Accountancy firms across the world are benefiting from utilising technology for their marketing efforts through digital platforms and business websites. Whilst for many years traditional tactics such as word-of-mouth, local enquiries and long-lasting clients have maintained a steady income for accountancy firms, businesses are on the hunt to reach a much wider audience beyond the long standing customers. By implementing a digital marketing strategy as an accountancy, you have the ability to showcase your services for relevant search queries, boost brand awareness through content and social media marketing, and generate a huge amount of high-quality leads. 

Five Marketing Solutions For Accountancy Firms

SEO

SEO (search engine optimisation) is the action of incorporating various elements on your website in order to rank highly in search results. This will make your website more visible for relevant search queries entered, ensuring you are appearing in front of the right audience. Investing in digital marketing is essential in tackling this, and we know of an SEO agency in Bristol specialising in all marketing solutions for accountancies. The main factors which influence your rating include use of keywords, link building, content marketing, website design and user-experience. Local SEO can also be highly effective in getting your business seen, as most accountancy firms will have a physical location. This means that when people enter search queries such as ‘accountancy firm near me’, you can appear in the 3-pack at the top of the search results page; which is responsible for 50% of clicks!

Website Design

View your website as you would your physical office, when people first step through the door they don’t want clutter, an empty space and no clear direction. People are looking for a professional setting, clear direction of how to navigate through, and a set of services to choose from. When building your accountancy website, list your services clearly on the homepage, communicate your unique brand ethos to connect with visitors, and make sure to include testimonials to build trust with potential clients.

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Social Media Marketing

Most businesses and individuals are making use of at least one social media platform, making this a great way to connect with people. Inbound marketing allows you to build valuable relationships through sharing insightful content with clients and potential prospects, which then has the ability to be shared further in front of an even wider audience. By making use of social platforms you can also communicate directly with individuals engaging with your posts, and gather data on what performs best for further development.

Blog Writing

As previously mentioned, use of keywords has major impacts on your Google rankings. Creating a blog page where you are able to incorporate keywords targeted at the accountancy sector is the most effective way in making use of these search terms, whilst creating a page to write engaging regular content for visitors. Here you can also direct focus on local keywords to boost your firm’s local SEO, write case studies for credentials, and create valuable content providing tips and up-to-date information for visitors.

Email Newsletter

Email marketing for accountancy firms is a great way to maintain connections with current clients and pull in new ones. You can initially gather a list of emails on records for people you already work for, whilst creating lead magnets on social media platforms to find new potential clients. Through your newsletter you can then both promote your services whilst sharing insightful content that readers will be excited to open. This will help strengthen relationships as people will value that you care about sharing stories and advice with them, and also boost sales through subtle CTAs (call to actions).

Every business generates waste and doing so is often unavoidable and on average, waste disposal costs up to 4% of a business’ turnover. To keep costs low and help create a more environmentally friendly waste management process, below are 5 ways you can better manage your business waste.

1. Eliminate waste where possible

Ultimately, the goal is to eliminate as much waste in the business as possible. Start by taking the time to speak to employees and track the waste they and the business are currently producing. Doing this will help to highlight the current waste streams, meaning a plan can then be made on how they can be eliminated from your processes as much as possible. Keep staff involved in the plans so they can effectively contribute to the waste reduction and recycling efforts.

2. Go paperless

The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year. Because of this, it is important we all make changes to reduce our paper usage in the workplace. With systems like cloud accounting and cloud storage now extremely accessible, affordable and user friendly, every business can incorporate ways to better manage a paperless office.

By encouraging employees to request paperwork such as invoices in PDF format, they can then be stored on your computer, eliminating the need to use the printer. As well as this, using digital devices to take meeting notes will further reduce how much paper is being used. Both helping towards saving the environment and money for the business.

3. Use a waste management company

It is important that all businesses handle the waste they produce responsibly. To reduce the pressure and maximise efficiency, a professional waste management company can be hired to help. As they do the hard work for you, it means you will be able to save yourself valuable time to focus on other parts of your business.

Even more, they will be able to ensure the materials you are disposing of are properly recycled, where possible, meaning you are doing your part to help the environment and reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.

