Published Date: July 28, 2019 . Last Updated October 24, 2022
Clienteles are the power plants of accounting firms. If you want accounting leads for the future, you better start working on the websites, and accounting strategies. But most importantly you need to invest in exclusive accounting software to track the lead movements.
Wanting to keep attracting accounting leads is natural. For an accounting firm to survive, online CPAs have to be vigilant in their work but also get accustomed to technological advancements. Even CPA firms need to adopt new digital marketing techniques to evolve their business practices. Like any other good businessman, a CPA also needs to market their skills, portfolio, and experience to attract a new audience.
But how will they do it?
Today, we will discuss the possibilities related to lead generation for accountants and what an online CPA needs to do to retain them.
Table of Contents
What do Accounting Leads Mean?
An accounting lead is similar to any business lead. It’s a sales lead. A person or business becomes your client. It also refers to the potential buyer of your services.
The more leads a business has, the more sales will increase, hence the number of clients will boost. It means the ROI will also improve but to achieve this, marketing efforts must count too. You need to remember that a sales lead does not always mean a “prospect” and may not always qualify as a “potential client” either.
The prospects with similar interests and intent become the accounting leads.
5 Proven Digital Strategies to Find Bookkeeping Clients
Before you put a plan together to generate new bookkeeping clients, you first need to understand the marketing and business efforts. Using the accounting client portals is one of the genuine ways to keep tracking the client’s activities.
To grow the accounting and bookkeeping practices, the CPAs need to focus on the mutual interests of the prospects. Business clients today are more creative and savvy. Switching the accountant is easier. So you need to create the right experience for your existing clients in order to retain them and attract a new audience.
Following are some of the proven digital ways a remote CPA can benefit from.
Be the Helping Hand
Most accounting leads do not begin by searching for an accountant. They look for general research before they can reach the Google suggestions of CPA firms.
At the initial stage, you need to make sure that the accounting leads will find you regardless of what they type on the Google search console. To do this the remote CPAs need to do thorough research. It will be part of the content marketing strategy.
Start with the handful of most commonly asked questions by the potential clients. Also, focus on the most common keywords related to accounting and bookkeeping issues. You can write informative blogs on your CPA website that a user is looking for.
So start helping your potential leads.
Include FAQs
The website is the main platform to help your potential leads. From the home page to service pages and even the blog pages, make them all informative. For instance, besides writing informative articles you can also write listicles, and how-to guides and even consider adding the FAQs style format and topics.
Whether it’s the landing page of your website or an onsite blog, the FAQs-styled question is what you need to attract the audience in the first place.
It helps to create a positive experience for your CPA firm for the accounting leads. Even if the user may not convert right away to a new client, they will become a potential prospect.
Optimization is the Key to Success
An online CPA’s most powerful tool is its website. Accounting firms operate remotely easier as compared to other forms of businesses. All a good accountant needs is a good internet connection and a laptop to log in and communicate with the client despite the distance and time zone.
But beforehand, you also need to find tactics for optimizing your website. Remote work even for CPAs relies on the website. To make the website worth its experience, focus on optimization strategy.
Potential clients are always searching for related information about accounting, bookkeeping, taxes, and forms, etc. So, if you want your website to show up in results for the accounting lead, then SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is crucial.
It is the process that improvises and boosts the related keywords to your niche and industry. It helps to rank your CPA website in the search engine. Also, it shows that your site is credible.
Focus on Conversions
Lead generation for accountants is one of the toughest nuts to crack. To let an online CPA handle your books and handover the sensitive information is not easy.
Where SEO helps maintain your site’s credibility, on the other hand, also focuses on conversion optimization. You want the website visitor to convert into an accounting lead. It is possible to do so with Conversion Rate optimization.
Each page should have a clear message and a CTA (Call-to-Action) that will be the final draw for the accounting lead. The goal is to ensure that the potential client converts into a new client.
Do Not Forget to Emails
Many believe email marketing to be dead – IT’S NOT!
Getting bookkeeping clients to see emails is a mystery of its own. A quality-driven email gets the most clicks. In email marketing, you need to provide the email address on your website, whether it’s for subscription or to download content, or even the contact us page. Lead generation for accountants is possible if they stay connected even after the prospect conversion.
Emails are authentic tools just for the occasion. The simplest way is to engage clients with a weekly or monthly newsletter. It can include information and news about any upgrades in services, your firm, industry trends, and so on.
You must choose lead-generating techniques in your marketing that will yield the most results (new, lucrative clients) for the least amount of effort (time and money).
What are the NEW (and significantly improved) methods for obtaining accounting leads then?
The top 5 lead generating techniques for accounting companies and tax planning professionals are as follows:
LinkedIn Outreach
Due to the ability to specifically target the kind of business owner you want to reach, LinkedIn is a fantastic tool for accountants to create leads. On LinkedIn, for instance, you can choose your audience by:
- Title of Position
- Industry
- Sector Size
- Keywords
- Years of experience
- Seniority, and more!
The best part is that LinkedIn automation solutions can fully automate lead creation on LinkedIn.
When utilized properly, LinkedIn is a fantastic lead-generation platform for accountants. Additionally, since LinkedIn lead generation is quick, you can leave it running in the background as you concentrate on other marketing channels.
Google SEO
Google SEO is one of the finest strategies to automatically generate free accounting leads for your accounting firm each month.
Numerous people look for assistance with accounting and tax-related services on Google every day in the thousands. If they locate you, you’ll be able to obtain high-intent leads from individuals who are now looking for your services.
