How to market your accounting business in less than one hour a week

As a busy business owner, you know you need to market your accounting practice, but finding the time isn’t easy. 

On top of that, it’s tough to know where to begin. If you follow all of the advice out there, you’d spend all of your time marketing your accounting firm and very little on actual client work.

The reality is that while advertising your accounting firm is important, it doesn’t need to be a headache. In just one hour per week, you can strategically and consistently market your business without letting social media rabbit holes take over your life.

Consistency is everything

You can have the most fantastic content that anyone has ever seen, but none of that will matter if your posting isn’t consistent. The key to keeping an audience engaged (and master that pesky algorithm) is by posting regularly. Forget about quantity – it’s about quality and consistency. Instead of focusing your energy on posting as much content as possible, focus on making it the best quality possible. Posting regularly and consistently builds trust with your audience. Wherever you focus your accounting firm marketing, do it consistently.

How to market effectively in an hour per week

Now that you understand the importance of consistency, it’s time to build a game plan! Block out some time each week to focus on your marketing strategy for your accounting firm by using the following tips. You’ll be a pro before you know it!

Schedule social media posts

Spend an hour each month scheduling social media posts. You don’t need more than a few per week, as long as your scheduling is consistent. Use a scheduling app, such as Hootsuite, so that you can set it and forget it.

You can also use Facebook/Meta to schedule posts on those platforms, which can be a helpful way of putting your social posting responsibilities to one side if you are not a regular user of social media. If you can get together the relevant pictures and content you need for a few weeks’ worth of posts, you can schedule this in one go and not worry about social media again for a while.

Social media posts can be as easy as sharing tips and important deadlines. You can create simple images on Canva, or use stock photos. Spend a few minutes searching for accounting hashtags and gather a list that you can rotate out. Using the same combination of hashtags each time can prevent you from being visible in the algorithm.

Send regular email updates

Spending an hour each month writing just one email can help nurture your email list. It keeps you top of mind with your audience, builds credibility, and can lead to more website engagement. Email is an incredibly effective marketing tool, and generally has a higher conversion rate than social media.

Email marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. Although newsletters aren’t frequently read, single emails with simple updates often are. Take key deadlines, for example. Key deadlines can be a great way to keep your clients in the loop and stay in front of them. Make sure you include a call to action (CTA) in each one – that’s the key to success! 

Optimise your profiles

An easy way to increase your marketing presence is through social media profile optimisation. The good news is that you can do it in an hour or less, and you’ll only have to do it once a year, or if you have any big business changes. 

Here are a few ways to optimise your profiles:

• Find a few search engine-friendly keywords that describe your business, and add them throughout the description in your “About” sections.

• Keep your business description consistent across all platforms.

• Link your website in your “about/bio”section, and double-check that the link works.

• Add social media icons and links to your website and email signature.

• Use branded background images and cover photos (you can easily create these in Canva).

• Use the same profile picture on every platform.

• Make sure all your images are cropped correctly on your social media profiles, so that your face is centred.

• Review your profiles for typos, inconsistencies, or for anything that needs updating. Do you have more skills or accomplishments to add?

What is an SEO keyword?

SEO Keywords are specific terms related to how users are searching for a product or service. In order to use keywords effectively, you need to make sure your customers are actually using these terms, meaning you will need to research things like ‘search volume’ to ensure you find the right keywords for your business.

You can use free tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner or Google Trends to find relevant keywords for your industry.

Engage

If you want to gain followers and conquer the algorithm, spend time engaging with your followers and colleagues on social media. Respond to any comments on your posts. Share posts you think might benefit your audience. Choose a few hashtags relevant to your business, and like, comment, and follow other people posting under those hashtags.

While using accounting hashtags is important, you’ll primarily connect more with other accountants if you ONLY use those. Think about hashtags that are important to your clients and the industry you serve, and engage with them. Engagement is an activity that’s best done weekly in smaller chunks, rather than a single one-hour block per month.

One of the most important parts of engagement is reviews! Reviews are your social proof, and are often the deciding factor for potential customers. If someone leaves you a review, make sure you respond to it.

Take time to leave reviews for other people, when applicable. If your social media lacks testimonials, don’t be afraid to ask others to leave you a review! LinkedIn makes it especially easy to request a recommendation, but you can also personally reach out to past and current clients to ask them to leave you a testimonial.

Curating content

Curating content is one of the easiest things you can do to boost your marketing presence. Spend time finding articles that are meaningful to share with your audience. Or, better yet, save articles as you come across them during the month, so that you won’t have to do any extra work.

Add them to your social media scheduler, or share them as you find them. Be sure to add a comment about why you’re sharing each article, and tag the author in the post, if possible. If you think anyone will find it particularly valuable, you can tag them in the comments.

