Your practice’s survival depends upon your ability to effectively promote your services. But often, financial professionals are uncomfortable marketing themselves and are unaware of the best strategies in securing and retaining new clients. In fact, many do not know how to differentiate between advertising and marketing—a simple distinction that could help many build better promotional campaigns.
Marketing consultant and strategist Laura Lake’s explains the difference in her About.com article entitled “Marketing vs. Advertising: What’s the Difference?”
“The best way to distinguish between advertising and marketing is to think of marketing as a pie, inside that pie you have slices of advertising, market research, media planning, public relations, product pricing, distribution, consumer support, sales strategy, and community involvement. Advertising only equals one piece of the pie in the strategy. All of these elements must not only work independently but they also must work together towards the bigger goals. Marketing is a process that takes time and can involve hours of research for a marketing plan to be effective. Think of marketing as everything that an organization does to facilitate an exchange between company and consumer.”
Your Marketing Plan
In order to develop that big promotional picture, you must develop a marketing plan which includes the following elements:
- Marketing Goals and Objectives
- Pricing of Products/Service
- Key Marketing Strategies
- Implementation of Your Marketing Plan
Your Marketing Plan establishes what you hope to accomplish through your overall marketing efforts and includes key strategies your plan to implement. This may require you to do significant research in order to determine the realistic expectations for growth in a successful accounting practice.
Advertising
Advertising, then, is just part of the entire marketing process, or the big promotional picture. Mary Cruse, in her AllBusiness.com article, defines it as “a persuasive, action-oriented message to convince consumers to buy a product or service. Advertising is shorting in duration than a marketing campaign, which in part, may contain advertising components.” Here’s a sampling of different advertising techniques: direct mailings (brochures, postcards, flyers, etc.), television advertisements, radio advertisements, print advertisements (in magazines, newspapers, local publications, the phone book, etc.), and website promotions.
Putting it All Together
But as a financial professional, how do you create the perfect marketing plan for your business, employing the right strategies for your field and target market? Allow Universal Accounting to help with the Universal Practice Builder (UPB) Program.
For 30 years, Universal Accounting Center has been training professionals like you how to promote their businesses. The UPB program will train you in the following (and much more):
- Creating your own customized marketing plan
- Increasing your annualized billings by $30,000 within the next 12 months
- 12 proven marketing strategies that will increase your client base
- Techniques that can generate 15 to 25 qualified leads per month
- Effective phone marketing techniques
In a matter of hours, you will know exactly what you need to do to grow your business. Advance your accounting practice to the next level and become the premier firm in your area. To learn more, visit our website and listen to testimonials of our very own graduates, sharing what they found most valuable in this program. Build your business. Enroll in the Universal Practice Builder Program today!
Resources
Cruse, Mary. “The Reel Story.” 13 February 2010 AllBusiness.com
Lake, Laura. “Marketing vs. Advertising: What’s the Difference?” About.com
