EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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A WEB SITE IS A VALUABLE DIRECT
MARKETING TOOL when it has
action-oriented copy and graphics, reader
involvement devices and promotional offers that
prompt readers to respond.
FOCUS ON WHAT CLEARLY SEPARATES
YOUR FIRM from the competition and can
be locked into the minds of your prospective
clients.
WHEN YOU IMPRINT A STRONG
ASSOCIATION in the minds of your
prospects and clients, you create something
marketers call “mind share.” Brands that are
synonymous with their products (Jell-O, Kleenex,
Xerox) have successfully gained mind share.
YOUR WEB SITE WILL HAVE GREATER
IMPACT if it focuses on your clients’
needs and interests instead of aggressively
telling them how wonderful you are.
WEB SITES SHOULD BE INFORMATIONAL.
Based on your positioning and market
focus, present news, articles, facts, insights and
helpful data that clearly show you are an
authority in your areas of expertise.
TO COMPETE EFFECTIVELY ON THE
INTERNET, your site should be ranked
high by search engines and directories such as
Google and Yahoo! Reciprocal links with other
businesses can help achieve this goal. It also is
useful to link to relevant government and
nonprofit agencies. | Richard Siedlecki is an Atlanta-based
consultant specializing in direct marketing via
mail, catalogs and the Web. His e-mail address is sied@mindspring.com
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aving a digital presence is now unquestionably
an important part of doing business, but the trick is in how
best to use it when the growing number of Web sites makes it
harder and harder to get noticed. The Internet weaves words
and pictures into interactive information accessible to a
huge audience, and the sites it serves are many. (There were
more than one billion Web pages on the Internet in 2000.)
CPA firms need to learn some basics about applying Web
direct marketing in a way that makes their sites
competitive, effective sales tools.
Estimated Internet searches by
consumers and business people each day: 150
million.
Approximate number of search
engines: 3,500. Source: The
New York Times.
| To successfully
market CPA services on the Web, you first must have a clear
understanding of how your firm is distinct from the
competition. Emphasize its unique capabilities as you use
the technology to draw clients and readers in. Sharing
valuable data that visitors can access readily is an
excellent way to do this. A Web site becomes “direct
marketing” when it has action-oriented text and graphics,
promotional offers, data and devices that prompt reader
response.
YOU'RE SPECIAL—TELL THEM
The basic strategy
starts with positioning, a form of differentiation that can
help create a perception about your business among clients
and prospects based on your firm’s strengths. Positioning is
central in all marketing and no less so on the Internet.
Start by determining how your business is different from key
competitors’. You know your marketplace, so to uncover
ideas, answer questions such as the following:
Does your firm serve specific industries or
focus on a business specialty (construction, fashion or
retail clients; litigation, audit or tax services)?
Is your business built on a solid reputation,
such as “one of the oldest, most respected small accounting
firms”?
Is your firm a family business whose members
offer a personal, solicitous approach?
Do you insist on achieving complete client
satisfaction (staff turn projects around quickly; answer
phone messages promptly; treat all clients as if
they were the firm’s most important ones)?
Are your services more complete or
comprehensive than your competitors’? The idea is to
focus on what clearly separates you from the competition and
can be locked into the minds of your prospects and clients.
Once you decide which qualities make your firm special,
write the information out as a simple statement. Then use it
as the framework for your Web site, publicity mailings and
print and direct mail advertising. Volvo is an
example of a business that has used positioning well in its
Web—and other—marketing. Its media tag line is “drive
safely,” and it promotes its cars to families with children.
As a result, Volvo has become identified with safety. CPA
firms attempting direct marketing on the Web may need to
take a few pointers from consumer approaches.
