Six Reasonable Goals for CPA Firm Marketing

But will your tactics do the job?

by Bruce W. Marcus

Tactics are the most difficult part of a professional firm marketing program, because so much of what must be done depends upon the scarce, non-billable time of partners and professional staff.

More Bruce W. Marcus: The Tools of Marketing Are Not a Program – They Are Simply Tools | Is Your Marketing Program Really a Program? | Six Metrics for Marketing ROI | How to Formulate the Right Marketing Goals for Your Firm | Get Real: 15 Questions for Achievable Growth | If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, How Do You Know How to Get There? | Eight Tips for Staying One Step Ahead of the Competition (And Maybe the Client, Too) Nine Things We Know For Sure about How to Grow an Accounting Firm | The CPA’s Castle Is Crumbling | My Address in Space: The Dynamics of Change at Accounting Firms | Six Quick Reasons Why CPA Firms Will Never Be The Same | 14 Steps to Find the Right “Value Price”

If the firm management hasn’t made clear that participation by every professional in the firm is an integral part of recognition and growth within the firm, you can scrap the marketing program. It can be helpful if the non-billable hour was renamed the investment hour, because if those hours are spent on marketing, investment hours are exactly what they are.

Posted on September 11, 2012

Bruce W. Marcus

About the Author

Bruce W. Marcus remains a pioneer in the modern practices of professional services marketing even after his death in 2014 at age 89. He is the author of the seminal work, Professional Services Marketing 3.0, published by CPA Trendlines. The Association for Accounting Marketing named a lifetime achievement award in his honor.

Hall of Fame: The Association for Accounting Marketing Award, named in honor of Bruce W. Marcus.

In 1951 (with a degree in Economics and Philosophy), he joined the then-Big Eight accounting firm, Peat Marwick Mitchell to establish the firm’s library, where he developed an article writing and seminar program that successfully promoted the firm’s reputation.

He has served as a public relations and marketing executive or consultant to most of the international accounting firms, and many large and small law firms.

His book, Competing For Clients (1986) was one of the first to delineate the new practices of professional services marketing, followed by more than a dozen books on professional services marketing, real estate marketing, investor relations, and international accounting standards.

His first newsletter, The Marcus Report (1986), was followed by the award-winning www.marcusletter.com in 1995 — one of the longest-running letters on marketing for lawyers and accountants.

He served on the editorial boards of several leading professional services publications, a contributor to many publications, and has been a keynote speaker at major conferences.

He taught one of the first courses in professional services marketing at the Fordham University Graduate School of Business, and lectures frequently at the Fordham University Law School.

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