Email Marketing For Accounting Firms – How To Succeed

Email Marketing For Accounting Firms – How To Succeed

Email marketing can be extremely effective if you do it right. 

In fact, it’s estimated that the average return on investment for every  $1.20 spent on email marketing is $42.65

And that’s just the average ROI – it can be even higher if you know what you’re doing!

So how can you use email marketing to grow your accounting business?

Design Your Sales Funnel First

Email marketing doesn’t exist in isolation.

If you want to be effective at it, you need to put it in its proper context: your entire sales funnel.

Otherwise, you’ll run a risk of succumbing to the siren song of vanity metrics – you can’t stay focused on the big picture if you don’t know what that big picture is!

Moreover, if you don’t have a solid system for converting potential customers into leads, leads into customers, and customers into repeat customers, then you are just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping that something sticks. 

And sure, you might indeed find something that works that way, but it’s an extremely ineffective approach to growing a business.

That’s why we recommend starting with the big picture – design your sales funnel first, then work on email marketing. 

We believe that the most effective way to sell anything online is the Value Ladder sales funnel.

It was created by our co-founder Russel Brunson who then used it to take ClickFunnels from zero to $10M+ in annual revenue in just one year (it’s at $100M+ now!). 

This sales funnel has four stages:

  • Bait. You offer the potential customer your lead magnet in exchange for their email address. 
  • Frontend. You offer the potential customer your least expensive and least valuable product or service. 
  • Middle. You offer the customer a more expensive and valuable product or service. 
  • Backend. You offer the customer your most expensive and most valuable product or service. 

Ideally, you also offer a continuity program of some sort, meaning, a subscription product that generates recurring revenue. 

We also recommend adding downsells, upsells, and cross-sells to these core offers in order to maximize your revenue. 

Design Your Sales Funnel First

The reason why this sales funnel works so well is that it allows you to:

  1. Start the relationship with that person by offering free value.
  2. Nurture that relationship by continuing to provide free value via email. 
  3. Build trust by providing progressively more paid value at each stage.

Here’s how Russel explains it:

This might seem complicated at first glance, but it doesn’t have to be – you only need a lead magnet and a frontend offer to get started. 

You can always build out the rest of your sales funnel later!

Choose the Right Software

The next step is to choose the right software for your business.

Obviously, we are biased here, but we believe that ClickFunnels 2.0 is the best solution on the market.

Our software comes with a library of proven, high-converting sales funnel templates that you can customize according to your needs with our visual editor.

This means that you won’t have to build your sales funnel from scratch – you can simply choose a template that has been proven to work for service businesses like yours. 

Moreover, our app has an in-built email marketing functionality that you can use to

  • Send one-off broadcast emails such as time-sensitive announcements.
  • Set up automated email sequences like the welcome sequence that we will discuss later in this article.
  • Create email workflows with behavioral triggers to automatically tailor your email marketing based on the actions that the subscriber takes.

Plus, there’s also a customer relationship management (CRM) system, so you can easily keep track of everything that is happening in your sales pipeline. 

In short, ClickFunnnels 2.0 has everything you need to grow your accounting business online.

So why pay for a bunch of separate apps when you could do everything with one comprehensive platform?

Start Your FREE Trial Today

Grow Your Email List With a Lead Magnet

Small business owners often add a few opt-in forms to their websites and then just leave it at that.

However, this isn’t an effective way to grow your email list because people aren’t excited to sign up just to “get updates”. 

A much better way to go about it is to build a lead generation funnel – this is the Bait stage of your Value Ladder:

  1. Create a lead magnet.
  2. Create a landing page for your lead magnet.
  3. Drive traffic to that landing page.

Create a Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to potential customers in exchange for their email address.

It can be anything that they can either download to their device or access online:

  • A video.
  • An ebook.
  • A webinar.
  • An email course.
  • A video course.

…etc. 

What’s important is that:

  1. Your lead magnet offers a solution to a problem that the potential customer is struggling with.
  2. That solution is either the same one or related to the problem that your frontend offer addresses. 

We have noticed that what works well for service businesses such as accounting firms is offering information designed to help potential customers to solve the problem themselves. 

This might seem counterintuitive at first, but the reason it works is this:

When someone has a problem and you offer a solution for free, they will be inclined to check it out because why not, right?

But once they realize how complicated solving that problem is, they might decide to just hire someone instead to avoid the hassle.

And that’s when you get a perfect opportunity to pitch your service.

Of course, it might be that the reason they were interested in a DIY solution to their problem is that they simply can’t afford to can’t hire anyone. 