CASE STUDY
The Benefits of Links
Carl Roth, CPA and partner of Roth &
Spellman, New Milford, New Jersey, was involved in
developing the firm’s Web site. The firm leases
links on its Web site, but visitors to the site
are never aware of the alliance. Links
include “Tax Tip of the Week,” “Business Tip of
the Month,” “Financial Planning Tip of the Month”
and a new link called “2001 Tax Guide.” There are
also links to 16 different calculators, including
one for IRAs. Roth tracks the hits on the
site but not the conversions to clients. His firm
has been successful in getting new clients through
a three-step process: The prospect first learns
about the firm from another individual or an ad;
the prospect locates the firm’s Web site to get
more information; and, finally, the prospect
phones the firm to explore a business arrangement.
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WHAT'S YOUR FOCUS?
Business consultant Al
Ries, who with co-author Jack Trout wrote Positioning:
The Battle for Your Mind, says, “Smaller accounting
firms usually compete best on the Internet when they lock in
a solid position and focus on a narrow market segment or
niche.” For example, if you’re a CPA with experience
in the fashion trade, you might determine your target by
noting the following points about your practice:
Predominant specialty? The clothing and fashion
wear business.
Client base? Mostly midsize clothing
manufacturers, distributors and retailers.
Located where? Primarily in Georgia and the
Southeast.
Clear field? Only a few CPA practices with this
specialty in the South. From these positioning
notes, you could narrow your focus and write a statement
such as: “The experienced CPA specialists for midsize
clothing and fashion businesses in Georgia and the
Southeast.” Midsize CPA firms offering diverse
services should go against instinct and base your direct
marketing on core competencies aimed at three or four key
segments at most. These might be professional or industry
specialties or other niches for which yours is the go-to
firm in your area. Few of the more than 60 CPA sites of the
top 100 firms looked at for this article use this
narrow-focus approach (or, strictly speaking, direct
marketing). Steer clear of making your firm sound
like an ordinary commodity in your positioning statement.
Clients respect CPA expertise and recognize there are
accounting-skill subsets that can contribute greatly to the
health of their businesses. “It’s analogous to a medical
practice,” says Ries. “There are general practitioners and
specialists. If you have a problem that needs special
attention, your primary doctor may send you to a specialist.
He or she not only will be highly trained in a specific area
but will charge more, too.” When you imprint a
strong association in the minds of your prospects and
clients, you create something marketers call “mind share.”
Brands that have become synonymous with their products
(Jell-O, Kleenex, Xerox) have successfully gained mind
share. Try to position your firm based on uniqueness,
strengths or specialties so that it’s the first one to be
thought of by your targeted group. “Mind share is market
share,” says Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
TELL YOUR CLIENTS WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR THEM
For greater impact,
focus on your clients’ needs and interests in your Web
message. Say little about the history of your firm or how
wonderful you are; instead, tell site visitors how your
services, experience and abilities can benefit them. Give
your professional credentials and expertise, and introduce
mini case studies to illustrate your client focus.
Based on how your CPA firm is positioned in the market
(and its niches), the Web site should highlight the
advantages of the firm’s specialized services. Ideally, the
presentation should consist of short paragraphs that lead
into bulleted copy. It’s important to keep the copy brief
and informative and have a visual format that’s easy to
understand. The CPA sites in exhibit
1 and exhibit
2 offer a broad menu of services, but they are
fast-loading, have short, clear paragraphs, drop-down menus
and an uncluttered, consistent graphic format. To
maintain a client point of view, use a “you” rather than
“we” approach to tell your story. Here’s how the text might
weave together the prospective client and the advantages of
using your firm: “Our capital-raising efforts can save you
time and help you learn more about the many financing
options other than bank loans available to you. Talk to us
and you’ll learn about our 25 innovative methods for raising
debt and equity capital that can help you expand into new
markets, get the equipment you need and launch products
fast.”
