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Accounting firms are becoming much more proactive when it comes to seeking profile in the media and promoting their individual brands. Accountancy Ireland selected three very active firms – one based in Dublin, one in Athlone, and one in Newry – and talked to them about their marketing strategy.

It’s no surprise that many smaller practices look askance when the terms marketing and business development are mooted. In recent years, new clients have been easy tocome by and, after all, a practice that provides excellent service and advice will build its own reputation, right? In addition, disciplines like marketing and business development are murky waters that don’t offer quantifiable solutions. But the economic downturn has led many smaller practices to re-assess how they are perceived by their existing and potential clients and to look at how they are winning business.

Accountancy Ireland spoke to three accountancy firms to learn from their experience in formulating marketing plans, their advice for winning new clients and maximising existing business, and the most practical, costeffective marketing tips for smaller practices (that also work for small businesses).

The starting point John Glennon, Managing Partner in Baker Tilly Ryan Glennon, advises any firm to start its marketing plan by establishing its brand identity. “Your firm needs to ask itself: How do you stand out in the eyes of your clients? What is your value proposition or message? How are you going to practices? Decide what gives your firm its competitive advantage or what makes it unique – in most cases it’s probably an emphasis on personal service, but there may be something else that makes it unique.”

“Understanding what makes you different is of fundamental importance, even if you’re a small practice employing 5 or 6 people in rural Ireland. Even for smaller firms, it’s common for them to draw clients from a particular sector, as one client refers the other. For instance, you’ll find that they might advise 15 publican clients or convenience shops in a rural area. It’s about your team becoming experts in all the issues affecting clients and providing leading edge advice. Encourage your staff to build up expertise in whatever area they practise in and begin to define what each member of the team does.”

“Your firm’s marketing strategy should derive from the overall business plan. We have a documented version of the key marketing messages for the firm. From there you can boil down to the individual communications activities to support this strategy. It is also imperative that the firm believes in its message. Energy spent on marketing initiatives will be wasted if the firm’s message is incoherent or is not consistent with how the firm is seen. Put simply, believe what you say.”

According to Liam Rattigan, Chief Executive at Russell Brennan Keane, understanding what defines your firm is a critical starting point. He believes that the choice of niche area to concentrate on should be dictated by client requirements. “Start by identifying what are the issues of importance for them. What are they reading? What events do they go to? How do you network with them, how do you get interfacing with them?”

“Identify the areas or niches in which you have particular experience, and position yourself there. Everything we do from a marketing point of view is with an eye towards the value it’s going to bring to the client and ultimately to the firm. You have to be discerning as to what you undertake to do.”

Having decided on the message you want to communicate about your firm, Glennon underlines the importance of keeping your internal audience informed. “No matter how small the firm, the staff or team must know the messages you want to communicate. That was one thing that we found really relevant as the firm grew, there is no point of having a marketing plan if the whole firm doesn’t know what you stand for. You really do need to bring your staff with you.”

Feargal McCormack, Managing Partner at FPM, agrees about the importance of internal communication: “We believe that central to a successful marketing strategy is an acknowledgement that business is all about people and relationships and that great emphasis must be placed on internal communications and the creation of culture of shared responsibility, recognising that ‘none of us are as smart as all of us’ and that staff can be ambassadors or assassins for the practice. We endeavour to create a culture that people are proud to work here, proud of their colleagues, proud of the practice and proud of themselves.”

Kirsty Breen, Marketing Executive at Baker Tilly Ryan Glennon, expands on the idea of providing cutting edge advice. “Thought Leadership is about understanding the changing markets, researching your clients’ needs, and always being aware of what is newsworthy to them. You can then build a campaign around your research findings by hosting a series of topical seminars to groups of 50+ or to target a smaller number of specifically identified clients with personalised mail-shots and follow-up presentations. The essential point is to stay in contact with your clients, letting them know that you can help them. You can do this through faceto- face meetings, telephone calls, direct mail or by conducting client surveys.”

Where clients see value “One of the fundamental things that we are seeing in the professional services sector is that it comes down to people,” says Liam Rattigan. “An accountant has to be more than just a numbers man, (s)he has to bring real value to clients to provide tangible insight into what’s happening in their business.”

John Glennon is in no doubt as to what clients are looking for. “It’s definitely pro-active and innovative advice. Clients expect you to be ahead of the game, that’s number one. In the information age, we are also increasingly finding that speed of response is a significant issue. Clients expect their audits done within a set period, similarly their tax returns. The days of accountants taking 10-15 weeks to produce a set of accounts are over.”

“Fees are without doubt important, but if the quality of advice and speed of response are right, the fees will be less of an issue.”

How to communicate your message For Feargal McCormack, enduring client relationships are built on regular communication.

