The Five Easy Steps to Creating a Marketing Plan for Your CPA Firm

As a CPA firm owner, you will agree that the “let’s try this” attitude doesn’t work when it comes to growing the business through marketing. It is vital to have a proper plan in hand to take up new things systematically.

At QXAS, we always emphasize having not only a marketing strategy but also a breakdown of activities to execute that strategy. After all – the end goal is to realize pre-defined business objectives.

If you are thinking of creating a marketing plan for your CPA firm, here are five steps to go about the process. Let us know what you think:

1) Define business objectives.

• “By how much do I want to grow my business?”
• “What’s the time frame to achieve success?”
• “Where and what do I have to invest in to realize the dream?”
• “How much can outsourcing accounting work help in saving costs?”

Ask yourself questions like these and run some numbers. Additionally, identify your strengths and weaknesses. Where does your CPA firm stand? What are your USPs? Note down every single detail to have a holistic view of your business.

Your objectives should be clear in your head before anything else, and that isn’t possible if you don’t do a bit of analysis of the firm at hand.

2) Revise your target audience.

Your CPA firm could be doing well with the current target market, but it is also important to identify other communities that could utilized your services. Identify those consumers.

For instance, if you are currently working with accounting start-ups or boutique firms, you could try and reach out to the bigger players in the market if your service portfolio can offer the services they want.

If you outsource, speak to your accounting outsourcing service provider to understand the services they can offer to high-end clients. Factor in the market size, industry trends and skill gaps to chalk out the revised target audience.

3) Select your communication channels.

From having a website and social media channels to blogging and sending newsletters – there are a lot of platforms on which you can market your CPA firm. If you haven’t invested in attending or organizing events or doing print advertising, pick a small piece of the budget for that.

Irrespective of who your target audience is with, your marketing plan should be a mix of online and offline activities. (Yes, some people still like to receive newsletters in the mail.)

4) Determine the frequency of your marketing activities.

This could include deciding the number of:

• Social media posts to be scheduled in a week
• Blogs to be published in a month
• Webinars to be organized in a quarter
• Events to be attended, hosted or sponsored, and others

Your marketing plan should contain such details so that when it comes to initiating the overall plan, your team doesn’t waste time and gets to work.

5) Create a budget.

In order to make money, you need to spend it! In this age and time, nothing comes for free. Outsourcing accounting work is an investment, so is marketing. Even if you want to increase website traction, you have to spend money on Google Adwords or run other paid campaigns.

Additionally, you may require new software or tools to carry out marketing activities. Anything related to events or webinars costs money, and so does guest blogging and PR.

Make sure you take into account such activities and set aside a budget for easier execution.

Outsource to make time for marketing.

We understand how chaotic it gets for CPA firms who manage books, do payroll, prepare taxes and so on. What they need is someone to help them with such time-consuming tasks.

Outsourcing accounting work is a viable option for such CPA firms. An accounting outsourcing service provider, for instance, will take care of such labor-intensive tasks for you so you can focus on growing your business.

The choice is yours.

Marketing has gained much importance in the last five years thanks to crowded marketplaces, high competition, and fast-paced communication. That’s where creating a high-level plan to establish your CPA firm’s position in the market is vital.

Are you ready to create yours?