There's no sure formula to follow in weighing whether or not a blog will add clients to your firm, or revenue to your bottom line, but there's little doubt that blogging has become a valuable and trusted networking tool for professional services firm.
On May 3, the New York Metropolitan Chapter of the Association for Accounting Marketing offered a panel discussion on "Blogging for Clients: How It Works and Why You Should Care." While blogs (shorthand for Web logs) aren't yet a matter of course for accounting firms, they've long since outgrown their days as underground phenomenon and become important information hubs for navigating the Internet.
Kevin O'Keefe (
"That's everything that a blog does," he said. "Ten years ago, that marketing occurred offline. But time constraints are changing things." O'Keefe said that studies have shown that more than two-thirds of customers conduct research online before making a purchase, and that 70 percent will go online during the firm selection process.
Susan Ward, director of marketing, and William Ward, partner, both of New Jersey's Carlin & Ward LLC, also spoke about their law firm's blog on eminent domain,
William said they've been very happy with the return on the initial investment -- about $1,700 in startup costs and annual maintainance fees of $2,400. He's become a resource to reporters, who often automatically go online in search of sources for articles, and he has about 200 regular subscribers to an automatic e-mail that's sent out when he posts a new entry.
"There is a big time commitment," he said, estimating that his weekly posts, which are often lengthier, more scholarly posts that the traditional blog, take about three to four hours to prepare. "The most important thing though is that you can't start it and drop it."
For attorney Arnie Herz, his blog,
Michael Rhodes, partner in charge of corporate governance at New York-based Citrin Cooperman & Co. LLP, launched a blog (
The panelists agreed that making sure you've got the right topic, and enough time to commit to covering it, are the keys to getting traffic and creating meaningful connections with an audience. And Herz stressed the importance of making sure the reader's needs are always kept in mind; a blog can't be recycled press releases and marketing materials.
"In the blog world, you have to add value to people's lives," Herz said. "You don't do that by telling them how great you are."
Or, as O'Keefe put it, "The Internet is very democratizing. The people with good stuff get linked to. And the other people, you don't see."
Next Wednesday, I'll talk about the panelists' answers to concerns raised over liability issues, offer some resources to the technical issues behind getting a blog together (as well as discuss how a blog can help a firm's main Web site), and offer up some of my own thoughts on the value proposition of blogging.