Marketing Your Firm: The Digital Strategy Imperative

Reprinted with permission from Accounting Today.

2020 changed everything about how businesses operate, including how they interact with everyone from staff to clients, vendors to communities. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a digital transformation that changed the way people purchase consumer products, goods, and services. Until 2020, only 15% of companies prioritized digital transformation. In 2021 however, 77.3% of CIOs rated digital transformation as a top priority, pushing cybersecurity to second place.

Firm leaders of today and tomorrow looking to succeed in an increasingly virtual market must lean into the momentum that has been created since the beginning of the pandemic, take those learning experiences and data points, and uncover new paths to revenue growth.

Digital presence is nothing new and has lived as a function of marketing for a long time. But as client acquisition becomes more complex and anomalies like those of the Paycheck Protection Program and CARES Act have proved to firms that opportunities do exist through virtual experiences, a sound digital strategy must find its place as a pillar of your firm’s 10-year vision.

The ability to remain competitive in 2021 and beyond is now dependent upon an approach that engages your target audience in tailored and unique ways, either pushing them through a thoughtfully designed qualification process or grooming unqualified leads to become clients of the future. Key tools to a successful plan include:

• The evolution of your website into a sales tool;
• Leveraging content to answer your audience’s pain points and challenges;
• Thought leadership to establish expertise and positioning in key channels;
• Comprehension of the “new” client journey;
• A tactical approach to keyword strategy and search engine rankings;
• Leveraging email marketing that has been a proven tactic in our toolbox for 20-plus years;
• Defining the conversion funnel for your firm as it relates to managing each touchpoint;
• Identifying digital champions inside your firm; and,
• Technology adoption across marketing and sales.

As digital strategy evolves to become an immediate and impactful portion of the client experience, the prospect-to-client journey you create (read: your digital strategy) will require the same level of attention in a virtual environment as it would in-person. The above tools combine to provide rich insight into each visitor’s online movements, interests, and interactions, allowing your firm to curate a personalized, guided experience from the moment they walk in your virtual “front door.”

In fact, prospects and clients already expect and demand a frictionless journey, shifting the traditional focus of business development from relationships in the market to virtual experiences online. Providing a frictionless experience to your prospects and clients requires your firm be able to capture data, automate their interactions, and gain insight from the time they get to your website to the time they interact with your colleagues in the local community. The ability to centralize this information into one dashboard removes the hurdles and unnecessary complexity from a rapidly evolving process.

New Opportunities

Geographic boundaries have vanished, but new boundaries related to the virtual buyer’s journey and the pandemic have sprung up between firms and prospective clients. This shift has created a digital strategy imperative. Every facet of the prospect-to-client relationship is now critical to maintaining a data-driven approach to measure what must be managed.

And there are big opportunities to be had. Implementation of a digital rainmaker strategy grants firms the ability to establish meaningful relationships while building a book of business that extends beyond any one individual. Opportunities generated through a broad, sophisticated digital strategy will create an output of higher conversion rates (and more time dedicated to clients and billable hours) for partners, ultimately yielding increased cash flow and profitability for the firm.

So, what are the foundations of a sound digital rainmaker strategy?

1. Data is king. So is content. You may have seen some headlines recently about the way data is going to be collected and stored by internet giants like Google, Facebook, YouTube and Amazon. Their methods are evolving rapidly to put the user first and protect their data. What does that mean for your digital strategy? Data collection will be much more critical at the firm level versus relying on third-party sources. Attention will become a commodity and competition for users’ time on the internet will be more challenging. Strong, relatable content that shows thought leadership will pave the path to establishing an authoritative voice and a strong following.

2. Focus on one vertical at a time. Developing a source of qualified leads through digital marketing of specific verticals and practice lines is the best way to create success stories for repeatable growth. Trying to tackle and embrace the entire firm's transition to one of digital culture will have its challenges. Embracing a model that is generating traceable, repeatable, and sustained revenue comes with focus, leadership, and the ability to identify digital champions within the firm. Who will be the next partner to champion video, thought leadership creation, and a podcast with 40,000 monthly subscribers?

3. Data flow drives decisions. Visibility and accountability at all levels is critical and data flow, analytics, and dashboards connecting the path from marketing inception to sales conversion provide the insight needed to know what’s working and what isn’t. Data-driven growth is integral to the future-ready firm.

4. Adoption at all levels is critical. Why do only 30% of digital transformations succeed? Because, according to McKinsey, adoption must be endemic — and that’s a hard nut to crack. Adoption that starts at the top level and becomes part of the firm's strategic plan, goals, metrics, and key performance indicators at all levels is more likely to succeed and produce the greatest return on investment.

As client acquisition becomes ever more challenging and complex, as client experiences trend toward virtual and away from in-person exclusively, and as the prospect-to-client expectations continue to evolve, this imperative will become ever more critical to your success.