Honourable mention: Write a blog post

Did you know that writing just one blog post a month can skyrocket your visibility and SEO? Consider making time to share what you’ve learned with your audience. It’s a great way to build relationships with your audience and position yourself as an authority in your industry. While it might take you more than an hour, the time investment is worth the huge rewards!

Why does your company need a blog?

Blog posts are a great way to improve your visibility and reach new clients through the use of keywords, by answering popular questions or queries on the internet, or providing data and statistics that can’t be found anywhere else. They can also benefit your overall website by providing an opportunity for you to link to other services and assist the user journey on your site.

You can split this task up into sections so you are only spending an hour a week on blogs, with the first week consisting of topical and competitor research, and the next week on blog writing. You could even spend an hour creating a full content calendar to help you better organise your upcoming content.

Leverage Client Testimonials and Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are powerful tools that showcase your firm’s expertise and client satisfaction. Collect testimonials from satisfied clients and ask if you can share their success stories. Case studies can provide in-depth insights into how your services solve specific problems, demonstrating your value to potential clients.

Ready, set, market!

While focusing an hour each week won’t net you instant fame and fortune, breaking marketing down into a manageable chunk makes it easier to stay focused, which is more effective long-term. You’ll start to see results through better engagement, as well as a slow and steady build to success.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see significant results right away. A smaller following with an engaged audience is better than a larger following with little engagement. Even if you can’t see immediate results, these tips will help you be more visible in the algorithm.

Growing your marketing presence will help increase the “know, trust, and like” factor that’s essential to your accounting business’s success. Spending a little bit of time on all the right things will get you the big results you deserve!

Additional marketing tips for accounting firms

A marketing plan is crucial for your business. It creates direction and strategy, and identifies the resources necessary for your firm to reach its goals.

However, the typically time-pressured accountant is busy running the practice and handling client queries. You don’t always have the time, let alone the expertise, to develop a formal marketing plan.

You can develop an effective marketing plan in even just a few hours of your time. Here are some tips that can make the whole process simple and painless for you.

Create goals

Marketing for accounting firms is no different from other businesses. At its heart, marketing planning is also no different from any other business planning process. You have to create goals from the very start.

Ideally, be specific. Don’t leave it vague as you’re less likely to get results. Create specific marketing goals which feature quantifiable results, such as a certain percentage increase in sales, or a certain number of new clients.

Make sure you establish both short and long-term objectives and intermediate milestones – use benchmarks throughout the year to track your progress.

Define targets

Having set goals, you then need to define targets which relate to each of these goals. Once again, it’s really important to be specific. For example, if your goal is to increase the number of small business clients, don’t be tempted to target all small business clients in the marketplace - this won’t be the most effective approach.

The best way forward is to review your current client base to spot any trends. For example, are your clients clustered in one industry or location? If you have several clients in the same type of industry, target your marketing efforts at these more fertile areas. This will lead to better results as you’ve already got relevant experience. Clients will appreciate this and you’ll be more valuable to them as a result.

Define specific actions you need to take

Once you’ve got your goals, set specific actions to focus on in order to achieve each goal. This is crucial if your marketing plan is to be effective.

For example, your list of actions might include setting up a newsletter or blog, getting listed in online directories, attending specific conferences or developing a new service.

Without formally defining these actions, it’s likely your marketing activities will be neglected in the midst of the day-to-day pressures of running the practice.

Set budgets

If you’ve defined the actions you need to take, set aside the budget to carry these out. If you don’t earmark the necessary time and money formally, it will soon slide down the ‘to do’ list and disappear in the running of the business.

Over the course of the year, review the marketing budget regularly – monthly or quarterly. This will help you keep on track both in terms of the budget and the schedule.

As an accounting professional, you’re a financial expert, so it should be easy to make marketing part of your budget.

Be consistent

It can be difficult to maintain marketing during busy periods - an issue faced by all firms. The problem is that if you stop marketing for a period, this can lead to a gap in business when things have quietened down. If you keep your marketing up steadily across the year, you’ll see the benefits in a more predictable and high-quality flow of work. Again, if you’ve drawn up proper plans that are easy to follow, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Marketing for accounting firms is all about being prepared, as well as focused. Your profits will reflect your good planning.

Define Your Unique Selling Point (USP)

Every accounting firm offers similar services, but your firm might have something unique to offer. Identify and highlight your USP in your marketing materials. This could be exceptional customer service, niche expertise, or innovative use of technology. Make sure your USP is clear in all your communications, from your website to your social media posts.

Feel you’re better informed about how to market your accounting business? The QuickBooks blog covers a wide range of business-related topics – it’s all part of our mission to help small businesses grow.

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