Create the Right "First Impression"

Does your website present the "branded image" that you want? Be honest....

In the course of a month, how many compliments does your website receive?

And how much new business is it delivering to your accounting practice?

From our perspective, your firm website should create an image that makes you and your staff members proud to be associated with. It should increase the awareness for your firm, reassure prospects about your perceived quality, show associations that turn on the light bulb for prospects, and support your firm pricing. And gradually over time, the website should contribute the to branding of your firm. By all means, there is much more that goes into branding but it's the starting point for creating a "first impression."

Build Brand Equity - The concept of branding is not new. In fact, Proctor & Gamble used branding to create many household brands like Ivory Soap (1881), Crisco (1911), and other brands like Dreft, Camay, Spic & Span, Tide, Prell, etc. Coca-Cola is another. In our industry, BDO has been doing an effective job using a TV advertising campaign to increase awareness for BDO and turn it into a recognizable brand.

For small accounting practices, your brand image begins with the website and the impression that it creates. After that, most of the associations will be your initial meeting, what others say about your firm online (Google, Yelp, etc.), your office location/setting, and the on-boarding process with your staff.

Fundamentally, branding makes it easier for clients to process information, gives them confidence in the decision process, and evolves into brand loyalty.

To illustrate the point, here is a video that showcases how websites can create the right first impression.