Bring in New Prospects to Your Practice by Making Your Accounting Website Personally Inviting
Setting your firm up with a good quality accounting website design is a fantastic means to get your on-line marketing drive started. Countless firms simply set acquire a high-quality template and just publish it "right out of the box"; and commonly they are content with the results. These firms are short-changing themselves. With a minuscule amount of work their websites is able to become a much more powerful prospecting instrument.
So, what is a potential client actually looking for in an accountant?
That's easy, right? Your prospects are looking for the best accountant for the best price.
That seems pretty self-evident, doesn't it?
Well that's the wrong answer. That's what you'd think a prospect was looking for. Heck, that's even what the prospect thinks he's looking for, but that's not really what he's looking for.
The biggest resistance any salesman has to confront is our good old-fashioned fear of strangers. This fear is compounded by the intimacy of the relationship between you and your clients. The old cliche about "The only men who really know you is your accountant and Jesus" is true. And it's really only funny if you're an accountant. Well... Jesus probably got a giggle out of it the first time he heard it, too. To the rest of us it's VERY intimidating.
The best way to get a prospect to pick up the phone and call you is to get him to LIKE you. Now this principle applies to all your marketing efforts; and I want you to keep it in mind from now on whenever you're interacting with prospects and contacts either personally or through ad media; but how exactly do you apply this principle to your accounting website design?
When writing copy for your website, keep this in mind...
Likability Matters
There's no point in convincing me you're a great accountant if after visiting your site I'm still too shy to pick up the phone and call you.
This, by the way, is one of the many reasons your accounting website is such a great marketing tool. People who are afraid to call you are a lost sale unless you give them another avenue to contact you, a route that doesn't require as much intestinal fortitude, to check you out! Well your website is a perfect portal for these sales. It gives the prospect a real chance to get to know you before committing to a phone call.
Some Practical Design Tips for Your Website:
Include pictures
Add pictures of your staff and yourself. You don't have to be pretty. It's about making the prospect more comfortable, and having some idea who might pick up the phone will do that.
Be a Person
Personally I love football. If you love football too, we've made a personal connection! If you're a fan too I'm going to be inclined to like you! Of course maybe it's not football for you, but the more you tell me about yourself the more likely it is that we'll find some common ground. Tell me about yourself. Are your a dog person or a cat person? Do you play tennis? climbing? Scuba Diving? Bicycling? Clubs… Business organizations… Religious organizations… Charities you are involved with. All these things open the door for a personal connection and that personal connection is key to making your prospect feel comfortable with sharing his most intimate life's details with us.
Show Trust
You first. Accounting is a trust based profession, and trust is a two way street. Show your prospect some trust on a personal level. This makes it a LOT more likely that you'll get an initial contact. It also makes it a lot more likely you'll land the sale when the call comes in. I know it seems a little weird to base your marketing on these factors; factors that really have nothing to do with your skills as a service professional; but it works. Very few people make decisions intellectually. They make the decision emotionally and then rationalize it.
Don't be a Wise Guy
Nobody like a wise guy. Resist the temptation to make your content too smart. Don't write over the prospects head. Don't lecture or talk down to your visitor. If you're lucky you'll just bore your customer, but if you make your visitor feel frustrated, confused, or stupid you'll only aggravate the fear factor. Dumb it down a little for us normal folks. We really don't care about the details. If we understood what the heck you were talking about we wouldn't need you in the first place. We just want you to git-'er-done so we can back to running our lives and businesses.
A good CPA site design is adequate in and of itself to bring in some new clients, but you'll not regret it if you take the time to individualize your website.