4. Complete a waste transfer note for waste leaving your site

When disposing of waste yourself, you must ensure every load you pass to others, or receive, is covered by a waste transfer note. By doing this, it creates a clear audit trail from when the waste is produced up until it is disposed of. The WTN must contain enough detailed information about the waste so that it can be handled safely and either recovered or disposed of legally.

If the information is not detailed enough, it can cause the waste to be mismanaged, leading to the possibility of you being prosecuted. Businesses are still responsible for the disposal of waste even after it has left the premises, so a proper record of disposal is imperative.

5. Better manage hazardous waste

If your business produces or handles waste that is deemed hazardous in England, your responsibilities of how it is handled will be different from other business waste. Naturally, you will have a ‘duty of care’ to make sure your hazardous waste is not harmful or causing damage in any way; however, you should not treat your hazardous waste yourself unless you are authorised to do so.

Although hazardous waste is most usually found in the construction and manufacturing sector, any business that is also disposing of items such as laptops will have to follow the hazardous waste disposal rules. It is important to note that mixing hazardous waste with non-hazardous waste is illegal.

What are examples of hazardous waste?

• Asbestos
• Chemicals including printer toner
• Oils such as car oils
• Pesticides

Need more help?

If you need help on the best ways to handle your business waste, contact a waste management specialist who can advise you on whether waste is hazardous and the best way to dispose of it.

With the availability of so many branding strategies at your disposal, it is almost difficult to identify the appropriate type of branding that would work well for your business. Among the different ways of selection, the best way to come to a conclusion on what is the best strategy is by having an understanding of what is branding as well as defining your own brand identity with a branding agency London.

Branding

This is a marketing practice used in setting a different service or products. This involves the creation of either mission statements logos and designs to be run in every form of marketing communication. With creative branding, you actually get a face to introduce your product or promote your product to the world, with the intention of getting more customers and your brand’s growth.

Below we go through 3 branding strategies your company should consider to help scale up your business.

1. Online branding

Internet branding is a branding strategy that was somehow overlooked a few years back. It was seen as good means of personal branding for people. However, with the change of things and the growth of internet businesses using an online branding strategy would really work well for your business.

It helps you to strategically put your product or services to the internet through different mediums such as social media platforms, company websites and other online contents. With online marketing it becomes convenient and offers quick services.

As part of its advantage it offers very low-cost operations. Thus, internet marketing advertising is cheaper compared to traditional advertising methods.

2. Corporate branding

The facets of corporate branding are completely different from product branding. This is because it involves using the company’s brand name in advertising efforts. It stands as a core value for any business and it’s a philosophy developed by the business to help present itself to the world.

Having an effective corporate brand will display or bring out the companies’ personality, core values as well as the company’s mission. As it is important for consumers to understand the products they are buying, hence they care and love to know more about the corporate behind their products

3. Co-branding

This is essentially a marketing partnership between two businesses or more. The effect from this kind of branding is positive. It helps one spread the wings and break new markets as well as the awareness of your products is spread in and around new markets. Co-branding also establishes credibility within the companies.

With co-branding, risks are shared, there are technological benefits with a wider scope given through advertisements and also it brings added financial sources. Apart from all that there is also customer trust for all the products with increased sales income.

With the above three branding strategies, your journey to a stress-free advertising for your brand is started. These strategies will help you and guide you in first identifying your brand identity and making the smart choice in the choice of a branding strategy that would eventually work for your company or business.

Engaging your employees both physically and emotionally can be a good way of improving productivity as well as boosting employee’s job satisfaction. A successful engagement is bound to bring out discretionary effort at work, commitment and most importantly, passion. Some of the engagement activities include team-building games, retreats and even occupational therapy. To get the best out of employee engagement, here are a few steps you can take.

Define your business’ mission, vision and goals

This is the very first step towards fully engaging your employee. Clearly stipulating your desires, goals and visions helps to create an atmosphere of engagement. Once your employees are in tune with your company goals and mission, then they can make up their minds on their contribution towards achieving the desired results.