“To sustain momentum achieved in good times, in the current economic slow down, practices must become more pro-active with the selling process, i.e. they must be customer led (earning trusted adviser status) and sales driven. They must maintain regular contact (via talking to people, not issuing letters and flyers), not to imply pressure, but rather to show care, courtesy and understanding.

They must enhance their visibility with clients and prospective clients and they must encourage all staff to get out of the office and go meet people. They must ensure that selling is not about telling. Instead they need to build relationships of trust and confidence, and demonstrate that they can add value.

“Rather than hear about a practice, I believe clients want to know what you can specifically do for them. This can only be achieved by first asking clients questions about their business.”

There are a number of different routes to take when looking to raise your firm’s profile, believes Breen, but the key for moving the relationship from ‘lead’ to ‘client’ is through careful maintenance and follow-up so that clients trust and believe in your firm. “In order to build brand awareness and attract new clients, you have to demonstrate that you are more suited to their particular requirement above any of your competitors. The best approach is to determine who your audience is and develop a targeted marketing campaign. Produce a series of client-orientated articles in target market publications. Establish a relationship with professional bodies relevant to your audience and decide on a programme of seminars/lectures tailored to your client.”

“Build on existing relationships with external contacts to co-sponsor programmes, develop seminars / lecture series, create relationships with journalists and publications and produce worthy articles. Advertising and hosting events can be costly, but in the correct places at the appropriate time, you will see a return.”

Mary Cloonan, Director of Marketing at Russell Brennan Keane, sees advertising as a lower priority. “The most valuable way to use the media is to find out what issues are topical for you to speak on. For instance, if your practice is targeted towards the family-owned sector, what’s your opinion on what this sector should be doing, particularly in this economic climate? Similarly, if the practice has expertise in the construction sector, do you have an opinion on the challenges affecting it? By writing articles and press releases we create awareness of our expertise and raise our profile in key areas.”

“Events and sponsorship can be useful for profile building because they give an opportunity to mix with your target market, and build lasting relationships. It doesn’t have to be big ticket events: plenty of sporting events and festivals around the regions offer good value in terms of sponsorship, and will generate an association of success and achievement in the eyes of your clients. Just make sure to leverage maximum benefit out of the investment. The real bounce comes from media coverage, your team being seen on the day.”

John Glennon observes: “Some events can be valuable for building general loyalty but we believe that it is seminars on specific technical subjects that really work for clients. I can’t say that we have ever got a client from things like newsletters, website or a firm brochure, but there are certain things you have to do by way of brand building. If you turn up to a meeting, the number of people that already know about your firm when you walk in is amazing – they’ve already checked your website and have read your message. That also applies to attracting potential staff.”

Measuring client satisfaction Measuring client satisfaction is fundamental to improving performance, believes John Glennon.

“In order to understand what our clients think, we undertake client surveys every six months and look for feedback, and we find we learn a lot from this research. The first time we did this we used an outside agency but now our surveys are so embedded in client care that they are managed internally. It’s often small things that we learn make a difference for clients, like having our reception open until 6pm so people can contact us.”

Later this year, RBK will be conducting some formal research on its client base to measure satisfaction but Liam Rattigan points out that a firm’s performance can also be assessed informally. “Fundamentally, you need to have some kind of mechanism that allows you to sit down with the client, where there’s no agenda and ask ‘How’s life, how are we treating you, are you happy with us?’ Some firms use retired partners to do this, others use external research agencies. You tend to get some very honest feedback in return, which is very important as a learning experience.”

For Mary Cloonan, Business Planning and Client Data Management are vital areas to control. “All organisations inherit legacy data, so it’s critical to invest time to ensure that data is clean, to put systems in place to update the data and that processes and controls are established to keep it updated. Step back and look at your clients; who are your top ten clients, why are they your top ten clients, are there any other clients in my database that aren’t in that top 10 category that have greater potential?” Baker Tilly Ryan Glennon ranks its top 10 clients by their value and importance, says John Glennon. “Just because they’re high value, they may not be as important. When you classify your client you may find that a smaller fee-generating client might have unbelievable connections and huge potential to refer other work.”

Raising your profile without breaking the bank So what can small practices do to raise profile, that won’t cost the bank?

“Press activity in the local media works for us as a vehicle to get to our market, and would be useful for smaller practices,” advises Mary Cloonan. “Regional papers have a very strong local readership and long shelf life, so build a relationship with local journalists. You can probably assist them with business stories, start getting yourself quoted. Finally, don’t forget to post any articles to your website to gain maximum ‘hit’.”

Finally, Glennon takes the view that marketing the firm is everyone’s responsibility. “We have an emphasis in marketing that it’s not so much the golf score, it’s going to the driving range that’s important. In other words, we all need to promote the firm. That means that if you’re a shy person you don’t have to go out and cold-call clients, but we’d like you to write an article.”

Bryan Rankin is Marketing Manager at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.