How to Get Started in Freelance Digital Marketing for Accounting Firms

If you have the right skillset, digital marketing can be a lucrative freelance business. Yet, for many marketing professionals, deciding which industry or industries to focus on can be tricky. Some digital marketers work for a broad range of clients in different industries, while others focus on one particular business or niche, such as healthcare, fashion, or technology. In this article, we’ll focus on a different niche: Accounting.

If you have in-depth accounting knowledge or love numbers and data, digital marketing for accounting firms may be your perfect job. Ready to learn what it’s all about? Here’s how to get started in freelance digital marketing for accounting firms.

What Does a Freelance Digital Marketer Do?

So what exactly do freelance digital marketers for accounting services do?

Marketing pros that specialize in the accounting industry must achieve the following goals:

• Build brand awareness for the business
• Drive traffic to the firm’s website
• Improve lead generation

There are various ways to achieve these goals, making a digital marketer’s job varied, exciting, and rarely the same.

Digital marketers may be tasked with:

• Updating or improving a client’s website or web design
• Using search engine optimization to drive traffic to the client’s website
• Creating high-quality content for the client’s blog
• Maintaining and updating the client’s blog regularly
• Creating social media posts
• Creating Google ads and social media ads
• Email marketing

Every accounting business needs a digital strategy — a marketing plan designed specifically to help build its online presence. An excellent digital marketing strategy will combine social media marketing, content marketing, and other marketing tactics. It’s the digital marketer’s job to know how to combine these elements to drive traffic, attract new customers, and position the accounting firm as a leader in its industry.

What You Need to Be a Freelance Digital Marketer

Freelance digital marketers have to be more than just marketing professionals. To succeed in accounting marketing, you’ll need a wide range of skills and abilities. For starters, you’ll need to know the accounting industry. Understanding how to use industry terms will be crucial for writing blogs and posting relevant content on social media. You’ll also need in-depth knowledge of social media marketing and digital content marketing. Even if you have decades of experience in putting together traditional marketing campaigns, digital marketing requires different skills, including writing and creating graphics for digital platforms.

To be a successful digital marketer for accounting firms, you’ll also need to have the following:

• Creativity
• Confidence
• Excellent communication skill
• The ability to adhere to deadlines
• Strong negotiating skills when establishing pricing and deliverables

As for the hardware and equipment you’ll need to work as a freelance digital marketer, the list is pretty short. A laptop with reliable Wi-Fi and a webcam for occasional Zoom and Skype meetings with clients is all you need! Then there are certain types of software and digital marketing tools that you’ll need, which will be equally as important. Online marketing is most effective when it includes visuals, graphics, and written content. For your visuals, you’ll need software for graphic design and editing.

Some of the best graphic design tools to use are:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Illustrator
• Affinity Designer
• Sketch
• Vectr

It’s essential to make use of SEO tools as well. You’ll need these to identify and find keywords you can rank for. Don’t worry; many SEO tools are 100% free to use. Check out this article for a list of the 25 best free SEO tools digital marketers use right now.

Speaking of needs, how is your insurance situation looking? Read: Supplemental Benefits for Independent Contractors, Entrepreneurs, and Freelancers

How to Market Yourself as a Freelance Digital Marketer

As a freelance digital marketer, you’ll need to understand more than how to market accounting firms. You’ll also need to know how to market yourself. Marketing professionals often emphasize their clients’ companies so much that marketing their businesses takes a back seat. Freelance digital marketers are small business owners, so treating yourself as a high-priority client can help you build your business, bring in new leads, and earn more money.

Here are some of the many ways that you can promote your digital marketing services online:

Create a Profile on a Freelance Platform

Freelance sites such as Upwork and Freelancer are excellent platforms for finding clients needing freelancer services. In addition to searching for clients and jobs, you can use these sites to advertise your services, market your freelance business, and bringing clients to you. To use a freelance platform, you’ll need to create a freelancer profile, and there are ways to build that profile that can help draw prospective clients to you without you having to search for them.

It starts by creating a robust portfolio that includes examples of your work. Having a digital portfolio of your online work gives potential customers an instant glimpse at what you can do. If they like what they see in your portfolio, they may contact you directly and offer you the job before making it available to other freelancers. Freelance platforms also allow you to display client testimonials and online reviews. The better your reviews and ratings, the easier you find it to attract new clients.

Build a Website and a Blog

Freelance digital marketers should think of their freelance business as a startup marketing agency because that’s precisely what it is. Every business needs a website, no matter how big, small, experienced, or new. Whether you create your site or hire somewhere to design your website, be sure to keep your target market in mind. With a target audience of professional accounting services and CPA firms, every landing page should be clean and easy to read. Every link should work correctly, and every image should be professional. However, a website isn’t enough. You also need a blog.

