5. Are you marketing ready?
Growth firms all have these 6 things in place. Do you?
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Say you wanted to successfully run a marathon, you wouldn't rock your way up to the start line, having never run before and without any training or thought, would you?
As marketing agency owners, Jordan and I get the equivalent of this regularly: accounting firms wanting growth yet lacking goals, strategy or a plan.
If we push back, the response is often “you’re the marketing guys, you tell us what to do”. It’s true, we are the marketing guys but we need something to work with.
I split firms into two camps: marketing ready and not.
Before I run through what “marketing ready” constitutes, I think of a business in simple terms: marketing, operations and finance:
Marketing = what you sell and who you sell it to
Operations = how you deliver it
Finance = how you pay for it
There is nothing else! Yet many firms I’ve chatted to over the years somehow feel marketing does not apply to them. They have often grown with word-of-mouth. But marketing isn’t just advertising and promotion. It’s the business fundamentals like client type, products and services and branding. No business can exist without this stuff whether you call it marketing or not.
These foundations define your firm and are not something you can easily outsource. They are also what makes a firm “marketing ready” or not. With them in place, you can hire an agency as they have raw materials to work with and a direction to travel.
Here are what we like to see when we talk to a prospect who’s thinking of engaging us:
1. Ideal client profile
Marketing to everybody is marketing to nobody. If you’ve not defined your ideal client profile (ICP) your marketing is doomed to be scattergun.
This ICP template that Jordan created will help you hone a profile of a profitable client you’ll enjoy working with.
2. Market fit
Do people want what you’re selling? If they don’t, there’s not a marketer on the planet that can solve your problem.
This flows from your ICP. Your services should address the challenges and pain points of your ideal client.
That might be as simple as peace of mind that their accounts and tax are done right. Or it could be addressing a hyper-specific issue for their industry.
3. Goals
If you don’t know where you want to go, a marketer can’t help you get there.
I love it when a new client has clear and realistic marketing goals. Tangible and intangible goals both have merit.
Tangible
2 new clients from our ICP per month
20% more revenue from existing clients
Build a prospect newsletter list of 500 by next December
Intangible
A website that reflects our firm
Feeling reassured that clients are seeing quality content on a monthly basis
A brand that makes the team feel proud
Marketing can achieve many things but usually not all at once. Having goals brings clarity and shows a marketer where to focus.
4. Strategy and plan
I hesitated on putting this because if you have points 1-3 sorted then I’d happily whip up a marketing plan for you.
But in my experience, firms that are truly marketing ready would already have some form of plan. Perhaps only in their mind and perhaps not the “right” one but they will have given it some thought.
We create the Marketing Blueprint for accounting firms. It will guide you through creating a 1-page marketing strategy, action plan and help with goal setting.
5. Time
Don’t have enough time for marketing? I’ve been told this by approximately 11,527 accountants over the last decade.
I would say “don’t make time” because which other profession or industry has heaps of spare time for marketing?
To be clear: you don’t need to make time to do marketing. If your firm is “marketing ready” you can hire people to execute.
You should make time to think about marketing. Think, strategise and plan. With a solid strategy and plan in place, a few hours a quarter might be enough going forward. But you can’t expect to spend no time on marketing, pay a few hundred bucks to an agency and expect big results - otherwise everyone would do it!
6. Mindset
I left the most important point until last: a marketing mindset.
The owners of most successful firms I’ve worked with always have a marketing mindset. They care about the five prior points I’ve listed and think about them regularly.
I can identify those with a marketing mindset within the first 60 seconds of chatting when they give me a clear elevator pitch of who their firm helps and how they help them.
They have clear ideas about the direction they want their marketing to go but are willing to listen and act on expert advice.
When marketing starts, they stay interested and keep you accountable.
As I finish writing my checklist, it strikes me it would be very similar to yours for the type of business owner you love working with. And you’d know you can do your best work when you’ve got a client that is prepared and engaged.
If you’re looking to outsource your marketing or want more from your agency, do you have all six points checked?
Even if you’re executing marketing internally, you’ll see exponentially better results if you can put this stuff in place.
If you need help getting marketing ready, message me on LinkedIn here. We’ve created a ton of resources for strategy and planning and I’m happy to share them with you.
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Until next time.
- Jordan & Matt
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