But then they wouldn’t have hired you anyway so you haven’t lost anything!

In that case, you still got their email address and started building trust by providing free value.

This means that if they ever get to the point where they can afford to hire an accountant, they might remember you and reach out for a consultation. 

So the best approach here is to create an ebook, an email course, or a webinar that provides the information that people need to solve the problem themselves.

Say, if your most affordable service is doing taxes, then you should create an ebook, an email course, or a webinar where you explain to the potential customer how to do one’s taxes…

And then offer to do it for them!

Create a Landing Page For Your Lead Magnet

Once you have your lead magnet, you need to create a landing page for it. 

We recommend starting with a simple squeeze page which is the shortest, most basic type of landing page. 

ClickFunnels 2.0 includes a bunch of proven, high-converting squeeze page templates that you can use!

Drive Traffic to Your Lead Magnet Landing Page

Once your lead magnet landing page is all set up, it’s time to start driving traffic to it.

We believe that the best way to do that is paid advertising because paid traffic is predictable, measurable, and scalable.

All major social media platforms allow you to run ads on them, but LinkedIn might be the most suitable one for an accounting firm. 

Create an ad campaign and start running it with a minimum daily ad budget ($10/day on LinkedIn). 

Don’t expect it to work straight away – usually, paid advertising campaigns require some tweaking, especially if you don’t have previous experience with running ads.

Only start scaling your ad campaign once you figure out how to run it profitably.

Set Up an Automated Welcome Sequence

We don’t recommend hitting the potential customer with a sales pitch the moment you get their email address.

Just because they were interested in your lead magnet doesn’t mean that they are ready to hire you. There’s not enough trust yet!

That’s why it’s best to set up an automated welcome sequence designed to build trust on autopilot. 

Here’s a sequence that can work well if your accounting business is a one-man or one-woman show:

  • Email #1: Who Are You? Introduce yourself to the new subscriber.
  • Email #2: Where Did You Come From? Explain how you became an accountant. 
  • Email #3: What Do You Do? Explain in more detail what it is that you do. What kind of accountant are you?
  • Email #4: How Did You Gain This Expertise? Explain what makes you qualified to provide these accounting services. Mention credentials, relevant experience, past clients, etc. 
  • Email #5: Who Do You Do This For? Explain who are your dream customers and provide a case study on how you helped such a person or organization. 
  • Email #6: How Can You Do It For Me? Pitch a free consultation.

Keep in mind that the aim here isn’t to just provide information, it’s to build enough trust so that the new subscriber would consider scheduling a free consultation with you. 

This email sequence may not make sense for accounting firms that have a company brand as opposed to a personal one, especially if they want to project a corporate image. 

In that case, you might want to consider creating an email course, using it as a lead magnet, and then pitching the free consultation at the end of it.

Use the Hook, Story, Offer Copywriting Framework

Copywriting is what makes or breaks email marketing. So how can you write emails that convert?

We suggest using the “Hook, Story, Offer” framework:

  • Hook. Grab the potential customer’s attention with a compelling subject line.
  • Story. Tell them a captivating story that is relevant to them.
  • Offer. Transition from the story to a call to action.

Each email should follow this structure but you should only pitch the free consultation in email #6.

End emails #1 to #5 with a question and then encourage the new subscriber to hit the reply button and let you know what they think.

If you want to learn more about copywriting, we recommend getting a FREE copy of our friend Jim Edwards’ book “Copywriting Secrets”

Use the Hook, Story, Offer Copywriting Framework

Get “Copywriting Secrets” for FREE!

Pitch a Free Consultation at the End of Your Welcome Sequence

We recommend pitching a free consultation instead of your front-end offer at the end of your welcome sequence. Why?

Because you’ll likely find it easier to:

  1. Get someone to sign up for a free consultation.
  2. Close the sale at the end of that free consultation.

Then to sell the same service via email without actually talking to the potential customer.

Of course, that’s just a general trend that we have observed with businesses that sell services, so it may not always be the case.

Consider experimenting with both approaches to see what works best for your business. 

Want Russel To Show You How To Build Your First Sales Funnel?

Let’s keep it real:

Building a sales funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.

That’s why we created our 5 Day Challenge where Russel walks you through it step-by-step.

You will learn how to:

  • Generate unlimited leads.
  • Create your first lead magnet.
  • Build your first sales funnel.
  • Create a simple 6-email follow-up sequence.
  • And launch your funnel!

…in just five days.

So don’t hesitate.

Join our 5 Day Challenge today. It’s completely free!

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

X