Marketing

For the past several decades, the function of marketing has been focused on selling consumers about the benefits of a particular service or product. Most companies, accounting firms included, have tried to create “hype” about their wares using mass media to generate sales.

The owners of Mattingly Zsebe, PA weren’t any different from most practitioners in terms of how they viewed marketing. In essence, “Marketing sucked…it didn’t work…it was a waste of time.” These were the sentiments of the partners, Bill Mattingly, CPA, and Dylan Zsebe, CPA, before they started their journey of understanding just a year ago.

Professionals who participate in social media, and certainly most accountants I know, want to measure what they’re doing, in order to know if they should increase or decrease the time they spend on non-billable activities. Seldom do I find anyone who tweets or networks with colleagues on LinkedIn just because it takes up valuable time the accountant could be spending building business in other ways.

Some brands are iconic, like Coca Cola, Disney, Microsoft and Google. Others are just as well-known, but perhaps less respected, like some fast food or alcohol and tobacco companies. While others have an even lower impression... think Enron? But which brands do small businesses trust the most?

Is the marketing produced by your accounting firm truly so useful that people would pay for it if you asked them to do so? That’s the success standard outlined in the new e-book, Youtility for Accountants, co-authored by Darren Root, CPA and Jay Baer, and published by Portfolio/Penguin.

Accountants tend to fall in the analytical-left brain-thinker camp. This makes it difficult for some practitioners to make the transition to right brain creative thinking when the time comes to get a marketing program up and running.

Every product line (or service, or industry) begins at introduction, when a handful of early adopters begin to use it. This stage requires a lot of investment with little profitability. If the product survives this stage – and most do not – sales and profits begin to pick up as the product grows in popularity and use. The product becomes self-sustaining as it enters maturity.

Quick ways to boost your marketing efforts even during the chaos of busy season