7 Ways to Maximize Your Content’s ROI: Marketing for Accounting Firms

If you’re trying to stand out on social media, it’s hard. That doesn’t mean you should throw in the towel. Rather, here are seven things you can do to maximize your firm’s content strategy to generate leads, increase brand awareness, and inflate your SEO.

Let’s get right to it.

1. Choose 1-2 social media channels and design content for them. For example, if you want to promote a webinar, use the two most effective social media platforms your firm has and promote it there. This alleviates your need to promote everything everywhere. Where do you find that information? Look at the platform or your website analytics to find out which is the most effective for you. (You might be surprised!)
2. Continuously update your powerhouse content on a regular basis. Review at your ever-green content, such as a guide or booklet that may be used over and over, year over year, but might need slight tweaks to keep it up to date. There’s no need for a complete redesign. Be sure to update the publish date each time the document is refreshed. Keep the same file name to avoid losing past search engine optimization (SEO) metrics.
3. Keep up the promotions. There is no hard and fast rule that says you can only promote new content. If you have something that’s still relevant and resonates with your audience, keep promoting it. Marketer Derek Halpern says he spends 80% of his time promoting content and 20% creating it. Be like Derek.
4. Perception matters. When creating content, keep in mind it only needs to be better than your competitors. Epic content is great and can bring a spike to your website. However, if every piece of content you create is epic, takes a ton of time to create, and is costly, you may be losing out on its ROI value. Here’s why. Consumers look at your content in comparison to the other pieces they find. If you spend time making your better content even better, consumers won’t be able to tell the difference in your effort.
5. Advertising. I know it’s a dirty word. But with organic post reach diving to an all-time low, you may need to spend a bit of money to market to your target audience. You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars either. Use a combination of organic posts and paid posts to boost reach, engagement, and leads on your best social channels.
6. Optimize your marketing funnel. When you create content, does it initiate an opportunity to move prospects down the sales funnel? If not, you are wasting time, effort, energy, and yes, money. How do you do this? See the section below.
7. Measure. If you’re not measuring each piece of content’s ROI, there is no way to tell what’s working and what’s not, nor what is your best type of content. Keep an eye on this to create the most effective content your audience craves.

Optimizing Your Content Sales Funnel

You’ve created content and put it on your website. Maybe you’ve even shared some social media posts to draw attention to it. However, did you stop there? If yes, then you need to read this.

Here’s how to optimize your content funnel and sprinkle in some pizzaz.

1. Ensure the meta tags are complete for each piece of content, including the title, description, and keywords.
2. If it’s a written piece, such as a blog, add links to other content within the piece. For example, if you’re sharing audit tips, tie the piece to other audit materials you may have, or better yet, to a webinar registration form.
3. Create content based on business goals and themes that can be shared throughout the year. For example, if you host a webinar in March, create a landing page for the replay. Be sure you put a form on that page to collect data about the visitor. Then, if the content is still relevant, promote the replay throughout the year.
4. Incorporate a call to action (CTA) in each item you create. It may be as simple as “Give us a call if you have questions.” But also include more active CTAs, such as, “Want more on this topic, register for our upcoming webinar.” Remember to include a link to the registration form.
5. Create a larger item from smaller bits, then promote the “Ultimate Guide.” Within the Guide, incorporate links to other content and include a call to action that requires the person to call or contact you for more information.

With all these moving parts you may wonder why creating content is a good initiative? Simple. Without it, your audience doesn’t know you exist.

Now that you have a plan, take a look at the content you already have and identify how you can optimize it and make it work harder for your firm.