Honestly, this isn’t even our “best” story, but it’s a pretty clear example of why your tax or accounting firm marketing plan needs to include local listings management.
For one firm whose local listings we started managing, the difference from one tax season to the next was pretty stark:
Year over year, their average search results footprint had doubled. And lest you think these results were all due to people searching for our client’s listing by name, take a look right here:
The area in blue above represents “discovery” searches — which means when people search for a category like “tax preparation” or “accountant” … and find you. (The much smaller area in green represents when people found our client when searching for them by name.)
Both of those images are screenshots from the same reporting data that we provide to our agency clients on a regular basis.
Aside from your firm’s main website, local listings sites are the most influential and powerful sources of new clients for service professionals.
Especially for advisory professionals, whose clients rely heavily upon “word of mouth.”
This is the new “word of mouth.”
Here at AdvisorProMarketer, we have been operating and managing these particular platforms as part of our clients’ advisory firm marketing plan for 6+ years, but since 2017, we have seen an explosion of traffic, phone calls and actions from within our client firms’ local listings properties as we have more actively managed them.
And I hate to say this to you, but the word is getting out.
Heck, even if you just USE your smartphone to search for businesses, you quickly realize that the “Local Pack” is a seriously important place to be found.
Very soon, it will become increasingly difficult to rank highly in the Local Pack, as well as on the various local listings sites, as advisory pros “get smart” about what I’ve already shared with you.
So, don’t get left behind …
Again, to summarize, here is what can be completely handled on your behalf, as one part of your tax or accounting firm marketing plan, starting today:
- GoogleMyBusiness Listing Setup (or optimization of your existing Listing) per most up-to-date tactical advantages for building an audience
- Apple Maps Listing Setup and ongoing optimization
- BingLocal Listing Setup and ongoing optimization
- Setup and management for 18 additional local listings sites (like AngiesList, MerchantCircle, etc.)
- Full monthly reporting for GoogleMyBusiness, AppleMaps, BingLocal and Yelp activity to show actions taken by searchers and prospects
- Management of all reviews, replies, messages, and other interactions so you can concentrate on handling your most profitable client work
- Converting your local platforms into automatic lead generation vehicles for your tax or accounting firm
That’s a whole boatload of critical marketing activity … immediately taken off your plate when you join us.
It really is the smart choice.