INTERNET MARKETING AND ACCOUNTANTS | TIPS FOR SELLING YOUR ACCOUNTING SERVICES ONLINE

Internet marketing is one of the most powerful tools that all successful business people of our time employ. It does not matter what kind of business you are into, what matters is your ability to leverage on the enormous potential of the internet to sell your accounting services as an accountant to the entire world that needs your service.

Internet marketing for accountants is an art that only works for those who take out time to master the art of financial services online marketing tips. I quite remember the first few years of my marketing of my advisory services as an accountant. I never imagined how easy and possible it is to sell my accounting expertise to those in serious need of it until I decided to observe the natural law of success. This natural law of success is what my mentor called ‘the golden rule philosophy’. The idea is simple; help many people to get out of their problem and success will find you.

I initially decided not to sell out my trade secret just for free here as a blog post but the number of email I receive from close friends and readers made me decide to put this article together. Many young accountants spend too much money advertising their services and end up not getting the desired result if any for a simple fact that they fail to master the simple rule of internet marketing for accounting services. The rule of the game is slightly different on the internet.

People subscribe to the internet to get solution to their problems and not to be bombarded with most often offensive adverts designed by marketing professionals that have taken fat pay cheque from providers of financial services. In fact, they get pissed off by the adverts. Put yourself in the shoes of a business owner who is desperately looking for a solution to a troublesome business process. You logon to the internet only to be landed in a page with only about 150 texts that in most cases does not make sense but filled with adverts trying to sell to you one financial service product or the other. Will you in your right senses subscribe to any of the advert? I bet your answer to this is a resounding NO. Why then would you expect others to do so?

ACCOUNTING SERVICES INTERNET MARKETING GOLDEN RULES

Below are four secrets to successful marketing of my accounting services that i have crazily decided to let go. Do not take them for granted simply because they are dead simple to implement.

Give out free and complete information: giving out free complete information is the key to online marketing success. Too many people believed that by deceiving people into believing that their problem is much more complex than it is makes people subscribe into their services. This is a big fallacy that can never be justified. Human problems can never be completely removed. This is even more pronounced in finance and accounting needs. A satisfied reader of the information posted on your website today will sure comeback tomorrow to seek solution to another problem. When they notice that you haven’t provided any free solution to their problem, the natural thing to do will be to contact you.

Giving out free and complete information also gets you traffic from the search engine. The best form of targeted traffic comes from search engine. Constantly supplying relevant and reasonably complete information will in the long run make you the first choice of those that seek your service.

Establish a rapport: there are times that people will send you personal email seeking clarification, do all you can to make sure that you supply them with the needed information and follow up to make sure they understand what you have communicated and acted on it (some people call it customer care). You will build the kind of trust that no amount of money can buy. Think about the potential effect that the viral marketing of a satisfied reader of your content will have on your bottom line. Note that this is not the same thing as building a mail list. In fact, I personally does not subscribe to the idea of mail building…so irritating. Do not get me wrong here, when the opportunity for building your list arises, make maximum use of it but, do not use any form of bait to get people into your mailing list, I used to do that but not anymore.

Be patient: I must warn you that internet marketing for accountants is not an overnight success. It takes time and patience to grow. You need to nurture it to a reasonable stage before it kick-starts.

Deliver: one most painful and disappointing truth is the fact that many accounting firms fail to deliver when they are given a trial. You will do yourself a big favour by being ready to take up challenges as they arise. There is no second chance to make that first impression. Be prepared at all time!!! I have successfully used the above four simple tips to build my accounting firm to an enviable height. You too can replicate what I have done by simply following suit. Like I said before, internet marketing of accounting services is an art that does not have any hard and fast rule. This is to say that you can make these tips as flexible as possible so as to fit your needs.

Never forget to operate within the provisions of the law governing the country you operate from. Some countries prohibit marketing of accounting services. If you are in one of those countries, the simple internet marketing tips for accountants as contained in this article is best for you.