No doubt you know about ROI, return on investment. But have you heard about ROMI, return on marketing investment? Many accounting firms put their marketing budget dollars toward advertising programs and marketing channels without really knowing if they’re an effective use of their money and what return — if any — they’re getting from their investment.
To shed light on how successful accounting firms ensure they gain maximum benefit from their marketing dollars, the Hinge Research Institute recently completed its
The common thread running through the approaches employed by high-growth practices focuses on knowledge and insight. Highly successful firms employed tools that helped them gain useful market knowledge to make more informed decisions that enable their marketing programs to be more effective.
Our research showed that high-growth accounting firms used three highly effective marketing tools you can use at your firm:
Regular research
It is virtually impossible to effectively address prospects if you don’t understand them and their needs. That kind of knowledge requires conducting research regularly. Research provides insight into your clients’ and prospects’ key issues and evolving concerns, providing the critical information needed to create more efficient marketing strategies that yield a greater return on marketing investment.
You can conduct different types of research, depending on your goals, strategy and purpose:
- Are you trying to get a picture of the competitive landscape?
- Are you in the process of fleshing out a target persona and the typical issues, concerns and needs that motivate them?
- Do you need to gain knowledge about the evolving preferences and requirements of your clients or prospects?
- Do you want to learn how the marketplace views your firm and its strengths and weaknesses?
These are only some of the questions research can help you answer. The more you know, the more you understand. The more you understand, the better you can engage with current and potential clients.
Invest resources wisely
Firms with deep pockets are often accused of simply throwing money at problems. That, of course, is no way to solve them. Truly effective marketing is not about how much money you spend, but how you spend it. A key element in your effort to maximize the return on your marketing investment is investing first in the right people, processes and platforms needed to produce the desired results.
All of this doesn’t necessarily require an exorbitant marketing budget — just an efficient one. Our research has shown that high-growth accounting firms spend less than their average-growth or no-growth peers. And the money they do spend is allocated to more effective, less costly digital marketing programs that enable them to precisely target the most desirable prospects and tweak their programs in real time to maximize their efficiency. This is made possible by actively monitoring and acting upon the marketing program data they receive.
Track marketing program results
An advertising poster once showed a disgruntled client uttering a now-famous headline: “I know half of my ad budget is being wasted. I just don’t know which half.” That statement still rings true today for firms that don’t track their marketing program results. How can you know if your marketing budget is being well-spent if you don’t monitor and analyze the results of your efforts?
Once you’ve determined a marketing strategy and which tactics to invest in, you must continually track results and recalibrate to optimize your marketing program and gain the most return on your marketing investment. The more granular the level of scrutiny, the more valuable the data you’re collecting and the more effectively you can utilize it.
For example, average- or no-growth firms are often content with simply knowing how many new clients they signed up after implementing a marketing program — without understanding how or why. High-growth firms, on the other hand, will track a broader group of variables across the entire marketing pipeline, including:
- Brand awareness;
- Website traffic;
- Social media engagement;
- Lead generation; and,
- Conversion rate.
By tracking the full marketing cycle these high-growth firms can pinpoint exactly where in the pipeline they’re succeeding and where there is room to improve, so they can tweak only where necessary. It’s a classic case of working smarter, not harder.
These three tools enable high-growth accounting firms to grow faster and more profitably than their poorer-performing peers. By implementing regular research, appropriate resource investment and program results monitoring, your firm also can out-perform the competition and maximize the return on your marketing investment.