HAVE BENEFICIAL WEB CONTENT
Your Web site gets an
enormous marketing advantage if it offers useful data, such
as news, articles, facts, insights and
information—preferably showing that you are an authority and
specialist in certain areas. Zero in on tips, techniques,
ideas and tax-saving methods. Present it all in a friendly,
one-to-one style. Pack the site with helpful content, and
visitors will return. This puts your firm’s name in
front of potential clients again and again. CPA firm Carlin,
Charron & Rosen LLP’s home page has a “Links” link that
takes you to sites ranging from government to legal,
life-style, auction and dental information among other
categories (see exhibit
3 ). The best way to develop external links to
information is by establishing alliances with one or more
related businesses, business consultants, universities or
government agencies. When a visitor to a CPA’s Web site
clicks one of these links, he or she connects with the
partner site. It provides the visitor with the information
but appears to be part of the CPA firm’s Web site. Work with
your site developer if you want to build in a function that
takes the visitor from the linked site back to the CPA site.
Ten Tips for Web Marketing Success
Keep these points in mind for a
more effective Internet sales presence.
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Put a marketing executive in charge of
your site—not a techie.
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Ask visitors to bookmark your site (if 2%
actually do, you’re marketing effectively),
and be sure to…
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Update your site regularly.
-
Use a consistent presentation format to
reinforce your firm identity on each page.
Include your logo on each page (linked to your
home page).
-
Use easy-to-read type fonts that are not
too large. A serif type (Times Roman) is
easier to read than a sans-serif (Helvetica).
So is type that’s upright (roman) rather than
slanting (italic). For body text, use 12-point
roman or larger (and more white space between
lines than you think you need). It makes type
much easier to read.
-
Break up long paragraphs with subheads.
This will help visitors scan your text and
skip to relevant points. Subheads also improve
layout. Always check spellings, grammar and
usage.
-
Keep visitors involved. Calculators, chat
rooms and a forum for getting answers to
questions will keep them there for a while.
Have them push buttons, check off boxes,
answer questions and click for money-saving
offers.
-
Include a checkbox where the visitor can
request free weekly e-mail tips.
-
Provide an internal search engine to help
visitors retrieve key articles from your
archive if the site has 100 pages or more.
-
Promote your site everywhere—in ads,
direct mail, publicity and on brochures. If
you’re speaking at a seminar or conference,
you might respond to a query by saying
something like: “I hope I’ve answered your
question. Our Web site features several
articles on that topic.”
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SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS
To get attention and
compete even more effectively on the Internet, your site
should show up on search engines and directories such as
Google and Yahoo! One of the ways the engines find your site
out of the multitudes is to count the number of links to it.
When numerous professionals and marketers link to your site,
they are, in effect, recommending it to visitors. The more
links, the higher your site is “ranked”—that is, the higher
the probability of being tagged by search engines and
directories. To accomplish this, create an ongoing
alliance with other Web site marketers and professionals
with which you will trade links. Your site’s links take
visitors directly to your marketing partners’ sites, and
your partners do the same for you. Also:
Offer information links. For
example, you can offer links to government sites (Department
of Commerce, Federal Reserve, IRS, SEC, Small Business
Administration) and club and association sites. (Except for
government sites, you must get permission from Web site
owners before you link to theirs.)
Share your expertise. Develop
partnerships with sites by supplying them with something
they can use, such as original content for articles or
electronic newsletters. A small publisher of business books
might welcome your articles on tax-saving tips in return for
attribution or a link to your site.
Keep key content up front. The first
200 to 300 words on your home page are critical for search
engine submissions. Here you must clearly focus on
positioning your strengths and key services. Search engines
have their own methods and formulas for ranking a Web site
listing. Most drill down only about two layers to locate and
index Web content. If vital information is too deep within
your site, prospects and even clients may not find it using
search engines, so keep key content at the first two levels.
For example in the hypothetical Web address
www.richardsiedlecki.com/file3/marketing/direct/retail/,
many search engines would search only as deep as
“marketing.”
Use search-listing services. These
can help save time (see “Search engine managers” in “More
About Web Marketing,” below).
KEEP YOUR SITE SIMPLE AND FAST
Since confusing sites
turn off visitors, yours must be easy to use. Be sure your
site:
Is intuitive and simple to navigate.
Has buttons that are descriptive and easy to
locate.
