You’re looking over your revenue projections and you know it’s time: you’re ready to open the floodgates and let the new clients flow in.

The only problem? There are no new clients knocking at your door. You don’t have a waiting list, and you don’t have new leads calling every day.

If your business has grown organically to start, maybe you haven’t needed to invest in marketing in order to launch a profitable firm. Or maybe your prior marketing efforts paid off, and new clients have kept you busy until now.

Either way, you know now it’s time to start telling the world about what you and your firm can do, and start to grow those client numbers. Today.

Where should you start?

What Every Accountant Needs to Know About Marketing

There are two foundational types of marketing, and accounting firms need both.

First, there’s inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is when you’re focused on owning real estate on the internet, or any channel where a potential client may find you. You’re taking up space and getting attention primarily due to the value you share with the world on a consistent basis.

Inbound marketing works because potential clients may find something you say interesting, then click over to your website and find out that you offer a service they just happen to need. Or maybe, something you educate them on shows them how they need your expertise to solve it.

Outbound marketing is when you pay to get in front of potential clients, maybe through a search engine ad, a direct mailer, or a newspaper ad. You depend on the targeting in the advertising tool or the defined audience of a publication and hope that the people who see your ad are the right prospective clients for you.

Both types of marketing work, but the most impactful strategies involve a mix of inbound and outbound.

10 Essential Tips to Get More Accounting Clients

These recommendations will help you build a marketing engine that delivers accounting clients regularly – as long as you’re consistent.

One of the biggest mistakes many new firm owners make is to assume they don’t need to do marketing. Even if you have plenty of leads, you can never predict turnover rates. To keep your firm stable, you can start building a waiting list even if you’re not yet ready to take on all the new contacts that find you.

Here are 10 tried and true methods to bring in new accounting clients:

#1: Define and Own a Niche

First things first: develop a niche for your practice. Business owners that need financial planning and analysis need to know that you are precisely the guide for them.

Another way to think about this is to ask yourself, “what outcome do I help my clients achieve?” Do you help international businesses run efficient bookkeeping and set up streamlined accounting best practices? Do you focus on tax accounting for IT firms? Be as specific as possible.

Put it into action: List this niche on your business cards, on your website, and all of your social media profiles. Instead of telling everyone you are an accountant, say you’re an “accounting firm to help small businesses grow and exit within five years.”

#2: Build a Value-First Website

What do prospects find when they search for answers to their common problems? One of the key tenets of inbound marketing is designing your website to draw new clients in by providing solutions to their problems.

Many companies focus solely on creating a website that advertises for the business. They may list information about their background, what types of services they provide, and how to contact them.

This is essential information that you should include, but above all else, your website should add value to the visitor. Today, users will pay attention to brands they can rely on for factual advice.

If they’re deciding between two accounting firms and your website has a helpful resource center with materials they can use to help them make better decisions, it’s highly likely you’re the firm they’ll want to work with.

Put it into practice: Take a brand new look at your website. Where can you share more useful information, and by doing so, showcase your expertise?

A great place to start is by thinking about the common questions you answer on every introduction call with a new potential client. A quick hack is to record yourself answering these questions, then turn that recording into a transcript. Edit the transcript into a blog, and then post it on your site.

#3: Focus on Content Distribution

While blogs are great for search engine optimization (SEO), you can help people find your site by putting time and effort into content distribution.

Part of effective content marketing is understanding that no two people like to consume information the same way. Exploring different formats, such as a podcast, or a video strategy, could help you discover trends in the way your audience prefers to hear from you.

Put it into practice: Instead of just recording audio and turning it into a blog, you could record a video of you answering some basic questions, and then leverage the video content as well. Post it on YouTube, and take advantage of the second most popular search engine in the world.

#4: Go to the Channels Your Clients Spend the Most Time

The best place to look for more clients is to ask your current clients where they spend the most time. Are they checking LinkedIn every day? What about Twitter?

