Digital Media Marketing in Accounting

The emergence of digital media marketing in the accounting profession is moving rather slowly. While there are some early adopters like Freed Maxick & Battaglia, Rea & Associates, Naden Lean and consulting firms like Golden Marketing, the reality is they represent only a small percentage of the greater profession.

This was evidenced when I logged into Google Analytics for one of my clients and sent various pieces o information to the Managing Partner for discussion. The primary function of this exercise was to illustrate that the work marketing was doing on the site was increasing both the overall traffic and keyword searches leading to specific content on services. Although the information was well received, the Managing Partner wanted to know how these results compared to what other CPA firms are experiencing. I honestly did not know the answer since a general guidebook on the matter simply does not exist.

To obtain an answer I turned to the accounting association the firm belongs to. When I posed the question, how many firms are tracking website statistics and what is the general traffic figures per month, I was shocked at the answer. Of the twenty firms in the group NONE were using analytical software which could provide such information. One firm indicated they were considering a software package for such purposes, but had not yet decided on the implementation. Most had no idea whether their website was attracting any traffic, what keywords they were using to get to their site and what/how they could improve results. These other firms did not have any sense of what was happening in their digital storefront.

What was more disconcerting is that since no tracking was happening it implied that none of these firms pereceived the digital medium as a legitimate method for marketing. It stands to reason if they did they would be measuring, assessing and analyzing the such information. It is common business sense that if you invest in a project you not only want to define the goals, strategy and tactics, but you would also want a method of evaluation. Sadly the lack of a response painted a picture for me which was very unsettling.

After some reflection, I decided to write this blog post to engage in discussion about firms have not integrated digitial media marketing tools into their overall approach?