One of the key elements in developing a successful digital marketing campaign is creating and maintaining a client’s blog. If you don’t have a blog, you’re missing an opportunity to showcase one of your most essential skills. As a digital marketer for accounting firms, you can blog about digital marketing trends, financial services, and accounting practices. The more you establish yourself with thoughtful, relevant content written with your target audience in mind, the better. Well-written blogs crafted with an SEO strategy can help you rank higher in Google search results, which will help you get more attention and do more business.

Market Yourself Through Social Media

One of the best ways to generate new leads is to establish a social media presence.

On social media platforms, you can:

• Post links to your blog posts to drive traffic to your website
• Engage with accounting industry professionals (aka potential clients)
• Share links to podcasts or webinars that you’ve created
• Share your thoughts and ideas about industry trends

Besides marketing yourself through Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, you can also promote yourself on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is regarded as the most professional social media platform, making it an ideal way to advertise your digital marketing services and connect with accounting professionals.

Want to print up some business cards to have on hand for in-person networking? Discover: How to Choose a Design for Your Freelance Business Cards

Tips for Running a Successful Freelance Digital Marketing Business

To be a successful freelance digital marketer, you must be diligent in your work ethic, provide exceptional quality, and market yourself. But there’s a bit more to it than that.

Here are some of the other things you’ll need to do regularly to grow your business for the long term:

Keep Up With Industry Trends

When marketing for a specific industry, staying on top of industry trends and learning as many ins and outs of that business as possible is crucial. To do so, read the blogs and research the websites of top accounting firms. Follow them on social media to learn their talking points and what the industry is buzzing about. Successful digital marketers do constant research, so if you want to build your business, you’ll need to understand the industry and where it stands today.

Stay Abreast of Marketing Trends

While staying abreast of accounting industry trends is essential, staying on top of digital marketing trends should be top of your to-do list. Accounting clients don’t hire digital marketers because they’re experts in accounting. They hire them because they’re experts in digital marketing. SEO is a critical factor in digital marketing, so be sure that you know all the best SEO practices. SEO evolves and often changes, so never be complacent or think you know everything. There’s always something new to learn when it comes to digital marketing.

Establish a Marketing Budget

As a digital marketer, you won’t have to hire an outside marketer to advertise your business for you; you can do it yourself. However, while your marketing efforts might not cost you money, they can detract from your profits.

How?

Because marketing your own business will cost you time. All business owners need to learn how to budget their time. Time is money, so balancing how much of the week you’re working on clients’ marketing campaigns vs. how much time you’re marketing your business is essential.

Analyze Your Business Regularly

All successful business owners spend time analyzing their businesses.

To make freelance digital marketing profitable, you’ll need to:

• Analyze your profits
• Analyze your expenses
• Track time spent on projects, including time spent acquiring clients
• Monitor your marketing budget (in both time and money)

Routine analysis of your business can help you identify where to shift your time or goals. Shifting and adjusting those goals can improve ROI and increase revenue.

You may also like: How to Tell a Client You Need More Time (5 Easy Ways)

Register Your Business & Prepare for Tax Time

Before advertising your services as a digital marketer for accounting firms, set up your business properly and legally.

Choose a Business Model

Decide whether you want to be a sole proprietor or establish an LLC or S-corp.

If you don’t set up an LLC or S-corp, you’ll be a sole proprietor by default, and your finances will be the same as your business finances. Your personal and business finances will be two separate entities with an LLC.

Apply for a Business Permit

Where you live, and work can also be a factor in setting up your business. Some cities and states require freelancers to secure a business license or permit; others do not. Research the laws and regulations in your state before you start taking on clients.

Hire a Lawyer

When working through sites like Upwork, freelancers have built-in protections, as all freelancers and clients agree to abide by a pre-established set of terms. If you find clients independently and work with them directly, the only way to protect yourself is to have a contract. It’s always wise to hire a lawyer to draft a business contract that defines your responsibilities’ parameters, timeline, and pay rates. Without a contract, you could find yourself doing lots of work for little or no pay.

Prepare for Taxes

As a freelance business owner, you won’t be anyone’s employee, so you won’t have an employer withhold federal, state, and local taxes for you. You’ll need to be diligent in budgeting your income and putting money aside to pay taxes on your own. The IRS and state governments require all small business owners to make estimated tax payments four times yearly. Depending on your city, you may also have to pay local city taxes on your business revenue. Failure to pay quarterly taxes can result in fines and fees at the end of the year.

See also: Step-by-Step Guide to Filing Taxes When You’re Self-employed (Bonus: Six 1099 Deductions for Freelancers)

Conclusion

If you’re considering becoming a freelance digital marketer for accounting firms — start now. In a short time, you can create a freelancer profile online, set up professional social media pages, and start marketing yourself to clients.

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