AIMS Accountants for Business
AIMS Accountants for Business
The most successful businesses in the world are adept at marketing or have powerful marketing support. Think Nike. Cast your Memory back to 2012 when we were introduced to Nike’s “Find Your Greatness” marketing campaign. You might remember that it was at the same time as the London Olympics. In one TV advert, we see a child jogging and pushing himself in the pursuit of fitness and weight loss. This advert was a genius bit of marketing for two reasons. Firstly, because it tapped into the everyday person’s emotions and told them that with Nike products, they could be “great.” Secondly, and more importantly, this advert told everyday people that they were already “great” which was a real nod to body positivity. This idea of everybody having greatness within them, not just elite athletes, was an astute bit of marketing.
The reason for beginning this article with this Nike advert is to help us understand that marketing is getting yourself in front of people and eliciting an emotional response to sell your services and products.
Word of mouth is still important, sure. Your customers have friends in business, so you can get yourself some referrals by doing a brilliant job every time. However, if you want to attract new clients organically, a proactive marketing strategy is where it’s at.
If you are self-employed, the prospect of creating and developing a marketing strategy might make you grimace. We get it! But this is one of the great things about being part of a franchise like AIMS Accountants; you have a dedicated team of marketing experts who will help you form a strategy and do some of the work for you!
Let’s have a quick look at a definition of marketing and see what our trusty friend Investopedia has to say:
“Marketing refers to activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of a product or service. Marketing includes advertising, selling, and delivering products to consumers or other businesses.”
Simply put, that’s it. What’s missing from this definition, however, are any examples. Marketing campaigns can be brief and fleeting like a billboard advert in the street that changes weekly. They can be long and laborious like a search engine optimisation campaign in Google search. Some done on television, social media, in real life and on actual people (think of a person standing on the side of a road spinning a large cardboard arrow). All of these mediums are great at evoking an emotional response in us, the onlooker, with the ultimate goal of making us buy a service or product.
But wait, we don’t all have Nike’s marketing budget, nor do we have enough money to create TV adverts of this quality. It’s true, but there are many other weird and wonderful activities that can be classed as marketing, and below we will discuss a few as they relate to becoming a franchisee with AIMS Accountants.
When you become an AIMS Accountant, you get first class marketing support from head office. It’s scary starting your own business. You’re not only thinking about what needs to happen for the business to operate day to day, but you’re also responsible for trying to market yourself and bring new business in so that you have a commercially viable future.
This is where AIMS comes in!
We use half of your initial franchise fee to help you get new clients. A few examples of the types of marketing that we can deliver locally for you are:
1. A local website page and local SEO in Google
2. Local Google Ads
3. Local telesales
You will get a website page on the AIMS website, as soon as you start. For example, Paul Savage in York has his own landing page on the website so that when businesses in and around York are looking for a new accountant, they are diverted to Paul’s page where they can contact him directly. Have a look at Paul’s page here: Accountant & Tax Services in Copmanthorpe, York – Paul Savage (aims.co.uk)
Google Ads campaigns fulfil this very same purpose. You will see traffic coming straight to your local webpages because you’ll have a spot right at the top of Google when someone searches for “accountants near me,” for example.
Finally, we will phone businesses in your area to see if they need an accountant. You will receive these leads so that you can start making money! Most AIMS accountants get their first client in the first couple of weeks!
Moreover, at head office, we conduct lots of centralised national marketing campaigns to convert business for you. One example of a centralised marketing campaign is the combination of reviews from every source including Facebook and Google. You will be chosen before other accounting firms because you will have an overall online score that evokes immediate trust. This combined review score is placed on the AIMS website so that when people find the website, you get chosen immediately, because you’re trusted.
We also take out adverts and write features in trade publications so that we get you in front of potential customers every day!
I know what you’re thinking: “What about when this initial marketing budget runs out, are we completely alone?” The short answer is absolutely not. During your first few weeks, our AIMS marketing team will train you on all of the types of marketing that we’ve discussed here. You’ll learn how we use various online sources to attract customers locally; how to make a winning cold call to businesses in your local area; what Google Ads are and how to use them and you’ll learn how to get the messaging right so that people do not hesitate to choose you before any other accountants in your area.
If you’d like to learn more about our powerful marketing support, or about becoming an AIMS accountant, please call James on 020 616 6622 or get in touch here!