Legal Marketing & PR

Jones & Roth (CPAs) Launch Healthcare Sector Blog

By Michelle Golden

The EIGHTH industry-oriented accounting firm blog launched last week. The Best Practices Blog, by Oregon CPA firm Jones & Roth, focuses on medical practice management and is authored by partner Jeremy Prickel and senior accountant Brian Newton.

This blog is also the 60th "practice blog" that we have identified (worldwide) by qualified/chartered/certified accountants who are currently in the practice of accounting and are blogging as part of their marketing communications effort. Our full (and ever-changing) list is always available at www.accountingbloglist.com.

Most of the mere 60 firms who are now blogging are venturing down the "general practice" blog path and are not taking advantage of the WIDE OPEN playing field in the sector specific accounting blog space. A few are service specific, which is helpful to them.

60 practice blogs by CPAs/CAs - here's the breakdown:

• 8 verticals (construction-2, healthcare-3, lenders, religious, transportation)
• 7 other market segment (SME-3, public-3, international)
• 24 service (tax-12, tech-5, finance-3, fraud-2, BV, bankruptcy)
• 22 general practice

I know of at least 5 more blogs currently in development. Hard to believe that's almost a 10% increase!Though we have seen a lot of blog growth by accountants in the last 12 months, I remain astounded at how few there are.

If you don't believe blogs are effective in developing new business, Jones & Roth is a case-in-point.

Marketer Phil Sutton has been a loyal reader of Golden Practices for quite some time and comments now and again so we struck up some email conversations. Last July, he called me to assist when he was ready to pitch blogging to his firm. I didn't build the blog (his capable team handled that), but did spend a couple hours with him and his blog team on the phone to prime them for what to expect and what pitfalls to try to prevent. A real, live, paying engagement, and proof that blogging can help you build business, too.

Again, Jones & Roth's blog marks only the eighth blog that is industry specific. I find it almost unbelievable that there are only eight! This is truly an untapped marketing approach that only a select few accountants are benefitting from. More power to ya, you brave trailblazers!

TIP OF THE DAY:
Starting a blog? Think VERTICAL, not general/product!

Full post as published by Golden Practices on October 06, 2008 (boomark / email).