Article image is a still from Armanino’s 2019 recruiting video ‘The Perfect Taco’.
Armanino is getting into the marketing business. In recent years, there’s been a push for CPA firms to serve as one-stop shops for more than just tax expertise and audits. And why not? Deloitte Digital has been doing it (and exceptionally well as evidenced by their many, many awards) for years.
The firm announced yesterday that it launched a Strategic Marketing Outsourcing service as part of the firm’s portfolio of business outsourcing offerings. The SMO service will be led by Keith McNichols, who describes himself on LinkedIn as a “visionary, strategic thinker, and transformational leader with 20+ years of expertise in Marketing, Customer Experience, Account Management and Business Development. Broad Marketing/Tech/SaaS/PaaS experience from high-level strategy to hands-on activity.” He’s done agency work and spent 16 years at Disney as a director of corporate alliances. He also teaches part-time at Azuza Pacific University. He joined Armanino last year.
The new full-service marketing offering provides a turnkey “Office of the CMO” solution backed by Armanino’s top-tier digital marketing and strategy and transformation consulting capabilities, reads the press release.
“In today’s shifting marketplace, it’s more important than ever to have a strong strategic marketing plan that results in measured success for each aspect that clients invest in,” says McNichols. “To find success in-house requires a significant investment of time and money. As a leader in providing growth-focused outsourcing services, Armanino now offers its Strategic Marketing Outsourcing service to bring firms the same resources and capabilities that a full-fledged marketing team would, from growth-focused plans to customer-focused creative services, backed by the power and entrepreneurial spirit of Armanino.”
Armanino — or rather whoever writes their press releases — says a key driver for this service line is the growing demand from businesses seeking outsourcing support for all facets beyond their core operational focus.
“Armanino offers a refined approach to delivering comprehensive outsourcing solutions and a growing demand from our clients to support the marketing arm of their business,” says Ryan Prindiville, who leads Armanino’s Consulting practice. “Through our partnerships and in-house capabilities, we have the ability to support every need of a CMO from specific marketing technology implementation to high-level brand marketing strategy. We look forward to delivering the best support possible to help our clients grow.”
The buzzword sludge gets a little thick toward the end of the news release, grab your boots.
Using a deliberate and customizable three-phased approach, Armanino’s SMO team will provide a full-fledged strategic vision and assessment of a client’s growth initiatives and plans, develop the internal messaging and activation plan, and then execute it with specific feedback and optimization. Armanino will apply its ROI mindset to focus on enabling growth for clients through its marketing efforts over the short and long term.
Armanino already owns and operates AMF Media Group, an agency offering SEO and SEM services, social media marketing, video, digital ads, mobile support, CRM, email marketing, branding, copywriting, event support and more. The firm says the new SMO initiative whill give clients acess to “the full range of customizable offerings led by a deep bench of marketing executives working alongside McNichols.