You want to create social media profiles for your business on all platforms, but choose which platform to double down on based on where you know your clients are already interacting with each other and asking questions. This is where you can stand out the most and contribute to the conversation.

Put it into practice: Send out a discovery survey to your current clients and ask them what channels they prefer to receive interesting content. You can also ask them about what topics interest them the most, and what topics they have questions about.

Build content for one or two channels specifically, and focus your messaging around a few central themes. If you’re marketing to other businesses? Keep in mind LinkedIn is the preferred platform for social media marketing for B2B lead generation.

#5: Add Value in Communities

Social media isn’t just good for consistent content publication and promotion. It’s also a place where you can act individually as a member of communities. The key difference in this type of marketing is you’re participating as yourself, under your name, not your business.

You have to be comfortable putting yourself out there. You also have to be consistent – when people can recognize your name and face and associate you with the right domain expertise, that’s when you know your personal brand is acting as an asset for your business growth.

Put it into practice: LinkedIn has several groups you can join. When members ask questions, you can provide answers that demonstrate you’re an experienced professional. There are many Facebook groups you can join, Slack communities, Twitter hashtags to follow, and so many more opportunities.

#6: List Your Business in Marketplaces

There are several places people go to look up businesses when they need help. A marketplace, such as a local Chamber of Commerce directory, could be a great place to put your business information.

There are online marketplaces you should keep up-to-date as well, such as Cheqbook or Xero.

Put it into practice: Do a search in your local area for “accounting firm near me,” and see what comes up. Make sure you have a valid Yelp and Google Business listing and add your company to any other directories that show in your area.

#7: Design an Offer Prospects Can’t Refuse

Think about it: you’re more prone to try out a service or product if there is very little risk involved.

How could you make your services more accessible upfront for potential clients?

Design an offer that makes them realize it would be foolish not to try working with you. For example, a one-time tax audit could help someone see how much they’d save by leveraging your services in the next tax season.

Ideally, you’ll think about this offer and get it ready to go before you start investing heavily in outbound, paid marketing.

Put it into practice: Think back to your niche and the problems you’re solving for your clients. How can you help them in a small way? How can you package up personalized advice that will instantly make an impact for them? That can be your initial offer.

#8: Build Meaningful Partnerships

Partnerships are one of the most impactful ways to quickly expand your client base. If you’re looking for bookkeeping clients, connect with lawyers who help small businesses incorporate. When they ask their lawyer for a trusted resource to help them manage their accounts, their lawyer may recommend you and your firm.

Put it into practice: Every good partnership has a mutual benefit to both sides. Think about the unique way you can add value back to a potential partner. For example, maybe you offer a discount on bookkeeping for a lawyer who refers a set number of prospects. Or maybe you offer a referral fee. Having an offer ready to go for future partners can also help you before you begin those conversations.

#9: Ask for Referrals

Do you have an existing client who can’t stop talking about how excited they are that they’ve found you? Sometimes a simple email campaign to your current client base asking them to refer any potential new prospects is all it takes to bring in some warm leads.

Put it into practice: Use this outbound strategy as a standalone request, or you could insert this into mailings you already send. If you have a monthly newsletter that goes out to clients, add this request in. You could also include an incentive, such as a gift card for every existing client who makes a successful referral.

#10: Use Psychology to Your Advantage

When it comes time to devote energy and funds to outbound marketing, don’t get lost in a sea of sameness. You can stand out when you understand a few basic psychological principles and apply them to your marketing. Here are two powerful tactics:

• Scarcity: this implies there is a limited supply of a product or service, and people need to act fast to take advantage of the offer. In outbound marketing for your accounting firm, this may look like an opportunity for a free 1-1 business growth consultation – but you only have 5 slots available. This encourages people to sign up quickly before it fills up.
• Social proof: Also called “fear of missing out,” positioning your firm as the one that everyone else chooses to manage their accounts could prompt new clients to want to retain you as well. Testimonials from happy customers about how you’ve helped them and how they wouldn’t choose any other firm – these work like magic on landing pages and in email marketing.

