Having a comprehensive inbound marketing plan for your accounting firm means incorporating numerous tactics and strategies. This process helps you discover which methods resonate best with your audience and potential clients.
Tax professionals and accounting firms have the benefit of marketing to niche audiences that are in need of specific financial services. Email marketing efforts can be highly effective for nurturing these customer relationships and generating results with a target audience.
With over four billion daily email users worldwide, email marketing continues to be a proven and effective method for communicating information about your brand in the accounting industry. In fact, as businesses and brands increase email marketing budgets, the effects and benefits of email connections increase.
Here, we’ll break down how to use email marketing successfully in your tax or accounting firm. Take a look at practical steps and mistakes to avoid in order to generate the greatest return on your investment.
Why is Email Marketing for Accounting Firms Important?
Email marketing isn’t limited to any particular industry, although you might feel personally familiar with the use of email in retail and eCommerce. Fortunately, email campaigns aren’t just limited to product-based businesses but are also useful for creating client conversions in service-based businesses as well.
Email marketing is beneficial for accounting firms and tax professionals because it expands opportunities to connect with leads, share content, and nurture long-term relationships.
Connect with New Leads
If you have a basic inquiry or contact form on your website, you need a way to follow-up with the person requesting more information about accounting services. Sending an email confirmation is a best practice that lets the individual know you’ve received their request.
During this step, you may also choose to offer a helpful piece of content, special promotion (such as a discount for services), or reminder about the next steps to take in the working relationship.
Share Original and Branded Content to Stay Top of Mind
Once you have a contact’s email address, you can deliver helpful or educational content. Email marketing provides an easy avenue for sharing published pieces like blogs, case studies, free downloads, and other resources. If you have practical content that’s designed to help your audience, share it!
Foster Long-Term Relationships with Clients
Life gets busy, and sometimes tax and accounting clients need specific reminders about their financial needs. Accounting firms can use email marketing to re-engage segments of their audience that have been inactive since the last season or paid service.
This is a helpful way to serve your audience, build client loyalty, and simultaneously encourage new or repeat business with existing clients.
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Top 5 Tips for Email Marketing for Accounting Firms
Even if you’ve never previously leveraged the power of email marketing in your tax or accounting firm, don’t stress. Your audience is ready and waiting to receive new messages. Email research shows that up to 99% of email users check their inbox every single day, which means that the chances are high that you’ll hit the mark by serving up high quality content.
Building a strong email foundation starts with a few basic steps. We’ve rounded up the top tips and suggestions so that you can create a simple yet effective email marketing plan for your firm or financial business.
- Build a reliable email list.
An email marketing list is the complete directory of contacts that your financial firm has access to. Most often, the subscribers on your list have opted in, which means that they have agreed to receive ongoing communications from your firm in some form. (Although this is the case, most of your email messages must also offer the option to opt-out at any time.)
You can start to build an email list by collecting basic contact information through a simple inquiry form on your website. Use clear language that lets site visitors know that by sharing their contact information, they will be added to your email marketing campaign or contact list.
Once you have your list, you can experiment, segment, and test different messages to different groups of contacts. Even though such testing comes with time, the saying, “the money is in the list,” often proves true. How you take advantage is up to you.
- Use audience-friendly subject lines and quality content.
Every now and then, financial and accounting lingo can come across dry. While you want your emails to be helpful and informational, they should also capture the receiver’s interest in simple words. This involves an engaging use of verbiage, copy, and directions to deliver real value.
As you build new email messaging or campaigns, think about things like:
- The effectiveness of your subject lines
- The use of catchy headers and copy to entertain the reader
- Clear and effective calls to action (CTAs)
- Engaging visual elements or easy-to-click buttons
Although you’ll likely get into metrics (like open rates and click-through-rates) at a later point in the journey, always consider how email copywriting has a major impact on overall success.
- Schedule emails consistently.
Pinpointing your email frequency can be challenging at first, but it’s a process that will likely evolve over time.
Regardless of the rate at which you send new emails, the key factor is consistency. Accounting firms that deliver regular and predictable messages to inboxes will be more effective than those who send out communications rarely or sporadically.
If your firm doesn’t have full-time marketing staff, the task of creating new emails may fall to one person. Instead of spreading those resources too thin, devote time and energy to creating top-notch emails that you can distribute less often, but on a predictable schedule. Your audience may even come to look forward to receiving your content and reminders!
- Optimize emails for mobile.
How many times do you open an email while you’re on the go or on your smartphone? Recipients often use mobile devices to access new emails, which means that your email marketing needs to be tailored to mobile viewing.
Fortunately, you don’t need to be a high-end developer to get mobile optimization right. If email design and formatting skills aren’t in your wheelhouse, choose email marketing software or an email service provider that has these features built-in.
- Develop a plan for growth.
Email marketing can clearly be a pivotal tool that helps you attract new clients and retain old ones. As you grow, define several key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can accurately measure over time.
Mistakes to Avoid with Email Marketing
- Never testing different components. (A/B) A/B testing helps you gauge performance and know how to make better decisions for the future.
- Never segmenting your audience. Audience segmentation helps you avoid sending mistakes and provide more timely marketing messages to the right people.
- Never providing next steps to readers. Don’t make the mistake of sending new email campaigns without providing instructions or expectations.
See More Impact (and Generate Leads) with Email Marketing
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