How to Grow Your Accounting Firm by Specializing in a Niche Market

Growing your accounting firm can be a challenge. Managing partners can choose between multiple different growth strategies to expand their firms. One successful but often overlooked strategy is to focus on serving the needs of niche markets.

It may seem like a counterintuitive growth strategy since niche markets are often smaller than their more mainstream counterparts. By focusing on smaller niche markets, it can seem like you’re limiting growth from the outset. However, these markets are often under- or badly served, meaning there’s a huge opportunity for knowledgeable professionals to come in and corner the market

Why Are Niche Markets Important?

A niche market is a smaller, focused segment of a larger market. Niche markets are often easier to target because they’re most focused. This allows businesses targeting the niche market to cater to the specific needs of end-users or businesses within that market. It may also be easier to brand your business or build customer loyalty by focusing on fulfilling specialized, and potentially underserved, niche markets. Examples of niche markets include specializing in providing biodegradable cleaning products or a publishing business that provides only religious content.

Many accounting firms or other professional services firms focus on the small-to-medium sized business (SMB or SME) segment. Focusing on businesses of a certain size won’t make your accounting firm stand out in the way that being the accounting firm for tree-trimmers or industrial plumbers would.

How To Do Niche Market Research

The first step in specializing in a niche market is to perform market research. You need to identify the market and understand the needs of businesses within your preferred niche market. You might consider hiring a market research firm to conduct surveys or focus groups with business owners to identify their needs and business concerns. You could also consider attending conventions or trade shows aimed at your niche users or subscribe to industry publications. Network with friends, family, or industry contacts who are involved with the industry or know people who are. The connections you form while networking or at these conventions and trade shows can also help you when you’re ready to start providing services to you chosen niche market.

Niche Market Advantages

There are two main advantages for accounting firms that specialize in serving niche markets—optimized marketing and increased internal efficiency. We’ve already touched on part of the marketing piece. Focusing on a specialized segment can allow you to become the go-to firm in your niche market. From an online marketing perspective, it may be easier to rank for online keywords and paid search may be cheaper as well. You may have convenient, targeted advertising options like specialized magazines or journals that make it easier to break into a niche market. Networking can be more targeted too. If the niche sector has conventions or meetings, you can attend these and expand your client base. Marketing via publications (such as the magazines or articles your niche uses) can also be quite focused, to make the public aware of your firm and specialization.

Providing specialized services to a niche market also has internal benefits for your firm, too. Many industries have specific regulatory or legal requirements on top of standard business requirements. Training or recruiting staff to serve multiple different industries could be a drain on your firm’s resources. Specializing could help your implement standardized accounting practices across your clients, making your processes more efficient and saving your clients time and money.

Niche Market Disadvantages

Before diving into a new market, it’s important to consider any potential drawbacks. Specializing in a niche market may require additional employee training or continued monitoring of new market regulations. It may also expose your firm to additional market risks such as a sudden downturn in the market. If your firm focuses on a transactional specialization like corporate finance or strategic tax advice as opposed to ongoing services, you may not have a predictable recurring income.

How To Get Started

After doing research and identifying your preferred niche market, you should create a strategic plan for expanding your firm. That includes considering what additional training, staff or resources you may need; gaining the necessary expertise or certifications; and putting together a marketing strategy

How We Can Help

At CertiPro, we provide software that helps accounting firms streamline their business. Our Sage ERP software tools will make it easy for your firm to consolidate across multiple entities, improve regulatory compliance, and easily track your clients’ real-time financial information at a glance using built-in reporting and dashboards. Please click the buttons below to learn more or to contact us for a demo.