For this entire year, the tablet market has been hot. Though dominated by Apple’s iPad, various competitors have introduced many other devices as well: Motorola Xoom , Blackberry Playbook, Samsung Galaxy Tab, HP Touchpads, ASUS Eee Pad Transformers, among others. Accountants will reach for them; so will their current and prospective clients. How could an accountant use these new gadgets to market their company?
Starting first with the more obvious choices, tablets provide a very easy way for accountants to present live/dynamic information to prospective clients. Marketing presentations stored on the tablet can be called up and displayed at a moment’s notice. If there’s a wi-fi or cell connection nearby, the tablet can call up live information from the company’s web-site, or from news sources (stock markets, regulatory bodies, etc.). Using a tablet this way can show prospective clients that accountants are technologically savvy and embracing new trends.
While not directly or exclusively related to tablet computers, participation in various social media endeavours represents a “must” for modern age marketing. Social media, especially services like Twitter and LinkedIn, allow modern accountants to provide timely snippets of information to current and prospective clients. Traditional social media echoes a user posting to ALL of their followers. For accounting firms, this could be problematic; as most practices offer varieties of specialised consulting that may not be relevant to all clients. In contrast, Google’s latest attempt at breaking into the FaceBook/Twitter realm – Google Plus (“Google+”) allows users to create “circles” of interest. This innovation would allow firms to specifically target tips, bulletins, and other specific information directly to intended targets. Google+ is in beta-test stages at the moment, and there’s a general cap upon signing up new users. But once ready for prime-time, this tool may be very handy to accountants.
How does social media relate to the use of tablets? In general, tablets are fantastic for presenting information to clients. Latest bulletins can be directly referenced while in boardroom meetings, blogged articles quickly researched and incorporated into presentations, and direct commentary posted relating to current economic situations. They’re also handy for collecting information. While in the field, tablets can be used to provide information updates directly to clients via social media.
Tablets – and to a lesser extent, any mobile computing device – can allow accounting firms or companies to extend their reach directly to prospective and existing clients through the use of firm-branded applications. If one studies Apple’s iStore development, you’ll notice that most of the applications cater to consumer interests. How do existing companies reach their consumers? For the most part, they find some way of extending their brand into the “app ecosystem”. For example, all of the major financial institutions in Canada have a mobile application that provides useful information such as nearest ATM, nearest branch, various services, and online account balances.
Corporate clients are consumers, too. Therefore, accounting firms – and frankly, any company for that matter – need to package relevant information into their own branded application. The Big Four accounting firms are well-along with their adaptation of branded applications. A quick search of Apple’s iStore, comes up with these samples of content offerings:
- Deloitte: Podcasts on variety of tax and assurance topics, whitepapers on technology, business insight information. Leadership Development resources
- Ernst & Young: In-house articles, topical magazine-style write-ups, whitepapers, info sheets, general business insight information.
- KPMG: applications delivering access to latest bulletins, brochures, whitepapers, economic forecasts, advisory briefings in all major client practice segments, and career planning information for accounting students. General business insight information.
- PriceWaterhouseCoopers: Various podcast subscriptions regarding leadership, marketing, management, business news.
Looking again to the finance sector, some financial institutions are allowing account lookup, funds transfer, and other transactional activities. Is it possible for accounting firms to move forward into similar personalized information? Could a firm create a client portal concept? Within that portal, have relevant corporate info streaming to them? Things like:
- Tax instalment reminders (with amounts )
- Taxes owed
- Industry/sector-specific briefing notes
- Status of service work – ie, 2008 audit complete”, “2009 audit in progress”, “2010 audit waiting for you to drop off information”, “2010 tax returns in final review”, “2011 tax planning meeting to be scheduled.”
- Current Key-Performance Indicators, if either real-time auditing or if the firm is engaged in controllership management services
Naturally, applications delivering this kind of content would need to address considerable security and access policies, not to mention back-end server systems that could push this content from the year-end write-up software. But the idea of accounting firms having their own branded applications is certainly on the rise: Per above, the Big Four have a head start, and you can expect to see the Next Three expanding into this zone as well.
If branded apps is the grail for tablet marketing, can firms do something now to start the process?
The answer: Certainly – and it doesn’t require hiring a ton of programmers, either. As mentioned already, tablets are great for presenting information. So, firms need to get as much of their information assembled into portable documents as possible (ie, Adobe PDF). Once that information is ready, upload it to the corporate web site. From there, accountants in the field can download/display the documents within the tablet web browser system. Besides static brochures, consider also the following, complete with your company logo, address, etc at the top:
- Template Spreadsheets: Having pre-programmed spreadsheets that can quickly assist with estimated calculations could impress clients. Consider templates for common situations, such as buy/lease, salary/dividends/bonus, and spousal income-splitting.
- Tax worksheets: Not many tax preparation software vendors have “apps for that” (at least not yet). Build further spreadsheets to calculate some basic tax estimates, deduction transfers, etc.
- Loan Amortization Schedules/calculators
- Asset Amortization Schedules
- Payroll Deduction templates
- Cost/Volume/Profit (Break-Even) calculator
- Engagement letters, special purpose contracts/agreements,
- Engagement estimation templates
DataViz’s Documents-To-Go is one time-honoured application that can work with indigenous Microsoft Office formatted documents and is available cross-platform for various tablet devices.
Tablets provide a convenient way to present information within meetings. Firms will need to look into adopting marketing strategies with these devices. Whether using calculation templates, canned brochures, web content or firm-branded applications to convey information, accountants can’t overlook the significance that tablets will bring to the client relationship experience.
