Accounting firms need more from marketing expertise than ever before. There's content, digital, CRM, client experience, proposals, market intelligence, events, AI and more. And depending on the firm, M&A integration, too.
The list keeps growing, but marketing teams and budgets usually don't grow at the same rate. When you look across the 2022, 2024 and 2026 Association for Accounting Marketing Biennial Compensation Surveys, the most interesting story is not salaries. It's how firms need to build for growth. The data shows a function becoming more specialized, technology-dependent and strategic, and firms are finding different ways to access the expertise they need.
In 2022, 66% of responding firms budgeted for only one to four people on their marketing and business development teams. AAM estimated that marketing and business development represented roughly 4% to 5% of total firm headcount. At the same time, firms were already looking beyond traditional marketing roles for expertise in areas like digital marketing, proposals and graphic design.
Connect those two data points and you see that the number of capabilities firms needed was already outpacing the number of people available to provide them.
Today, the list has only gotten longer. It's easy to conclude that firms need bigger marketing departments, but adding a full-time position for every area of expertise isn't realistic or necessary. Some skills are needed every day. Others may be critical for a particular initiative or require only a few hours of expertise each month.
Budget matters, too. A firm may need sophisticated SEO, data analytics or AI expertise without having enough work (or budget) to justify another full-time position dedicated to it.
Maybe headcount is becoming the wrong starting point for the staffing conversation. Instead of asking how many marketing people your firm should have, ask what expertise your growth strategy requires and the smartest way to access it.
A different model for building growth
Build your marketing resources using a growth ecosystem model. At the center is an internal growth hub. This hub doesn't execute every marketing function, but it does own the firm's growth strategy. It brings business intelligence into decision-making, determines priorities and makes sure the work gets done on time and on budget.
Around that hub is a network of capabilities. Some may be employees. Others might be agencies, fractional specialists, offshore resources, technology or AI. The mix will vary by firm and change as needed.
The idea is simple: You own the strategy and intelligence and then access the capabilities you need in the best way for your firm.
Consider two firms that each employ four marketing professionals. Firm A expects those four people to handle almost everything. Firm B has four internal professionals supported by a PR agency, an SEO specialist, offshore proposal support and AI-enabled technology. On an organizational chart, both firms have a four-person marketing department, but they don't have the same growth capability.
That's the point of the growth ecosystem model. Instead of measuring the strength of the marketing function primarily by headcount, look at the expertise the firm can bring to bear against its growth priorities. Then ensure someone inside the firm is connecting all of it.
Firms are already moving toward this model
The AAM data suggests firms are already moving in this direction. By 2024, respondents reported outsourcing to ad agencies, content and digital providers, copywriters, CRM administrators, graphic designers, PR agencies, videographers, website developers and SEO consultants.
Firms were also using part-time professionals for roles including digital marketing, CRM data administration, web design and marketing systems administration. The report went so far as to suggest that internal marketing teams might not necessarily get bigger as firms leveraged technology investments and external relationships.
Then the 2026 survey adds another dimension. For the first time in AAM's compensation survey, respondents specifically mentioned other countries for offshored marketing and business development activities. Examples included proposal administration in the Philippines and digital marketing/PPC support in India. Other respondents reported using external resources for PR, SEO, digital marketing, graphic design, copywriting, sales training and business development consulting.
Today firms have more choices about how they access expertise, allowing the resources around the internal growth hub to expand, contract and change as the firm's priorities change. That's the shift that happens as firms move from building a department to building an ecosystem.
And while all this is happening, artificial intelligence is giving firms another way to expand what their existing resources can accomplish. The 2026 AAM survey begins exploring the effect of AI and automation on marketing and business development team structure. However, the data does not show that investment in AI is reducing marketing headcount.
The more immediate opportunity is capacity. AI can help teams research faster, analyze information, produce first drafts, repurpose content, automate workflows and find patterns in data. In the growth ecosystem model, AI is another resource the firm can deploy based on what it is trying to accomplish. Just like every other resource in the ecosystem, someone still needs to decide where and how to deploy it.
Someone still has to own the intelligence
If firms can assemble expertise from many different places, someone has to connect it. Your SEO consultant can optimize search. Your offshore team can add execution capacity. Your AI tools can analyze information and accelerate work. But who makes sure they're all solving the same business problem? That's the capability you should be most careful about outsourcing.
Someone inside the firm needs to understand its strategy, clients, markets and culture. Someone needs strong-enough relationships with firm leadership to know where the business is headed. And someone has to recognize when the information coming from all these resources is telling the firm something important.
That's where the internal marketing role gets more interesting. Accounting firms sit on tremendous amounts of information about clients, prospects, services, markets and relationships. The marketing and growth function often sits at the intersection of much of it.
There is likely an opportunity to collect more data, but the real power comes from turning that data into business intelligence:
- Which services are gaining traction?
- Where are client relationships changing?
- What are prospects asking about?
- Where are new competitors appearing?
- Which industries are creating opportunities?
- What does the firm's pipeline tell us?
- Most important, what should the firm do about what we're seeing?
External resources can bring expertise, technology can create capacity and AI can help find patterns. Still, the firm needs someone who can turn all of that into intelligence and connect it to growth decisions.
Smaller firms may need this model most
Some smaller-firm leaders see sophisticated marketing teams, agencies, AI and offshore resources and think, "That's for bigger firms. We have one marketing person." But that's precisely why this matters. A smaller firm doesn't need the same marketing department as a 500-person firm. What it needs is the right mix of expertise to execute its growth strategy.
Interestingly, the 2026 AAM survey found that small-firm respondents reported no outsourcing relationships, which the report noted was different from previous surveys. They also reported zero promotions during the prior 12 months, while compensation appeared lower relative to responsibilities than in previous surveys. The sample is too limited to call that a trend, but it's a data point to watch.
Asking one marketer to "do it all" doesn't eliminate the need for specialized expertise. It simply concentrates all those expectations in one job. A smaller firm can decide what expertise belongs inside the firm, then deliberately supplement it with outside specialists, technology and AI. That may make this model even more relevant to them.
Start with growth and build backward
Firms are already accustomed to building teams around capability. You don't expect an accountant to be equally skilled in tax, audit, valuation, transaction advisory, cybersecurity and financial planning. You recognize that different business needs require different expertise. Why would we build growth differently?
Before adding another marketing position, start with what the firm's growth strategy actually requires. Do you need better client intelligence, stronger digital capabilities, better CRM data or proposal support? Once you understand your needs, determine the smartest way to access the resources that provide it.
Some expertise should live inside the firm. Some may come from specialists or agencies. Some can be supported offshore. Some will increasingly be augmented by AI. The answer will be different for every firm, but the starting point should be the same.
Don't build your marketing department and then figure out what it can do. Start with what you are trying to accomplish and build the growth capabilities around it. When talent, technology and AI are changing how work gets done, the most important thing you can address today is ensuring your firm has what it needs to grow.
