What Does it Cost?
Your Time and Money Investment
Marketing IS expensive (because it's time intensive).
Marketing FEELS expensive (because you haven't budgeted for it).
While we do have set prices for the products and services that we offer, we don't compete on price (we're more expensive than many of our direct competitors in the 'marketing for accounting firms' space), and our goal is not to sell you a particular product or service.
We are in the business of helping firms build a marketing engine that is both effective and sustainable. That means helping you choose the strategy and the marketing tactics that will generate the highest ROI and fit within the financial realities of your firm.
Rough estimate benchmarks
This budget should include sales and marketing salaries and commissions, software costs, ad spend, and any fees paid to an agency. The real problem is most accounting firms don't have a marketing budget and don't factor the cost of acquiring new business into their fees.
Price should usually NOT be the primary factor in determining who you hire. Marketing agencies are not interchangeable. It's important to find a marketing partner that has the right strategy for your business and has the best chance of generating real ROI.
We are likely more expensive than most of the other marketing companies that focus on the accounting space. We don't "line-item" the services or track directly against hours, but you can use $150/hr as a rough approximation of how we arrive at our fees. Most of our clients spend $25k-$120k per year with us.
The Cost of Strategy
The first step with marketing is always strategy. At Benchmark Growth Marketing we usually start with our Marketing Roadmap engagement. Over the course of 5-6 weeks we help you solidify the four core foundations of marketing: positioning, messaging, budget, and tactics plan.
The cost of the Marketing Roadmap starts at $3500.
The Cost of Production
Most firms handle some pieces of their marketing production in-house and outsource other pieces. The prices below reflect the fees Benchmark Growth Marketing charges for various services.
Fully-custom writing, design, development and support.
- Standard website: (starting at) $12,500
- Tax-firm subscription website: $395/month
- CAS-firm subscription website: $595/month
- Large or complex website: $15k-$30k
- Website hosting and support: $225-$400/month
Get your firm ranked at the top of organic search results.
- Local SEO: (starting at) $800/m
- Niche SEO: $1000-$2500/m
Setup, management, and optimization for Google Ads.
- $800/month
- $600/m minimum ad spend
Blog articles, email marketing, video production, and social media management.
- Collaborative content: starting at $800/month
- Video content: starting at $1000/month
- Fully-outsourced content: starting at $2000/month
Season-based, relationship focused podcasts for business.
- $5k for initial show design and launch
- $10k-$15k per season for production
Other Costs to Consider
Depending on your strategy and the tactics required, beyond the cost to hire an agency and the time you devote to your marketing efforts, there are a handful of other costs that will need to be covered:
- Ad Spend. $600-$2500/month.
- Software. $100-$1500/m.
- Website hosting & support. $25-$400/month.
Coaching, Courses, & Groups
For firms that wish to keep most of the production in-house, but still value outside feedback and coaching, we offer coaching, courses, and a marketing mastermind group.
- Marketing For Accounting Firm Video Course - $895
- Marketing Incubator - $250/m
Fractional CMO
In some cases one of our senior strategists will work with a client as a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer. They participate in leadership meetings, manage your marketing budget, lead your marketing team, and oversee your marketing strategy. Costs start at $3000/month.