Additional Tips to Grow Your Firm

There’s no doubt. Incorporating these 10 tips into your new client acquisition efforts going forward is going to pay off. Looking for even more advice on how to add new clients?

Get the free book, “Double Your Accounting Firm” from Jetpack Workflow. It’s based on hundreds of interviews with real accounting firm owners who have found success using these tips and more to grow their business.

And if you’re looking for the best accounting practice management software to manage your new influx of clients, keep Jetpack Workflow in mind.

What are the high-level, long-term goals for your business? Whether it’s an annual revenue target, a number of new client accounts, or a roadmap towards an acquisition, every accounting firm owner has their own picture in their mind of what success looks like.

For returns down the road, the building blocks of growth have to start today. What are the next steps you can take to propel your firm along in an upward trajectory?

Here are 10 essential rules of scaling towards sustainable growth for every accounting firm owner:

 

#1: Understand the 80/20 Rule

Also known as the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule is a business observation that 80% of outcomes result from 20% of inputs. Business owners should identify the key 20% of work they or their team does that has the biggest impact on the final output. Those activities should be the priority.

What does this mean for owners of accounting firms? While it’s not a mathematical law, it’s a thought exercise designed to get you thinking about what really matters in terms of value creation in your business.

Put it into practice: take inventory of all final results you deliver for your clients. Can you track those deliverables back to the time you and your team spend on your day-to-day activities?

By trimming unnecessary steps in processes, or reducing time spent on tasks that don’t directly drive towards client outcomes, you can enhance efficiency across your team.

 

#2: Productize Your Services

If you bill your clients hourly, you’ll forever have a cap on the money you can make, because time is a finite resource.

An early step towards scaling and increasing profit margins is exploring how to productize your current accounting services into packages, or recurring subscriptions your clients can purchase.

   

Put it into practice: What’s a common service that most (if not all) of your clients currently receive from you and your team? Could you standardize the rate and delivery model across your client base?

 

#3: Use Automation to Your Advantage

Automation is a major factor in a company’s ability to scale. You and your team’s time should be devoted to tasks only a human with a high level of expertise can do. Everything else has the potential to be automated.

Almost 70% of workers say automation could reduce time spent on repetitive work, and the top three groups of tasks they’d recommend automating are:

• Data collection
• Approvals
• Updates

Put it into practice: Track the time you spend on every single task. What tasks are done repeatedly? For example, perhaps you manually send invoices every single month. Or maybe there’s a set of checklists you follow when you onboard a new client.

Hear from accounting firm owner Brady Meaux on how he automated client onboarding at his company, Meaux and Co:

   

#4: Hire Strategically and Put Skills First

Lots of business owners start the hiring process with a job title in mind for their first team member.

But you’re going to go further, faster, if first, you take time to assess your own strengths and weaknesses. The best leaders are honest with where their shortcomings are, and build a team to augment their weak points.

Put it into practice: Separate the role from the title, and make a complete list of the skills you need on your team to deliver for your clients. Craft a strategic job description that takes this into account.

 

 

 

#5: Hone in on Your Ideal Customer

It might be counterintuitive to think about niching down as you’re trying to grow, but expanding your total addressable market won’t automatically translate to more clients.

Instead, think about how to specialize within a market you already have a presence in. For example, tailoring your services specifically to startups or small business owners, or putting a focus on forensic accounting could help you become known in the field.

Put it into practice: Research the accounting practice market in your area, or within the demographic you’re marketing to, and identify how you can differentiate from competitors and stand out to a specific sub-group as the accounting firm for them.

 

#6: Find the Right Partners

Think about your target customer. What are they trying to accomplish? What other vendors and services do they need, besides a bookkeeping firm or CPA firm, to get where they need to be?

