Good accountancy marketing is less about clever campaigns and more about consistency. Choose who you serve, pick the two or three channels that suit your clients and plan around the dates they already care about.

Decide who you serve, then pick your channels

Write down the three client types that are most profitable and most enjoyable to work with, and note the services they buy and how they find advisers. A firm that says "we help landlords with rental accounts and Making Tax Digital" is easier to remember and refer than one that "helps small businesses". That focus shapes every channel decision that follows.

You do not need every channel. For most small practices, a clear website with search presence, an organised referral routine and one social channel is enough to start.

For the search side, see SEO for accountants, and for sharpening your focus, see brand strategy versus brand identity. The rest of this guide covers the other channels and how to run them through the year.

Turn referrals into a system

Ask for introductions at natural high points, such as after a filed return or a successful claim, and give clients a short line they can forward. Build relationships with solicitors, mortgage brokers, financial planners and bank managers who meet your ideal clients first.

Paying for introductions is allowed, but ICAEW's marketing helpsheet says it creates a threat to objectivity and points to safeguards such as making sure the client knows about the arrangement. Agree that openness with any paid introducer at the start.

Collect reviews the right way

Reviews support both referrals and search, because prospects check them before calling. Google lets you share a review link or QR code, but its guidance on reviews treats offering discounts or free services in return for reviews as fake engagement, which is prohibited.

Build the request into your year-end workflow, ask every happy client rather than a hand-picked few and reply to reviews briefly and politely. Never confirm in a reply that someone is a client unless they have said so themselves.

Use LinkedIn and email to stay front of mind

Partners who post short, useful notes on deadlines and changes stay visible to business owners and referrers. Two or three posts a week is plenty, and our LinkedIn plan for B2B firms shows how to keep it manageable.

A monthly email to clients and contacts with key dates and one practical tip keeps you useful between meetings. Include a clear opt-out in every marketing email, because the ICO is clear that people have an absolute right to opt out of direct marketing at any time.

Plan a year around the tax calendar

Your clients' year already has fixed points, so your marketing should too. GOV.UK sets 31 January for online Self Assessment returns and payment, with a second payment on account due on 31 July, and the table below builds on those anchors.

Worked example: a Making Tax Digital campaign for landlords

HMRC has confirmed that Making Tax Digital for Income Tax extends to sole traders and landlords with self-employment and property income over £30,000 from 6 April 2027, after starting for those over £50,000 in April 2026. For a practice that wants landlord clients, that is a clear, dated reason to get in touch. The plan below is a hypothetical example.

The campaign can start now and build towards April 2027: a plain-English guide on the website, a short LinkedIn series from one partner, an email to contacts who may be affected and a fixed-price onboarding package. Every piece points to one landing page with a booking button, and enquiries are tracked from that page.

Afterwards, compare the enquiries and fee value the campaign produced with the partner time it took. If it paid its way, the same plan can be reused for the £20,000 group ahead of April 2028.

Stay within the professional rules

ICAEW and ACCA both expect members to market honestly, without exaggerated claims or unsubstantiated comparisons, and ACCA sets this out in paragraph R115.2 of its Code of Ethics and Conduct. ICAEW gives the example that claiming a better service than a named rival firm is not acceptable, even if it is true.

Cold outreach has its own limits. ICAEW's guidance says firms must screen marketing calls against the Telephone Preference Service and Corporate TPS lists, and that repeated contact with someone who is clearly not interested could lead to a harassment complaint.

Measure what brings clients

Ask every new enquiry how they found you, and record it in one place with the fee value of the work won. A shared spreadsheet is enough to start, as long as everyone fills it in.

Review it each quarter and put more time into the channels that bring the clients you want, not simply the most enquiries. A channel that brings three ideal clients a year can be worth more than one that brings thirty poor fits.

How The Think helps

We help service businesses with positioning, brand identity, Framer websites, copywriting and SEO, so your marketing has a strong base to point to. Brand identity starts from £4,000 and websites from £7,500, with fixed quotes.

You can see how we approach the sector on our marketing for accountants page.