Loads quickly. For example, if you have
a “newest services” category, your visitors should be able
to go to that page quickly. Don’t bury an important category
three or four clicks deep. Speedy access is very
important. Most visitors won’t have high-speed modems or DSL
services, so use photos and special graphics only when
necessary because they delay loading. Include key
information about your firm, especially multiple ways to
contact you (phone, fax, e-mail and street address). Offer
online and offline human contacts. Visitors should be able
to “talk” to a human being, via either e-mail or phone.
A Web site based on profitable direct marketing methods
will increase your success rate on the Internet, no matter
what your budget is. What stands out is how you compete
based on your market positioning, your target niches, the
usefulness and simplicity of your Web site and its
consistency of presentation. On the Web, the size of your
office or staff isn’t important.
RESOURCE LIST
More About Web Marketing
You’ll find these resources of benefit to
marketing your practice.
Promotion Base
www.promotionbase.com/
This is a
highly informative site. Readers can pick and
choose a wide variety of articles, such as “The
most effective way to easily acquire links to your
site,” “How to list your site with the major
search engines,” “The complete guide to portal
listings” and more.
Swiftfox Web Design
www.swiftfox.com
This Web
developer offers a tip on linking from your site:
To link to another site (or to a page that resides
on another server), use a method called absolute
linking. It requires a complete URL in the
reference. The HTML code for doing this might look
like this: <a href =
HTTP://www.swiftfox.com> VISIT
SWIFTFOX>COM</a> This would
display the phrase VISIT SWIFTFOX on your screen
and when the user clicked the link, it would
transport the user to the specific page.
MetaMend.com
www.metamend.com
MetaMend will enhance
your Web site’s search engine ranking. The company
monitors and updates your site automatically for a
low monthly fee.
ROIbot.com
www.roibot.com/r.cgi?IM7800nl101a
You can register every
page of your Web site on all major search engines
by using this sophisticated registering submission
server.
WebPosition Gold
www.promotionsoftware.com
A software program that allows
you to see if your company name, Web pages or Web
site appears in the major search engines.
SAM 117 W.
Micheltorena, Suite C Santa Barbara,
California 93101 805-965-5858
www.sammag.com
Brief, thorough articles on
marketing, including Web site marketing, are
available here.
About.com
http://marketing.about.com/smallbusiness/marketing/
This site can steer you to
basic information, such as targeted marketing. Its
General Resources/Articles link connects to a
large collection of marketing articles and
resources. Free subscription.
Larry Chase’s Web Digest for Marketers
www.wdfm.com
A subscription automatically
links you to a list of other free e-newsletters
you can subscribe to (or go to the newsletter list
at http://www.wdfm.com/thanks.html
).
Jakob Nielsen/Nielsen Norman Group
www.useit.com
This Internet consultant offers
a wide range of articles on Web marketing and
keeping your site efficient and effective. Free
subscription.
Wilson Internet
http://www.wilsonweb.com
Includes three free electronic
newsletters you can subscribe to: Doctor Ebiz,
Web Commerce Today, and Web Marketing
Today. Check the extensive archive, too.
Business-to-Business Internet
Marketing: Seven Proven Strategies for
Increasing Profits through Internet Direct
Marketing, 3rd ed., by Barry Silverstein.
Maximum Press, Gulf Breeze, Florida. Read
about structuring direct marketing, creative plan
execution, implementation and analysis and
promoting products and services.
Guide to Marketing on the
Internet: Getting People to Visit, Buy, and
Become Customers for Life by Dan Janal.
John Wiley & Sons, New York City.
Learn how to create your marketing message, do
business-to-business selling online and earn
lifetime customer loyalty. (Janal’s Web site, www.janal.com ,
has free articles.)
Positioning: The Battle for Your
Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner
Books Inc., New York City. How to position
your business, find and use the competition’s
weakest link and reposition the competition.
Guerrilla Marketing Online: The
Entrepreneur’s Guide to Earning Profits on the
Internet, 2nd ed., by Jay Conrad Levinson
and Charles Rubin. Houghton Mifflin Co., New York
City. Techniques for marketing online,
plus ideas for marketing more effectively and
successfully. | |