Many of us in the marketing and communications world found ourselves quickly pivoting about nine months ago. What seemed like high priority projects and tasks previously were suddenly less important. As the Director of Marketing at Summit CPA Group, content quickly became my biggest priority.
How did we adjust our marketing strategy given the COVID-19 pandemic?
Content became king
Summit CPA Group takes a thought leadership approach with our marketing strategy. A typical day for the marketing team involves developing content – i.e. presentations, articles, and podcast episodes, teaching business owners how to strengthen the financial health of their organization and teaching CPA firm owners how to successfully provide Virtual CFO services.
With the pandemic this year, our strategy still involved developing content; however, the topics we focused on became very specific. As we received questions from our clients, strategic partners, and other business owners, we worked diligently to address their most pressing issues.
- How to Protect Your Business During COVID-19: Strategies on sound decision-making, communication, and financial planning to safeguard the financial stability of your company in uncertain times.
- How the Proposed Families First Coronavirus Response Act Will Affect Your Small Business: What employers need to know.
- Going Remote as a CPA Firm During a Pandemic: Tips for quickly expanding your firm’s remote work capabilities and long-term benefits of going distributed.
We also noticed increased interest in one of our podcast episodes that was recorded before the pandemic:
- How to Prepare Your Business for a Recession [Podcast]: Learn how to strengthen your company’s financial health, weather the storm, and position yourself for prosperity and growth in any economic climate.
We tapped into our expertise
Not only is Summit CPA a thought leader in the accounting industry, but it is also a fully distributed company. Our content around remote work was a valuable resource for companies finding themselves navigating the transition from brick-and-mortar to working from home.
Here are a few articles we published on this topic:
- The Tools We Use at Summit CPA to Work Together Remotely: Communication is crucial in order for remote work arrangements to be successful, and good communication comes from using the right tools.
- The Hidden Cost of Running a Distributed Company: If you think going remote will save your company money, here’s what you need to know.
- People, Technology, and Process: Three insider tips for successfully managing a remote team.
We developed our video marketing strategy
What better time than 2020 to focus on video marketing!? Because our team was already working remotely, we’re all very comfortable with being on camera. We shifted our podcast from audio to video, launched a monthly webinar for CPAs, and created a strategy around how to repurpose our video content in as many ways as possible.
We worked on the layout of our YouTube channel and began posting all of our video content consistently. We started creating video snippets of our podcasts and webinars to share on LinkedIn and Instagram Stories. Having this video presence online helps our clients and prospective clients connect with us which has been even more valuable in 2020 than ever before.
We adapted with the trends
I noticed a huge shift to webinar presentations by the end of the year. In a typical year our team speaks at in-person events once or twice a month. Earlier in the year, things were chaotic, uncertain, and many events were in limbo — maybe if we just wait a few more weeks the pandemic will be over and this event will happen.
Once organizations accepted the fact that in-person events were not going to happen in 2020, everything seemed to shift to online gatherings, and my team became crazy busy with preparing webinar content. We averaged about 3 webinar presentations per week in November and December.
Things started happening really fast! We said yes to every opportunity that made sense, and we showed up to every one of them with valuable content to share with the audience. It felt like a whirlwind, but it was important for us to adapt with the trends that resulted from the pandemic in order for us to continue reaching new folks despite in-person events being canceled.
The team at Summit CPA Group takes pride in being a resource for business owners and CPA firms. We strive to provide information that helps business owners succeed. In that regard, our strategy remained the same once the pandemic hit, but content became king and evolved slightly, video became higher priority, and we needed to adapt with the new and altered opportunities.
How did you adjust your marketing strategy this year?