Reputation Marketing for Accountants - Critical to New Client Acquisition

Most accountants tend to think of reputation management as crisis management. In other words, it's reactive and only done after a terrible review is posted. This is the wrong position to take...

Reputation marketing is proactive and done consistently over time. In the world of small business, there is no JD Power or Consumer Reports to tell the marketplace who is the best lawyer, doctor or accountant in town. By default, your local reputation is the culmination of online reviews posted into Google, Yelp, Intuit's Find-a-ProAdvisor and maybe a couple other websites.

We all use online reviews to make purchase decisions and avoid bad experiences. Whether it's selecting a movie to watch, book to buy, stay at a hotel, or eat at a restaurant on the road. Some of us look at the absolute number of reviews, some look at the score, and some take the time to read the actual reviews. In today's economy, the sum total of these reviews paint a picture about your accounting practice. It is what it is...

For accountants, you need to focus on the top two or three. Ignore the smaller players.

• Google
• Yelp
• Intuit Find-a-ProAdvisor

Google is a math oriented company so they push for the absolute number of reviews and score. If you do a great job obtaining Google reviews, it will make it easier to acquire new clients, reinforce your reputation with existing clients, and make it easier to hire new staff members. Yes, your reputation cuts across prospects, clients and staff members.

Yelp is more qualitative and community oriented. They are looking for passionate Yelpers to post online and share their experience and treats Yelpers like a food or movie critic. The longer and more descriptive the write up, the better.

The third player to consider is Intuit's Find-a-ProAdvisor which is designed to help small business owner's locate certified QuickBooks accountant.

The combination of these three reputation tools will have a huge impact on the community at large.

Here are three examples of accountants who use reputation marketing to support their accounting practice.

Chahal & Associates - 53 Yelp reviews in Northern California (East Bay) - 29 in Yelp's filter

James Castaldo CPA & Associates - 21 Google reviews in Lake Grove NY - 15 Google reviews in Melville (two offices)

Gheen & Co CPA - 27 Intuit reviews in Colorado Springs, CO - 27 Intuit reviews in Denver