Marketing Today and tomorrow

As one of the Bloggers Crew bloggers, I have been recently asked if I could wave a magic wand over the accounting industry, what would I wish for?

As a marketing professional who has spent my entire career working in the accounting profession, I guess I would have to hope that more firms would consistently embrace the concepts that marketers’ promote.

There are endless definitions of world class client service, mostly because each client has a unique perspective on what “world class” means. Many customers, for example, go into a restaurant and want to be greeted by name and led to a great table that has been held just for them as a regular patron. Some like a waiter who hovers nearby, constantly refilling the wine glass while others prefer privacy, wishing the waiter would simply give them space and leave them alone.

The same is true for professional services.

Social Media was a topic that was discussed endlessly at the AAM conference this year. While the term “social” media seems to eliminate this tool as a professional resource, nothing could be further from the truth. In actuality, using services such as LinkedIn has become the norm today and this cannot even be considered “cutting edge” technology!

If you want to use LInkedIn or other networking technologies effectively, you are going to have to develop a plan, just as you would for any marketing communications initiative.

At the annual conference for the Association for Accounting Marketing in Austin, Texas there was much discussion on how to add value for clients. One way that was suggested was for you to identify Internet sites that provide useful information for them.

This is an important resource, as I recently observed first hand. I was at a Chamber of Commerce nonprofit committee meeting in NJ a few weeks ago when the Chair of the committee passed out a list of 40 Internet sites that offered critical information for nonprofit organizations.

I have just returned from the annual conference for the Association for Accounting Marketers (AAM) and I feel as if my battery has been recharged and I am now armed with some exciting new ideas and best practices that I was exposed to throughout the three days of the summit.

I will share these with you over the next few weeks and would love to hear from you regarding some of these ideas and how you might apply them at your own firm.

Regardless of the size of your firm, it is important for you to let the client define how you can be great.