Learning about marketing is all very well: but when do you get the results? When do the numbers actually show that what you’re doing in marketing is delivering leads?
One of the things we’re working on here at PF is getting ‘the numbers’ from accountants about the results they’re seeing from their marketing efforts.
The traditional view of marketing is that it’s something separate that you do (or someone else does for you). It’s a department, an expense line, a decision you make and see whether it gets you leads.
The marketing actions you take do absolutely bring in leads – but when you’re first getting started, or you haven’t been focusing on marketing for years (or at all), it can take time for the momentum to build.
This ‘time delay’ throws off many accountants, and you feel that your efforts to blog or post on social or send emails are useless.
I spoke recently with Jamie Engelhardt from Lance CPA Group about the incredible results they saw, very quickly, from the actions Jamie took as part of the Accelerator course.
“For me, it was about being consistent in all the different areas”, said Jamie. “We were doing a lot of marketing, but I decided to start focusing on Instagram and Twitter, being consistent and posting on those platforms on a regular basis.”
“Within one month, we saw the numbers on our Twitter account particularly take a big leap forward,” Jamie said.
Here are the exact numbers Jamie shared with me:
Twitter for Lance CPA Group – June to July 2018
- Number of tweets – 50 to 69 = 38% increase
- Impressions – 5.6k to 14.1k = 152% increase
- Likes – 40 to 88 = 120% increase
- Link clicks – 7 to 39 = 457% increase
- Profile visits – 246 to 448 = 98% increase
Those percentages are huge. I realise you could argue that some of these numbers seem fairly small. But remember that this is merely the first month in which they are making a concerted, consistent effort in this area particularly. And when you begin to combine them with everything else Lance CPA Group are doing, you realise the potential is incredible.
Jamie is the marketing manager at Lance CPA Group, and a “non accountant”. (In our PF Marketing Community group on Facebook, she and a number of others said they felt like the Muggles of the wizarding world!)
“I’m in a unique position because I’m not an accountant,” Jamie said. “Some of my content is dependent on my team, so I can only do so much, nag so much! Once every few weeks I get a spurt of genius and I throw things out there, but I realised during the Accelerator that it’s my responsibility to not only be consistent in marketing, but to have consistency in reminding the team about what they can be doing to contribute to the marketing efforts.”
“My hope was that if the team could see what this marketing action did, or how much traffic came to our blog because we did that, they’d be able to make the connection between the marketing action I’m asking them to do, and the results from that over time.”
As accountants, you want to see the numbers – especially when it comes to marketing.
You want to get Jamie’s numbers within a month, too.
But how did Jamie and Lance CPA Group suddenly see this significant increase in only a month?
Consistency.
Niche.
Training.
“I decided that July was my real first test month,” Jamie said. “Part of the Accelerator involved looking at all the areas of marketing we’re doing – our campaigns, our niche area of craft breweries, our social media, our content. So with everything I was learning in the Accelerator, I decided I would give this a real good push. Seeing those numbers showed me, this is good. We’re doing something right.”
Here’s what Jamie did that allowed them to see the numbers, and get encouraged by them, so quickly:
- They have a strong brand
- They have a dedicated marketing manager
- They’re producing regular, helpful content in the form of blogs, videos, PDFs, etc
- Their whole team is involved (check out the variety of authors on their blog)
- They have at least one specific niche area (craft breweries)
- They invested in marketing training
- They took action from that training, and implemented change straight away
- They have a presence on all the social platforms, and post regularly
- They are exercising consistency in all the above marketing actions
Consistency is the key. The Accelerator on its own did not double or triple or quadruple their Twitter numbers. Hiring a marketing manager was not what got them new craft brewery leads. Getting team members to write blog posts did not instantly result in new business.
But the combination of all these items, and then the focused challenge of the Accelerator course, helped Jamie to see some instant results for her firm.
If you’re hoping to see instant results too, go back to that list and see if you’re missing anything. Does your brand or website need refreshing? Have you taken any marketing training, or learned what you and the team could work on when it comes to marketing? Are you posting on social every day?
At least one of those areas you can solve straight away. The 12 week Accelerator course will take you through all the core areas of marketing for accountants, in a structured order, and you’ll have a challenge to meet every week.
Find out more about the course now. (Early bird pricing is on until 31 August.)
And I look forward to hearing about the amazing numbers you get, as a result!