automation, and advertising. 

Once those three areas are covered, you can expand your strategy to involve other digital marketing tactics to turn your accounting business into a brand that your customers trust and value.