For someone who is constantly telling their clients that they should be looking at the numbers, accounting firms are notoriously dreadful at tracking the right numbers when it comes to marketing KPI’s.
There are a few reasons for this:
- You may not be doing much marketing at all. And so, you figure there isn’t really anything to track. You couldn’t be more wrong. First, you’re always doing some sort of marketing, even if it’s as simple as attending a few networking events and receiving referrals. But how effective are these things? How many leads are you getting, and new clients, and how long does it take you to convert a lead to a client? These are critical regardless of the level of marketing you’re doing.
- You’re too busy. Now, come on. What would you tell me if I was your client, and I said I was far too busy to be looking at the numbers for my business? You’d tell me that it’s a ridiculous way to run a business, and you would help me put together the basic KPI’s to help determine (and improve) profitability. The same goes for the marketing KPI’s your accounting firm should be tracking. Your task may be as simple as identifying 10 things to track, and then handing it over to a team member to gather the numbers. How long will that take? A few minutes? Use those minutes well, and then go back to what you were doing.
- You don’t know what to track. True, that can stump you a bit. But now that you’re reading this post, you have no excuse, because I’m going to give you a simple marketing KPI’s list. So, off you go!
Here then are at least 10 marketing KPI’s your accounting firm should be tracking:
- Number of clients
- Number of prospects (ideally segmented by prospect type)
- Number of hot leads
- Conversion rate (leads converted to clients)
- Average conversion time (in days, weeks, or months)
- Number of prospects by source
- Number of website visits (split by landing page)
- Landing page conversion rates
- Average client value
- Number of followers on each social media platform
If you’re ready to go beyond the basics
If your marketing has gone beyond these simple KPI’s, and you wish to go further, you can begin splitting and segmenting all these KPI’s further and further. Not simply your conversion rate, but your conversion by accounting firm partner. Not only your average client value, but the average tax value, the average accounts value, the average payroll value, and so on. The more detailed your numbers, the better your information and the better your marketing decisions.