The Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM) has released a public announcement, “Thirty-eight Awards Distributed to Honor Top Marketing Firms.” Although 20 firms received recognition, Freed Maxick, CPAs, PC, led the way with seven awards. Congratulations.
Membership in AAM is too pricey for most accounting professors, and I am no exception. Never-the-less, I do my best to follow it because marketing is such a key activity for any accounting or financial services firm. The surest way to partner is to create, nurture and grow a sizable client list. In addition, nine members of AAM made the Accounting Today Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting for 2011.
WithumSmith + Brown, PC received an award for its blogs. This is well deserved in my opinion. It also received the award for small budget multimedia, presumably for its flash dance video.
Is it time for a category to be created for integrated social media campaigns? How about for Tweeter of the Year?
Awards were issued in 11 categories: branding, collateral, marketing campaigns, advertising, website, multimedia, internal programs, events, surveys, business development/lead generation and maverick marketing. “This was the 18th year that the annual awards were presented. Recipients were announced at the 2012 AAM Summit in partnership with the AICPA Practitioners Symposium and TECH+ Conference, held in Las Vegas, NV on June 11, 2012.”
Debit and credit – - David Albrecht
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Professor Albrecht,
Speaking as the Marketing Director for Freed Maxick and as an AAM Board member (with my colleague Katie Tolin), I appreciate your post on both levels. I’ll be sure to subscribe to your blog. I like your idea of including marketing-related content as part of the accounting “club” experience. I, and other marketing peers of mine, have had the opportunity to speak with students about accounting marketing and social media in professional services environment, etc…and there is definitely an interest there. They don’t hear it in the classroom. It makes you wonder if more students would join the accounting profession if they knew how dynamic the industry has become. Many firms, including mine, are into mobile apps, Twitter (and many other social sites), the cloud, etc. it would be an eye opener for them. Thanks for shining a light on what we do.
Regards
Eric Majchrzak
Eric,
Thanks for writing. If there is anything that I can do to help, please let me know. I can write another post, or can take a guest post on the topics you raise.
Dave Albrecht
Thank you, professor, for recognizing the importance of marketing in the accounting profession. It’s impressive to see that someone educating our future CPAs knows the role marketing will play in their future success. As president-elect of AAM, I know all of our members hope you are helping instill in your students the same understanding you have on how to succeed in a CPA firm.
I will be sharing your marketing award category ideas to the appropriate AAM committee. We reworked the entire process this year to make it more relevant and we’re always looking for ways to improve.
Finally, I will be talking to my fellow board members to see how we can get you and other accounting professors engaged in the AAM mission. I look forward to sharing our ideas with you in the near future.
Katie,
Thanks for visiting The Summa, and responding to my article. I have long admired the mission and work of AAM.
I think your idea of involving professors is a really good idea. Perhaps it should be done via student accounting clubs, as the typical accounting curriculum has no room for additions. I can’t even seem to persuade any colleagues to formally fit in social media coverage.
If there is any way that I can help or be involved, please let me know.
David Albrecht