Those are the companies you can partner with to provide a holistic solution for potential clients. If you target small business owners, maybe they need a website before they’re going to make new sales and collect revenue. Partner with a web developer or marketing agency and once that new business needs an accountant, they can direct them your way.

Put it into practice: It’s likely you already have many potential partners in your network. Take stock of your contacts on sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, and consider what a mutually beneficial relationship could look like.

You can also watch this interview with Brian Baum, President of the Pittsburgh Exit Planning Chapter. He gives great advice on how to make partnerships a key growth lever in your business:

   

#7: Develop a Referral Program

Your current happy customers are your best source of new business. Use referrals as one of your main channels to acquire new prospects, and you may find all the growth you need.

When clients are happy, they’re not just willing to refer you – they’re excited to do so. So managing client relationships as the most important piece of your business is critical to long-term success.

But incentivizing clients with a referral program will be the ultimate way to ensure a steady flow of incoming new leads. For example, you could offer satisfied clients a $100 gift card or even a free month of services for every referral that becomes a client. If your offer is strong enough to make an impact on their bottom line, they’ll actively pay attention to their contact list, on the lookout for people who could be a good fit for you.

Put it into practice: It starts with simply having a conversation with a trusted happy client. Tell them about your idea for a referral program, and get their input on what type of incentive is notable to them. Trialing a referral program with a few initial clients is a good way to ensure you have a mutually beneficial structure before you scale it to your whole client body.

 

#8: Run Marketing With a Strong Point of View

Vague advice doesn’t help anyone. So you can engage in content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), webinars, and social media marketing, but if you don’t have something unique to say, it will sound like noise to new prospects.

Instead, show your expertise by taking a stance and talking about issues and topics like no other accountant in your market. It doesn’t mean you have to invent a new way of marketing – you just need to create actionable, valuable content, and go beyond the obvious facts everyone else is sharing.

One great example of a CPA who is taking his knowledge-sharing to another level is Jason Blumer. He runs his own company, Blumer CPAs, as well as the Thriveal CPA Network, and he’s very active on both his Twitter profile as well as his company accounts. He shares direct, personable videos, and talks about the challenges his audience faces, giving actionable advice to overcome them.

Put it into practice: Whether you write a blog post or start a podcast, make sure you’re clear on your professional point of view on what your accounting practice brings to your clients. Be opinionated on what’s important for businesses to focus on when it comes to their finances.

 

#9: Build a Solid Project Management Foundation

Delivering client work on time is critical to scaling. Let technology help you do this.

The right workflow software can speed up everything related to growth, and tools like Jetpack Workflow are uniquely positioned to help your accounting practice. With over 50 free accounting templates ready for you to use, you can quickly begin creating a dashboard where you see all work, all in one place, at a glance. 

Beyond day-to-day task flow, you can also leverage the capacity planning capability in Jetpack Workflow to gauge when you’re ready to take on new clients, and when you need to hire or automate to free up bandwidth.

Put it into practice: Find the right accounting practice management software that’s intuitive, user-friendly, and you’ll see an instant lift in overall productivity. On average, Jetpack Workflow users save about 10 hours per week. That’s time you can use to focus on growth.

 

#10: Expand Your Offerings and Your Market Region

Once the foundation is laid for your core products and services, and you know your ideal customer profile, it’s time to think about two things: new offers, and new regions.

Put it into practice: If you’re focused on providing one specific service to clients, such as monthly bookkeeping, think about what other products or services you could add on to provide more value, and thereby charge more money.

Use the newfound focus on remote work to grow into new regional markets. It’s now normal to get on a video call with professionals all over the country or the world to support your business, and depending on your license and where you’d like to focus, you could tap into a much larger regional market to power your growth.

 

Fast-Track Progress: Resources for High-Growth Firms

A growth mindset is step one, but step two? You need a roadmap.

Download the free book, “Double Your Accounting Firm,” and start building your accounting business plan.