Marketing for accountants: the channels, and which suit your firm

Referrals: make them a system

Most firm owners will tell you their best clients came by referral. The difference between firms is whether that happens by luck or by habit.

• Ask existing clients at the same high points you would ask for a review: after a good result, at the year-end meeting. Be specific about who you want: "If you know another clinic owner who is stuck on their numbers, we would like to meet them."
• Build two-way relationships with other professionals. A short list of lawyers, advisers and brokers you trust, and actually send them work. Referral partners who never hear from you stop thinking of you.
• Make it easy to pass you on: a page on your site for that kind of client, and a one-line description a referrer can forward.
• Check the rules before money changes hands. Paying or receiving referral fees and commissions is regulated by the professional codes (see the FAQ below).

Your website: where every other channel ends

Whoever referred them, whatever they searched, a prospect looks at your website before they call. Its job is to say who you help, what you do for them, roughly what it costs and how to start. Our guide to what a firm website needs on every page goes through it page by page, and if you are rebuilding, the website brief template gets the brief written in an hour, whoever builds it. Whether to show prices is its own decision, covered in should your firm publish its prices.

Search, local and AI: digital marketing that compounds

When people talk about digital marketing for accountants, most of the durable value sits in search. A complete Google Business Profile wins the map results for local searches; service pages and answers to client questions win specialist searches; and the same pages are what Google's AI Overviews and assistants such as ChatGPT draw on when they answer. It is slow to start and keeps working once built. The full method, including how to judge an outside provider, is in our practical guide to SEO for accountants.

Social media for accountants: mostly LinkedIn, mostly the owner

For firms serving businesses, LinkedIn is where clients and referrers already are. Three things decide whether it works:

• Post as a person. Personal profiles are where the conversations happen; the firm page is a listing. The owner or a partner who will keep it up is the right voice.
• Post what you see. The question three clients asked this week. The decision you helped a client make, anonymised. A change that lands on your niche next quarter and what to do about it. Specific beats motivational.
• Be consistent rather than prolific. Two posts a week for a year beats daily posting for a month.

Other platforms suit other clients: Facebook groups for trades and local communities, Instagram or TikTok for firms whose clients are younger consumers or creators. Pick one platform where your clients are and do it properly. Whatever you post, the professional codes' marketing rules apply as they do anywhere else: honest, no exaggerated claims, nothing disparaging about other firms, and general information rather than advice to a particular person.

Email newsletters: the list you own

A newsletter keeps you in front of people who are not ready yet: past enquiries, clients who might need another service, and referral partners. It is the one audience no platform can take away.

• Monthly or quarterly is enough. One useful thing per issue: a deadline, a change, a decision worth thinking about.
• Write it for your niche, not for everyone. A generic tax-tips bulletin is what clients delete.
• Get the consent rules right for each country you send to. They differ: the US CAN-SPAM Act is broadly opt-out, while Australia's Spam Act 2003, the UK's PECR, Canada's CASL, New Zealand's Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 and South Africa's POPIA each require consent or a qualifying existing relationship in most cases. Every regime expects a working unsubscribe.

Partnerships and events

Partnerships work best for firms with a clear niche. If you serve a particular industry, the industry association, the software that industry runs on, and the suppliers who already have its attention can all introduce you. Many accounting software vendors also run partner directories where businesses look for an adviser; keeping your listing complete and current is low effort.

Events and speaking suit owners who present well. A short, practical session for a local business group or an industry meeting puts you in a room of exactly the right people, and a recording becomes content for every other channel. Results arrive months later, so measure them over a year.

Lead generation for accountants: the part after the enquiry

Most firms looking for more leads would get further by converting the ones they have. Before you spend on any channel, check what happens when someone gets in touch:

• Speed. How long until a person replies? An enquiry that waits days often goes to the firm that answered first.
• A clear next step. A booking link for a first call, or a short form that asks what they need.
• Qualification. Two or three questions that tell you early whether they fit, so you spend time on the right ones and refer the rest on politely.
• A record of source. Ask how they found you and write it down every time.

Paid search and ads belong here too. They can produce enquiries quickly, but only pay off if you know what a client is worth to you and can handle enquiries fast. Without those two things, ads mostly buy you more enquiries you cannot convert.

What to measure

Measure clients, not attention. Followers, likes and website visits tell you something is being seen; they do not tell you whether it pays. A short monthly review covers what matters:

1. Source of every new client, recorded as a field in your practice management system, whether that is FYI, Karbon, Xero Practice Manager or a spreadsheet.
2. Enquiries by source, and the share of each that became a client.
3. Average fee and fit by source. The channel with the most enquiries is often not the one with the best clients.
4. Your time by channel. Owner hours are the biggest marketing cost most firms never count.
5. Channel signals: Search Console impressions for search, profile views and conversations for LinkedIn, open and reply rates for a newsletter. Useful for tuning a channel, not for judging it.

Marketing numbers sit best alongside the rest of the firm's numbers. Our piece on nine practice benchmarks covers the others worth tracking from data you already hold.

Two rules keep the whole thing honest. First, give a channel long enough: a quarter for ads, a year for search, content and events. Second, when a channel is working, do more of it before adding another.