Your mission and vision are like a road map to guide the employees on what might be expected of them, driving them to put their best effort into the job. To boost job satisfaction, every employee needs a purpose and meaning. Sharing your vision makes them part of the mission, gives them purpose. Provide your employees with a purpose, then give them all the motivation they may need to increase engagement.

Employ the right managers

In most employee engagement survey questions, managers have been found to significantly contribute to job dissatisfaction among employees due to bad leadership. It is best to scout for managers with a track record of employee mentorship and engagement as some may lack this quality. You can also choose to train your managers, equipping them with how to treat and handle employees to improve engagement. The training can even be attended by seasoned managers.

To get the best out of employees, managers should recognize the integral part the employees hold in the company. Empowering them to achieve both individual and company growth while excelling in their careers.

Consult with your employees

It’s not enough to give your employees what you think they need. Set up meetings and forums where employees can openly express what they want in order to boost their engagement. Most employees respond positively to monetary motivators. However, there are other different ways you can motivate them. These include bonuses and pay raises, promotion, recognition, employee benefits and packages, freebies and paid leaves.

Don’t just assume. Ask the employees what they need. It is also advisable to keep the communication channel anonymous to prevent employees from feeling targeted due to their opinions. Evaluate your company position and see which of the motivators you can comfortably support and share it with the employees.

Empower your employees

When you empower your employee, you give them authority over their work. This way, they know you believe in and value their capabilities. Hence, they put in extra effort to exceed both your expectations and theirs. Avoid micromanaging your workers. Give them a chance to prove themselves on their own terms, then hold them accountable.

Allow for ongoing feedback

Don’t wait for the Annual General Meeting to give employees their performance reviews. Set up open forums where employees can freely air their grievances and also get their performance reviews as well as pointers on improvement. Regularly holding this discussion allows them to gauge their performance as the year progresses.

Pursuing a career as a human resources consultant, can prove to be a challenging and rewarding profession to undertake. However, in order for you to become an HR consultant, you have to undergo specific training and acquire certain skill sets. Numerous accreditations and courses are offered to individuals who wish to become a HR consultant. In this post, we list the steps on how to become a HR consultant.

1) Develop Skills Needed For HR Consultancy

The first thing you’ll need to focus on, is to develop the skills that are needed for this career. Some of those include:

• Excellent communication skills: both verbal and written.
• Ability to work with diverse people from different backgrounds.
• Proficient computer skills.
• Extensive knowledge on human resource data and software.
• Positive attitude and charming personality.

2) Education Requirements

In addition to developing the necessary skills that are needed for this career, you’ll need the necessary education in the form of a bachelor’s degree. Getting a bachelors in HR consultancy consists of learning about company communications, professional development and marketing coordination for business, HR management and operations management.

Each course essentially builds on the previous course with the overall goal of giving you the knowledge to understand how a successful human resources department operates. Once you have finished your study program and received your BA degree, you’ll be in a much better position to secure a job.

3) Work Experience

The HR consultant sector is highly competitive. Therefore, it’s advised that you take additional courses and gain work experience in order for you to stand out amongst the competition. After getting your bachelors degree, it’s highly recommended that you consider an intern position at a reputable company. This will help to develop your professional skills as a HRT consultant as well as to make you look more valuable in the eyes of a recruiter.

As such, in the event that you didn’t take an internship during college, you should consider the possibility of taking an entry-level job such as a recruiter, department coordinator or HR associate. This will essentially open the door for you to get a higher paying position as a professional human resources consultant. The point being is that any position whether paid or intern-related will help you to succeed because HR is a profession which encompasses a wide range of expertise, knowledge, skills and experience.

4) Obtain Certification

The next thing you’ll need to do is to get your first job as an HR consultant is to get the necessary certifications from SHRM or HR Certification Institute. These are the two most reputable certifying bodies in the human resource business sector. They provide applicants with two different certifications: Senior Professional in Human Resources and Professional In Human Resources.

6) Never Stop Learning

Similarly to working as a doctor, in order for you to truly become successful in your career, you’ll need to continuously learn new HR skills and techniques. This is because HR consultancy is a constantly evolving profession. Therefore, acquiring new skills and techniques will help you in terms of future advancements in employment.