Strategies for growing your accounting practice: how to win clients

Looking for new ways to attract clients to your accounting practice? You’re not alone.

Last year, Accounting Today reported that 20% of small accounting firms and 12% of mid-sized firms expected their growth to decline. The same report found that 26% of firms said attracting and retaining new clients was their biggest challenge.

Part of the reason? It’s likely the industry’s tendency to fall back on word of mouth and referrals.

That strategy is increasingly ineffective because the vast majority of potential clients will research firms online – so your digital footprint will dictate how attractive your firm is to new clients.

The basic steps in digital marketing are to build a memorable brand online, expand your reach, and then to track data to constantly iterate and improve on your outreach strategies. Below, we’ll cover all the basics, starting with the most fundamental element: your brand.

The fundamentals: building a brand for your accounting practice

Seth Godin said it best: “If Nike opened a hotel, I think we would be able to guess pretty accurately what it would be like. If Hyatt came out with sneakers? We’d have no clue. Because Hyatt doesn’t have a brand – they have a logo.”

Godin’s philosophy is that a brand is a promise; a shortcut that helps your clients understand what to expect from you. 

So what’s the Nike of accounting firms? It might be a firm that helps advise young clients on individual taxes, or a firm that helps corporate clients stay on top of their financial reporting with less hassle.

Find your niche and differentiator: what do your clients want?

Two of the most important aspects of a brand are what niche you serve, and what your differentiator is. These two things should be related. When you think of your niche, whether they are individual clients, corporate clients, or both, ask yourself: what does this cohort care about? Why have they chosen to work with me over my competitors? That’s your differentiator.

Fine-tune your website (aka your accounting firm’s homebase)

If you already have your brand concept, the next step is making sure that your website communicates it clearly. That could also involve doing some keyword research to make sure your content is tailored to what your audience is searching for. You can use tools like Answer the Public and Google Keyword Planner to find the best keywords in your niche that balance higher search volumes and lower competition.

Tailor the customer journey on your website

It’s also good practice to make sure the customer journey to working with you is clear. For example, online booking software like Calendly can make it easy for clients to set up a consultation without having to play phone tag. A FAQ section on your booking page can also help guide clients to other parts of your site they might want to read first.

Get started on Google Business so local clients can find you

Having a Google Business page is almost as important as a website for SEO, particularly if your accounting practice has a local office. It helps search engines validate your business location and industry, and lets you connect all your info to Google Maps. Filling out this page as completely as possible will give you the biggest SEO boost – and you’ll have access to valuable analytics too.

Next steps: expand your accounting firm’s reach

If you know a little bit about digital marketing, you’ve probably heard of the PESO model of digital marketing. It’s an acronym that stands for the different types of media – Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned – that you can leverage to get the word out there about your firm.

As you produce more content, you can start reviewing analytics to see what’s working with your audience and where to focus your efforts.

Start with owned media: building out your website

Creating a website is the first step to generating owned media, which is media on platforms that you own. Expanding the content on your site is the second step – for example, blog posts and email newsletters that highlight your expertise. If you have a variety of services (for example, tax filing for individuals and reporting for corporate clients), a landing page for each one can help you target each market segment with tailored content.

Boost your content with shared media: get active on social

Shared media means anything that you share on social platforms, whether it’s on your own platform, in social media groups, or through partnerships. Do a little digging into what platform your target market uses most, then start with that one and create a social strategy to educate, entertain, inspire, and promote. Most accounting firms will have clients on LinkedIn, but platforms like TikTok can be useful to share expertise with younger professionals.

Widen your reach with paid media: start purchasing ads

Once you have more of a marketing budget, take a look at your analytics to see where it might be good to invest in paid ads. There are a lot of options from Google Ads to OTT video ads and social ads, but you don’t have to go out and spend on every platform. Instead, target the ones that are doing well so you can fine-tune your approach and expand later.

Reinforce your brand with earned media: reviews, PR, and more

Once all these things are in place, you’re likely to get more earned media – client testimonials, media mentions, and influencer partnerships that you can leverage on your website and social. For example, encourage your clients to leave reviews on your Google business page, and consider turning the best testimonials into case studies that you can share and use in ads.

Advanced: iterate and improve to scale your practice

If you’ve reached this point, you’ll naturally start accumulating a lot of data on where your new clients are coming from and what content is resonating with them. This data will help you iterate and improve on your approaches so you can keep your strategies current and stay competitive over time.

Fortunately, you can track a lot of your analytics for free using analytics tools that are embedded into the social platforms you’re on.

For tracking analytics on your website, Google Analytics is the tried-and-true way to measure website performance on the world’s most popular search engine. You can also use Hotjar’s free heatmap tool to get started with more granular data on how far your clients are scrolling down each blog post.

A final note on ROI: focus on retention

Although many tools are free, you’ll inevitably spend some time and money on getting new clients in the door. The best way to ensure your money was well spent is to have a solid retention plan in place for your best clients.

First, keep in mind that your analytics can help you understand what your current customers want, too. For example, if your email marketing campaign on new tax regulations gets a high clickthrough rate, you could consider offering advisory services on that topic.

Second, keep up your exceptional service as you grow with tools like ProCharted. The more clients you take on, the more important it is to centralize information so you don’t miss a beat when your clients have questions. 

If you rely on referrals, you’ll know that your best clients are also your best spokespeople – so treat them well, and you’ll have a strong foundation to support you as you grow.