Website of the month: PDI

For more than 20 years, Practice Development Institute (PDI) has been creating territory-exclusive marketing newsletters and other business-building products and services for the professional services community, CPAs in particular. Like many businesses, PDI has risen to a new level of visibility via the Internet. But its website (www.pdiglobal.com) is also a font of free advice and ideas—everything from downloadable sample newsletters that are useful for both content and design ideas to demonstrations of the potential of e-newsletters and e-zines.

The website also provides access to PDI’s archives of how-to articles on everything related to marketing and promotion. What makes it helpful is that the content is written by users and practitioners and not solely directed toward promoting PDI’s product line. The website also includes a small number of links to other marketing-resources websites. Although the site would benefit from offering its own e-zine, it wisely avoids trying to be all things to all people by packing its pages with links, banners, and ads of all shapes and sizes. The pages are clean, uncrowded, and easy to read, with current links and fast-downloading pages.

Notably, in keeping with PDI’s long-standing support of collaboration among accounting and marketing professionals, the website is gradually building an interactive “Member Resources” section for visitors to share ideas, give PDI feedback on its products, and offer web-based marketing guides.

The CPA Journal is broadly recognized as an outstanding, technical-refereed publication aimed at public practitioners, management, educators, and other accounting professionals. It is edited by CPAs for CPAs. Our goal is to provide CPAs and other accounting professionals with the information and news to enable them to be successful accountants, managers, and executives in today's practice environments.