How can Google SEO be used by accounting firms to generate leads?
By responding to queries that your potential customers are searching for, you can improve your Google ranking for free. You can rank for more keywords on Google by answering more questions on your website.
Because they are actively looking for a solution, leads convert more quickly and you can get leads without spending money on advertisements! Once you top Google’s search results, you can continue to receive leads for many months or even years.
It’s likely that you found this article from a Google search you did on lead generation for accountants. This alone is evidence that the tactic is effective. All you have to do is write blog posts for your accounting firm’s website that address inquiries from prospective clients.
YouTube SEO
YouTube SEO is a rare find for accounting firms because YouTube is still not being used by accountants.
This indicates that there is little competition on YouTube for information relating to accounting and taxes.
Similar to how leads are generated with Google SEO, accounting leads are generated on YouTube.
All you have to do is provide the information that your potential customers are looking for. The only difference is that you would respond to these inquiries in video format and submit it to YouTube rather than writing your responses as written content for your website.
Compared to Google search, YouTube search has a quicker ranking process. Videos on YouTube can be ranked on both Google and YouTube search engines. You can gain leads’ trust with video far more quickly than you can with written material and you have fewer competitors because fewer accountants are making videos
For accountants who are ready for the challenge, YouTube has the potential to be a gold mine! Making movies does involve some initial labor, but the payoff will be worth it in the long run.
Paid Advertising (e.g Facebook ads)
Another excellent option for accountants to increase the number of leads, appointments, and clients they receive each month is through paid advertising on sites like Facebook, Google, or even TikTok.
In order to turn total strangers into appointments and customers, you must first have a lead generation funnel. The type of people you want to target must then be decided. Additionally, you have the option to block accounting professionals from seeing your adverts.
For example, Facebook will inform you of your cost per lead and cost per appointment when you have spent between $1,000 and $3,000 on Facebook Ads. You can choose how many leads you wish to purchase from Facebook each month after you know your cost per lead and cost per appointment.
For instance, if your cost per appointment for Facebook Ads is $200, you would pay Facebook $2,000 to get 10 leads ($200 per appointment multiplied by 10 appointments equals $2,000). In other words, you can request as many appointments and leads as you’d like!
You may get a general notion of what to anticipate when running sponsored advertisements by looking at the Facebook ad analytics & KPIs from our accounting clients below:
- For accounting firms, the cost per lead from Facebook ads can range from $5 to $50. The typical ranges from $10 to $20.
- For accounting companies, the price of a Facebook appointment might range from $50 to $500. The typical ranges from $200 to $300.
- The price for accounting companies to use Facebook ads to bring in a new client can range from $500 to $5,000 (the typical cost is between $2,000 and $3000).
According to our research, the price of Facebook ads for accountants can change depending on:
- demographics of your intended audience. It will cost more to target business owners on Facebook who makes more money.
- your intended destination. Your normal cost per lead is lower the more areas you target (because Facebook is more likely to find people who convert).
- Your communication. Your cost per lead will be cheaper the more your message connects with your audience.
Using paid advertising platforms like Facebook advertisements is a terrific approach to quickly find accounting leads!
However, we advise using Facebook advertisements for short-term results while simultaneously working on marketing channels that obtain more profitable long-term outcomes in order to achieve the greatest results (and maximum profit!) (such as Google SEO, YouTube SEO, or both).
Buy accounting leads online
Purchasing accounting leads online from another marketing or lead-generation firm is a common lead-generation tactic for accountants.
The following determines whether purchasing leads from another lead generation or marketing firm will be successful:
- Lead types you’re purchasing
- How good are the leads
- The technique you’re employing while purchasing leads
Purchasing accounting leads can be effective in some circumstances, but finding high-quality leads is quite difficult today. Before purchasing leads from a lead-generation company, there are a few significant benefits and drawbacks that you should be aware of.
A benefit of this is that you don’t have to put in any work to generate leads.
The various lead types that accountants can purchase are as follows:
Shared leads. Leads that are generated online by a lead generation or marketing organization and then sold to various accountants are known as shared leads. Shared leads are inexpensive, but it is quite tough to convert them into customers. You’ll face stiff competition from numerous other accounting companies if you purchase pooled leads.
Purchasing lead lists: It will take a lot of work before any of these leads turn into clients if you purchase an accounting lead list (such as a database of new business owners in your area). Without having to purchase any lead lists, there are other, more effective ways to automatically target people in these databases.
Exclusive leads: These are frequently individuals who express interest in working with an accounting company by filling out an internet form. These leads are just available to you and are not shared with anyone else. Shared leads are of substantially lower quality than exclusive leads. Expect to spend more for these kinds of leads as a result.
You can purchase a variety of leads for various accounting services, such as:
- lead generation for accountancy firms
- lead in bookkeeping
- Tax observance results
- Tax preparation leads
- Leads in tax consulting
- Lead CPA
- IRS tax owed causes
In general, purchasing leads can be effective if you can locate a lead generation business that offers high-quality exclusive accounting leads. In contrast, getting your own exclusive leads at a discount will always be more profitable in the long run than purchasing leads.
Final Thoughts
Generating accounting leads is not an easy feat but if you do follow the above-mentioned tips, then you have twice the window of opportunity to find and retain potential prospects into new clients.
My CPA Dashboard is one of the best accounting software that helps CPAs, bookkeepers, and accountants to work efficiently and reduce their work hours too.
So, even if you work as a freelancer or an online CPA, the use of accounting software will benefit you to help find new leads. After all, My CPA Dashboard is the technology at its best.
