six reasonable goals for cpa firm marketing

but will your tactics do the job?

by bruce w. marcus

tactics are the most difficult part of a professional firm marketing program, because so much of what must be done depends upon the scarce, non-billable time of partners and professional staff.

more bruce w. marcus:  the tools of marketing are not a program – they are simply tools   |   is your marketing program really a program?   |   six metrics for marketing roi   |   how to formulate the right marketing goals for your firm   |   get real: 15 questions for achievable growth  |  if you don’t know where you’re going, how do you know how to get there?   |   eight tips for staying one step ahead of the competition (and maybe the client, too)       nine things we know for sure about how to grow an accounting firm   |   the cpa’s castle is crumbling   |   my address in space: the dynamics of change at accounting firms   |   six quick reasons why cpa firms will never be the same   |   14 steps to find the right “value price”

if the firm management hasn’t made clear that participation by every professional in the firm is an integral part of recognition and growth within the firm, you can scrap the marketing program. it can be helpful if the non-billable hour was renamed the investment hour, because if those hours are spent on marketing, investment hours are exactly what they are.

the marketing professional can do a great deal. he or she may be able to write an article or a brochure, but needs the input of the practitioner. the marketing professional may be able to design and run a seminar, or arrange for a speech, but the practitioner must supply the content. the marketing professional may be able to place the story in the media, but the practitioner must supply the story.

and all of these activities must be managed. they must be prioritized. they must be made to happen, whether at the behest of a marketing professional or a partner in charge of marketing. they must be timed, and coordinated.

delineating expectations, as part of defining objectives, serves another purpose, albeit one just as useful.

if the prospect doesn’t have vast experience in marketing, or in any of its parts, it has no way of knowing what to expect from marketing efforts. why shouldn’t anyone expect a rush of clients, for example, from a single ad — unless that person has been educated very specifically in what an ad can and can’t do? why shouldn’t a marketing campaign produce a rapid return of inquires from a well-developed ad campaign?

there are too many cases of partners expecting that press releases will be printed verbatim, that interviews will be reported accurately, that a three-day sales training course will double the size of the clientele within weeks. this is why expectations must be precisely delineated, and why marketers must be educators.

what you should expect from an effective marketing campaign is:

1. name recognition.
2. that a great deal is known about your firm and its capabilities.
3. that the market will view your firm favorably and will retain a sufficient measure of the campaign’s message to remember the firm when the need for its services arises,
4. that the market will identify a problem or a need that it has or expects to have, within the context of your firm’s capabilities and skills.
5. that the market will believe that your firm has the capability to understand and solve the problem.
6. that some action, such as an inquiry, be taken (if appropriate), or that the reader be receptive to a follow up call.

measuring marketing results is one of the discipline’s thorniest problems. there is simply no tangible measure that offers any valuable information that goes beyond the pragmatic or subjective.

the best that can be expected of it is to serve as a red carpet to develop a personal meeting. it does it by pre-selling; by educating; by whetting the appetite for a solution to a problem that you’ve identified and understand. but don’t expect anybody to call and say “i liked your letter (or ad, or blog). start monday.”

in other words, the expectations are tempered by the quality of the way in which the medium is used. poor advertising, poor public relations, poor direct mail — all mean sharply diminished performance. to ask more than the medium is capable of producing, or that level of quality can deliver, is a vast self-deception.