The New Marketing Post-COVID – Content is King! – 2020 Innovation

In our saturated search economy, an area of expertise or niche, like tax planning, is no longer enough to stand out and for new clients to find you.

Many top-growing firms recognise this
challenge and have adapted by becoming more sophisticated content marketers.

How are forward thinking firms approaching marketing now and what are the steps they take to cut through the “noise” so that they can “reach and influence” their target market?

Strategy identifies the target market, the persona of that market, the key messages that will resonate with this target market, and how it will get its message in front of the target market (i.e., the tactics).

The go-to-market strategy also details: 

How the accountancy firm goes about solving them.

The more points of differentiation (your chosen niche, the solutions to the problems of that niche, further segmentation within that niche such as age, profits, years in business, foreign customers (Brexit) etc. the more likely you are to be attractive to clients, potential clients and team members.

For example, do you help entrepreneurs maximize their earnings and protect their wealth? What about applying the same two issues for professionals such as dentists, or sports players.

A single point will no longer differentiate you and your practice, but a combination of attributes can make all the difference.

Narrowing in to this level of specificity in your marketing is essential to creating content to reach and get the attention of your prospects – specialisation remains the most influential factor in choosing an accountancy firm.

Assume you have identified a specific target market and the messages that will appeal to this audience.

Drive inbound leads who find you

Place relatively small (Google) ads and articles in front of thousands of viewers in your target market. A very small percentage of them will click the link to a landing page for something like a lead magnet/special report/white paper, offering your prospect something of immediate value

The landing page’s
sole purpose (and a content marketer’s success) is tied to converting as high a
percentage as possible to become a lead, meaning they give their name and
contact details.

The carrot is
often a freebie – New Business Kit, Covid 19 newsletter, or a  report such as ‘The top 10 ways to
maximise your earnings and minimise your tax’.

The title of the
report is one of it’s most important features, and the download of the PDF is
just the start of the relationship.

The idea is to get
semi-qualified prospects to raise their hand and get on your marketing list,
then use marketing automation at scale to execute your tailored conversion
sequence.

Reach out to existing leads and create
new ones with new tactics – eg, a webinar

Some time ago a 2020 member was running a
weekly column on a niche website. It had built a list of a few thousand leads
of newsletter subscribers.

This marketing initially generated a steady
flow of new clients but after a few years both the email open and response
rates fell away.

They had one full-time telesales person and
he was beginning to lose his patience. He was calling subscribers who had enjoyed
the newsletter for some time, but they were perfectly happy with their
accountant.

They decided to run a webinar that would
give the reasons why the newsletter subscribers should change their accountant
– this brought instant results.  Current
subscribers became more engaged and they bought in an email list (of non
subscribers) who also showed interest in the webinar (but had not seen the
newsletter invite on the various social media platforms) – they had created a
new flow of leads.

That has developed into a series of webinars addressing the various concerns of that niche.

Extend your reach with “vertical”
marketing

You can extend your content marketing
engine as outlined above by partnering with trade associations in that niche,
non competing businesses that also serve that niche and other centres of
influence (COIs) and media companies that are already reaching your target
prospects.

Use your content marketing tactics to get
your message in front of their audience.

2020 members receive resources and content
to make your marketing quick and easy!  Members are also provided with innovative
training and solutions, including a comprehensive CPD accredited training
programme and support in advisory, Covid-19, Brexit, practice development,
marketing and new technologies. https://www.the2020group.com/2020-membership