Cookie-Cutter Solutions Do More Harm Than Good

It still amazes me when I meet a Partner in an accounting firm and I say ‘OK, let’s have a look at your marketing materials, newsletter and web site’ and they blush a little, give me a sheepish look and say ‘err, um, well, we don’t actually have a brochure, newsletter, web site or any marketing materials’.

‘How do these people get any new clients at all?’ I often ask myself.

Of course, it all comes down to the oldest marketing tool in the book – doing a great job for your existing clients and asking for referrals.

Indeed, until the mid-80’s, that was pretty much the full extent of our marketing toolkit!

But boy, oh boy, how things have changed in the last twenty years. Today not having a web site is akin to having a retail store with no window display.

Do you think a shoe store would stay in business very long if the storefront windows were all blacked-out, and the display area was just a sheet of black vinyl, not even the word ‘shoes’ appearing in the window?

No, I don’t think so either. Yet that is precisely what an accounting firm with no web site is doing.

Now, don’t get me wrong, people are not going to sit fretting at midnight at their computer, doing a ‘google’ search looking for a new accounting firm.

‘… not having a web site can cost you an opportunity to meet many prospective clients’

A web site on it’s own will probably not earn you a single new client. But not having a web site can cost you an opportunity to meet many prospective clients, and the law of averages says that the more prospects you meet the more likely you are to pick up some new business.

The web site should play a supporting role. It should be there for people whom you have already had contact with – maybe you met them at a business function and had a great conversation and made a lasting impression - to visit just before they pick up the phone to call you to make an appointment to come in and see you to switch advisers.

And it should be unique to your firm.

I see so many firms using a cookie-cutter web site solution, where, for about $30 or $40 a month, they can have a web presence with pre-written content and a selection of half a dozen or so different designs (which all look and feel pretty much the same).

In our effort to win a new client we are saying something like ‘come to our firm, we’re different’. Yet when prospects visit their web site before deciding if they’re going to call that particular firm, they see that the real message is ‘we’re just the same as everybody else’.

The same can be said for cookie-cutter newsletters. Many a sole practitioner and even some mid-tier firms subscribe to the same newsletter, print their name on the mast-head and send it out to all their clients, prospects, contacts, bankers, lawyers etc…

‘Twenty-three versions of exactly the same newsletter’

Now, I am on the mailing list of several accounting firms, and I get their newsletters. Guess how many of one particular cookie-cutter option I receive every issue?

Twenty-three.

Yes, twenty-three versions of exactly the same newsletter.

Word for word, each one identical to the next.

The only differences are how it is presented – some firms go out of their way to print it on special paper with their own corporate colours and logo etc, but it still boils down to the fact that they are sending out exactly the same materials as many of their competitors.

Others clearly go to as little trouble as possible!

Now, just imagine if you are a banker who deals with corporate lending and you’re on the mailing list of five of these firms (the exact situation of a commercial banking contact of mine) and every issue you get five versions of the same newsletter from these five firms, then you get a newsletter from a firm who have obviously gone out of their way to produce a quality bespoke newsletter.

Which firm do you think creates the most favourable impression with this key banking contact? Of course, the one that stands out from the crowd.

‘Four of the five firms offering a cookie-cutter newsletter also had a cookie-cutter web site.’

So this banking friend of mine and I conducted an experiment. We went to see of these six firms in total who had the best web site. Guess what? Four of the five firms offering a cookie-cutter newsletter also had a cookie-cutter web site.

The fifth firm had no web site at all, and the firm with the unique newsletter?

They had a magnificent web site, obviously tailor-made just for them.

It put them in a different league, and yet, one of the four firms offering ready-made marketing materials was considerably bigger than the sixth firm offering unique content!

Marketing aimed at winning new clients is fine, but there is another very important market that our marketing materials, and especially our web sites, should be catering to – prospective employees.

As the war for talent continues and intensifies, as fewer and fewer people seem to be attracted to the accounting profession, the importance of the web site as a recruiting tool intensifies.

This is especially true for younger employees such as new graduates. They, for sure, will be doing their research on prospective employers on-line before sending resumes off.

They will also be using your web site to learn more about the firm’s culture and also to conjure up some thought-provoking questions for the person interviewing them.

Your web site could display current opportunities and invite candidates to submit their resume.

You would only need to successfully recruit one new team member to make the whole cost of a decent web site a really good investment compared to the conventional recruitment costs that might be incurred.

What sort of costs are we talking about for a decent web site? Well starting from around $1,200 any accounting firm can produce a bespoke, good-looking, easy-to-navigate web site that will do the firm proud.

Small change when compared to the cost of not having one!

© MFA Group Inc, 2007