I was contacted by a managing partner of a growing accountancy firm. He was keen to bring on an outsourced marketing director to help with the firm’s marketing strategy, planning, and training of the team.

Invited to strategic leadership meetings.

I was initially invited to their strategic away day where I was able to understand the goals of the business, what they are looking to achieve in the long and short term as well as get a feel for how the team worked together. It was a different approach from the one I usually do but altogether an interesting start to the project

Working with the managing partner on marketing planning and strategy

Building on my knowledge I was then able to work with the managing partner to create a marketing plan. One of the biggest challenges that he was facing is that most of the business came through him. He wanted to start putting in place marketing and business development that the whole firm could get involved with and have multiple revenue streams. This was identified as a risk factor for the firm and the MP was looking to take a sabbatical with the peace of mind that the business could run without him.

When writing the marketing plan I looked at both the marketing and business development activity that they were undertaking to date and started to map out a plan that fitted around their objectives and their sector focus too.

Outsourced marketing to support the implementation of the marketing plan.

Once the plan had been discussed and finalised, I was then brought in to train the marketing assistant. This is still ongoing and has proved very successful. My outsourced marketing role here works out to 7-10 hours a week. I spend time with the marketing assistant training her on all the relevant areas of marketing and helping her be more constructively critical of the activities that they were doing so they could tweak and refine. Since I have been on board I have:

• Established an editorial committee to ensure that regular content is being planned and written for the website. Website traffic is one of the firms’ key measurements.
• Created a marketing and business development scorecard that tracks all marketing activity such as website views, social media, and email marketing stats. I have also created a sales pipeline tracker so the firm can understand how many inquiries they get, from what sector and service, to what value and whether they have won or lost them.
• Trained the marketing assistant on SEO, email marketing, content writing, and Google Business Profile equipping her with the knowledge and skill sets she needs to run the marketing function in the team.
  

This project has been enjoyable for me. I have been able to have access to the senior leadership meetings giving me a great insight into the vision of the firm. I have also been able to roll my sleeves up and get involved with putting training, processes, and systems in place as an Outsourced Marketing Director. The retainer with the firm will be running for a year with a view to hours slopping off as the marketing assistant becomes more competent.