Like most businesses, accounting firms have niches and it pays to maximize a particular customer base. Whether your firm is a fresh newcomer seeking a solid foothold in the accounting world or an established cornerstone looking to revamp its business model, every accounting firm needs to understand its target market.

In this post, I will help you understand how to market an accounting business by finding the target market for accounting firms via digital marketing techniques.

Why You Need a Target Market?

When combined with contemporary, focused and consistent marketing activities, target marketing is far more likely to succeed than a one-size-fits-all approach to indiscriminate and “shot-gun type” strategies. Determining an accounting firm’s ideal target market is one of the most critical factors in achieving higher rates of qualified lead generation and closing prospective clients. Many firms feel that by targeting a specific segment of the marketplace, they will forego other revenue growth opportunities. But, in fact, quite the opposite is true. Targeting enables partners to attract a more captivated audience for the firm’s services.

How to Determine Your Target Market?

Know Your Strengths

What is your accounting specialty? Does your practice cater to the public or corporations? Are your clients comprised of businesses, private individuals, or both?

Observing a basic outline of your customer base is a great place to start determining your target market. Establishing a strong marketing parameter allows you to venture within and further narrow your target market.

Location, Location, Location

Where are you located? Your accounting firm’s location actually dictates your clientele. If your practice is based in a metropolitan area, you could determine a target market that is drawn from a diverse range of customers.

The city itself might actually dictate your target market. Cleveland, for instance, is a city in the northern Ohio. Your target market would probably be blue-collar oriented as opposed to the white-collar or artsy professionals New York City.

Evaluate where you practice and hone in on regional tastes.

Determine Your Service Range

In an average business plan, most companies detail the scope of its services. Within that scope is an accounting firm’s chance to tell potential clients why its services are necessary. However, to determine who these clients are, a company must understand its range.

How many clients can you realistically service? Are you a small practice aiming for a few, yet loyal clients? Are you a larger firm with a bigger reach? Within that range, what portion of your clientele benefits most from your firm’s services?

Scrutinizing your current clientele is a very intuitive way to streamline your target market.

Go With Who You Know

During the initial stages of attempting to narrow your target market, do not rule out grassroots connections. Word-of-mouth marketing and providing service samples to friends, neighbors and nearby businesses are great ways to gather data toward understanding your target market. Somewhere, within the masses, is the perfect example of your target market.

Review Your Competitors

Analyze your competition, especially the more successful firms in your area.

Who are they targeting with their marketing? How saturated is the market? Are there any niches in your community that are unserved or under-served?

Understanding your competition is key to understanding your market.

Use Social Media

You can learn a lot about your clients and prospects by engaging them in social media. Find out what their concerns are and explore these social contacts. Look for trends, and while you’re at it, use the media to develop your existing relationships and cultivate new ones.

CPA Firm Target Marketing with SEO

The search engine is the primary go-to place for your potential customers when it comes to finding information about anything be it an invoicing software, information about taxation and compliance, corporate attorneys or a CPA firm.

The following chart shows the number of search queries all the major search engines handled all over the world in December 2012. It is easy to speculate that the figures have shot high in last 3 years.

Source: Statista

Pretty clear from the above chart that if your website ranks higher on Google, you will get more business from search engines. How to put your website on top of the search results page for relevant keywords? CPA SEO is the answer. By following certain guidelines recommended by Google, you can put the website of your CPA firm on top of the search results. However, it’s not a quickie. Once upon a time, getting higher rank was easy, but with Google’s ever-changing algorithm, things have evolved a lot. Here are some factors that help you achieve a high rank on Google.

Search Engine Optimization(SEO) can play an important role for CPA firm marketing. When you target people of a specific area, Google gives priority to local businesses. For example, when you search for “CPA firm Miami fl” Google Places and other local listings appear on top.

Here are the major factors that influence local organic search ranking.

  • Link Signals (Inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, linking domain quantity, etc.) 29%
  • On-Page Signals (Presence of NAP, keywords in titles, domain authority, etc.) 24%
  • Behavioral Signals (Click-through rate, mobile clicks to call, check-ins, etc.) 11%
  • Personalization  9%
  • Citation Signals (IYP/aggregator NAP consistency, citation volume, etc.) 8%
  • My Business Signals (Proximity, categories, keyword in business title, etc.) 7%
  • Review Signals (Review quantity, review velocity, review diversity, etc.) 7%
  • Social Signals (Google engagement, Facebook engagement, Twitter engagement, etc.) 4%

Here are the major factors that influence Local Pack/Finder ranking.

  • My Business Signals (Proximity, categories, keyword in business title, etc.) 19%
  • Link Signals (Inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, linking domain quantity, etc.) 17%
  • On-Page Signals (Presence of NAP, keywords in titles, domain authority, etc.) 14%
  • Citation Signals (IYP/aggregator NAP consistency, citation volume, etc.) 13%
  • Review Signals (Review quantity, review velocity, review diversity, etc.) 13%
  • Behavioral Signals (Click-through rate, mobile clicks to call, check-ins, etc.) 10%
  • Personalization  10%
  • Social Signals (Google engagement, Facebook engagement, Twitter engagement, etc.) 4%

Source: Moz

To secure a higher rank in local search on Google, here are the to-do list:

  • Create a profile for your CPA firm on Google Places (Google Business).
  • Create a profile on Yelp and other local business directories.
  • Encourage your current clients, and prior clients to write a review for your CPA/Accounting firm on different local directories.
  • Create LinkedIn and Facebook page and keep sharing content.
  • Have the target city name in your website’s page Title.
  • Acquire citations through PR, local influencer marketing, and guest blogging.

Click here to have the expert implement an SEO strategy for you!

Successful firms never stop marketing

Find Target Market for accounting firms isn’t a stand-alone business activity. It’s a way of thinking and acting that promotes your firm constantly.

It involves making the effort to understand the needs of your clients and prospects, and acting on that knowledge. Do this at every opportunity, online and in the real world.

The more you can show that you understand your clients’ needs, the more valuable your services will become. In this respect, great marketing is simply part of good business.

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