At Plante Moran, we're driven by a relentless desire to build the best client advisory service in the country. A critical step in achieving that objective is to be habitually future-focused—proactively evaluating all the new and exciting opportunities we can bring our clients. We strive to be known as a progressive firm and a "premium digital brand." As such, the firm has embraced digital transformation and invested heavily in artificial intelligence, data analytics and other "disruptive" technologies that fuel audit, tax and consulting to make us more efficient and increase the value we deliver to clients.
As we strive to provide outstanding service, internally we have built strong, collaborative marketing and technology teams that work together to make the most of each investment and seamlessly incorporate emerging technologies into our ongoing initiatives. Our digital strategy requires us to constantly iterate and experiment—even if it isn't always clear whether doing so will reap rewards.
Most recently, we tested a new way of distributing a key piece of thought leadership to our audiences using state-of-the-art technology that few, if any, other accounting firms had used to date. With the guidance of our strategic partner, digital agency One North, we built a progressive web app (PWA)—a responsive website that can also act and feel like a native app—to house our central tax reform education platform. In trusting this new technology, we are able to showcase our expertise and perspective in a crowded market with a platform that clients, prospects and staff find valuable and engaging.
The Opportunity
In late 2017, Congress passed the most significant tax reform in decades. Like many firms, we viewed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as an opportunity for Plante Moran to serve as a resource and add value to current and prospective client relationships. Our tax team quickly began developing content for the Tax Reform Playbook, which contains details of nearly 20 provisions of legislation and succinctly advises companies on potential short- and long-term planning initiatives.
But we were not alone. Accounting firms across the country rushed to offer their advice and insights. However, unlike our competitors, we saw as this as the perfect opportunity to venture into uncharted territory and deliver an atypical experience in a fast-evolving space.
As the tax team compiled the playbook's content, our marketing team explored the most useful, action-oriented way to present this material to our clients. We knew that a traditional, explanatory PDF guide would get lost in the impending influx of tax reform advice—and a static PDF would soon become outdated.
Our partners at One North suggested we develop an interactive, immersive experience around our Tax Reform Playbook, which would enable us to showcase our perspective quickly and differentiate our thought leadership in an unexpected way. The solution: a PWA.
A PWA is a relatively new technology that offers the best of both worlds: responsive websites and native apps. It combines the benefits of each and eliminates any potential limitations. Like native apps, PWAs can function offline or in areas of low connectivity, be saved directly to a user's home screen, and refresh quickly; unlike native apps, PWAs don't require confirmation from the app store for downloads or updates. Additionally, much like a responsive website, users can easily share the content with a link.
Our decision to build the Tax Reform Playbook as a PWA allowed us to cater to a more progressive and mobile-first audience without alienating clients who prefer to consume content in a more conventional way (on a desktop). The playbook performs exceptionally regardless of the user's choice of device.
An Innovation Advantage
Although major consumer brands, from Starbucks to Uber, have experienced success using PWAs, this technology had not yet been fully embraced in the accounting industry—and we saw huge potential value. By experimenting with this new approach to web development, we ultimately designed a campaign that was accessible, sharable and measurable.
Because we knew interpretations of the new law—and our perspectives, in turn—would evolve, we appreciated the app's ability to easily update alongside them. As we add new content and features to the playbook, the PWA will automatically update when users connect to the internet. This helped to keep scope creep at bay, as we were able to prioritize and develop a minimum viable product (MVP), along with a schedule of "releases" that would allow us to grow and enhance the experience over time.
When we began discussing the PWA with firm leadership, we positioned the app as a pilot and a new way for our National Tax Office to syndicate the firm's tax reform coverage. To these partners, the most impressive aspect of the app was its interactivity. The PWA would allow our tax experts to digitally guide clients and prospects to solutions prior to initial meetings, as well as provide prominent calls to action, such as "Learn More" and "Ask an Expert."
After earning approval from partners, we quickly switched gears to get the PWA up and running in an extremely aggressive timeline of 30 days. Since our experts had already completed the content, we were able to focus our attention on the technology and how to best leverage features of the PWA. We released the MVP within our initial timeline and have since added functionality, including a "frequently asked questions" page and links to on-demand webinars. We plan to continue to update the app content as new guidance and additional popular topics emerge.
We focused on navigation as we built the app to ensure users could quickly find information they needed. We also divided content between the 2017 and 2018 tax years, so users could understand how to optimize their current tax position and prepare for upcoming years.
Measuring the Results
Though we took a bit of a risk in launching tax reform thought leadership on a new platform, the campaign's results speak for themselves. More than 1,500 users have viewed our PWA since its launch in May 2018, and that number continues to grow. With so many clients and prospects accessing the content—and 58 percent returning to the PWA as repeat visitors—we're confident users find value in this digital initiative.
Though the PWA provides insight into many different user behaviors and actions, we concentrated on the number of first-time and return users, navigation patterns and most-read content. We use Google Analytics to monitor the app's performance and track the same data we do for our main dot-com address. We found that over half of users return to the PWA for multiple sessions. Additionally, 86 percent of users view more than one page while on the site; the app averages nearly five pages per session.
We also used these metrics to inform additional areas of our tax reform campaign, including a webinar series, e-mail alerts, social media posts, digital ads and other channels. By monitoring engagement and determining the most popular plays within the PWA, we could tailor additional content to topics that best resonated with users. This strategy led to results across the campaign. For instance, some 750 people tuned in to watch our webinar, "Tax Reform: Six months in, what should businesses do now?" It earned a conversion rate of over 70 percent, more than 40 percent higher than our typical target attendance rate.
One of the greatest benefits of the Tax Reform Playbook was its role in helping our tax professionals accelerate and focus conversations with the firm's clients and prospects. Although its content serves as the most important component of this campaign, the PWA's interactive features and compelling calls to action helped turn a simple touchpoint into an in-depth, tailored conversation. In many cases, this provided a value-add at just the right point in a buyer's journey.
Our Tax Reform Playbook PWA directly supports our strategy. In working closely with our partners at One North throughout the project—from initiation to continued development—we ensured the app fit well not only with our long-term digital strategy, but also with our overall business goals. We look forward to continuing to showcase thought leadership in unexpected ways, enhancing the experience for our clients and prospects and fueling our firm's investment in digital.
At Plante Moran, Jeff Antaya is a Partner and Chief Marketing Officer and Brian Holmen is the director of industry marketing.
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