From small startups to larger organizations, tax and accounting firms need reliable ways to stay in touch with their contacts. This process might include establishing email marketing campaigns for potential clients, maintaining relationships with existing customers, or touching base with external players and stakeholders.

As the owner of a tax or accounting firm, do you have a plan in place for building, managing, and growing your email list? If not, it’s time to seriously consider how this tactic plays a role in your firm’s long-term success and strategic marketing efforts. 

At CountingWorks PRO, we believe that managing your email list is one of the most important ways that you can stay competitive in a crowded market, build brand recognition, and carry out lead nurturing successfully.

Looking for practical tips and strategies to grow your list? Stick around and allow us to share some of the benefits of an email marketing strategy and five practical ways to grow and leverage your firm’s list. 

What are the Benefits of an Email List? 

An email list is beneficial for your tax or accounting firm because it allows you to manage a current, up-to-date list of contacts who stand to benefit from your financial services. Automated emails are also useful when you want to accomplish the following tasks or goals.

• A list provides a streamlined way to broadcast important messages to all clients.
• Using your list is helpful for bulk communication or more specific messaging to set audiences. 
• Email marketing gives you an advantage for customer conversion and lead nurturing.
• Once your list is established, you can use pre-built templates and automations to save time and resources when you want to send new messages.

While you might not think about the email list for your tax or accounting firm in the same way that you think about email for a retail business, list maintenance isn’t any less valuable. 

Simply because you are selling a service (rather than a product) doesn’t count you out of the email race. 

Why Email Marketing Is Important 

If there was a simplified way to attract new clients and convert them to your services, and that method had a strong track record of success, would you take advantage of it?

Of course! Email marketing has proven time and again to be an irreplaceable part of many business marketing plans. The results of email marketing are impressive, and well-designed email communications continue to be vital for reconnecting with clients and encouraging them to take advantage of new offers, products, and services. Your tax and accounting firm can (and should) jump on the email bandwagon.

Data from OptInMonster shows an astounding fact—email marketing can yield up to a 4,300% return on investment for an average business. Considering just how many marketing platforms are out there (including social media and digital advertising), it’s crucial that you invest in some tools that are a sure bet. Email marketing is one of those tools that’s bound to provide an impressive return for potential customers.

5 Email Marketing Tips for Building Your Firm’s List 

You already know and understand why you should build an email list. What comes next? You should start to learn how to apply best practices to your small business so that your email marketing campaigns are a hit. 

Remember—there are many ways to build a successful email list or run a new email marketing campaign, and some of those will be unique to your own tax or accounting firm. Take it one step at a time, and apply some of the tactics below while using a qualified email service provider.

Tip 1: Start with a Recurring Email Newsletter

Sending a regular email newsletter to your clients is a sure-fire way to ramp up your email efforts to include different types of messaging. Provide easy ways for your clients to opt-in to receive these messages, and make each newsletter worthwhile.

You can use your digital newsletter to give tips to your clients and to remind them of upcoming tax or accounting deadlines. Provide “behind the scenes” glimpses of your firm, and offer personable tidbits that foster stronger relationships with your clients. Part of the intention of your newsletter should be to remind clients that you’re available to help when they have important questions or accounting needs.

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Tip 2: Make Sign-Up a Breeze

One of the best ways to grow your email list is to provide plenty of opportunities for subscribers to sign up. This means removing hurdles and asking what seems like a very obvious question—do you want to receive marketing messages from our firm?

Include opportunities for email sign-up directly on your website and in several places throughout your prospect or client-facing pages. Future subscribers should be able to easily locate a simple contact or signup form, or find website landing pages where they can go to stay in touch with staff at your tax or accounting firm. 

As a general rule of thumb, email campaigns and corresponding signup forms should always be quickly accessible on mobile devices. Mobile compatibility can engage new subscribers and remove hurdles that would prevent them from signing up.

Tip 3: Offer Relevant Incentives (or Lead Magnets) to Your Target Audience

Many types of businesses offer certain incentives (usually in the form of a coupon code or special deal) for email subscribers. As an accounting firm, you might not be able to offer a coupon like 5% off a purchase, but there are other ways to use incentives in your email list-building tactics.

Does your firm have a published tax preparation checklist? Offer to share it with prospective subscribers in exchange for their contact information. Do you provide free initial meetings or basic financial consultations? Ask for an email address in exchange for those perks. 

Even though you’re giving something away, whether it’s in the form of content or time, gathering prospective customer data is extremely valuable. This method can also help you segment your list based on which contacts are interested in certain services. 

Tip 4: Leverage In-Person Networking

Depending on how visible you are in professional or community circles, you can use in-person networking to gather additional email contacts. This is an especially important strategy if the majority of your new business comes from your local region or zip code.

In exchange for new email addresses, you might provide a simple token (like a business card), or enter the names of people who provide their information into a giveaway. 

This strategy is more conventional, but it’s still effective for tax professionals and accountants who regularly sell services to members of their local community. Being active and involved—even outside of a digital context—still holds value when making future sales. It can also increase customer loyalty since future clients can place a face with a brand or a name, as compared to relying on an email campaign alone.

Tip 5: Link Up with Other Marketing Channels (Social Media)

If you want to build successful email campaigns, you must be willing to share about your list cross-channel. For example, you can use your Facebook or Instagram posts to invite potential subscribers to join your email list. If followers are interested in your content on social media, chances are good that they would also benefit from regular email communications.

When you promote your email list on other channels, always be transparent. Let new subscribers know exactly what they can expect to receive and why it’s a good idea to sign up. 

When you’re clear from the start, you can improve your email response rates and reduce the number of possible unsubscribes later on.

How to Engage Your List with Targeted Emails

Once you’ve worked on building a sizable list for your tax or accounting firm, it’s time to keep subscribers hooked. Generating interest will likely involve finding the balance between consistent messages that aren’t overbearing (or that go directly to a spam folder). 

Email marketers can engage a current list and continue to add new subscribers by utilizing the following tips in future campaigns.

• Continue to create new, engaging content that readers want and need.
• Conduct market research and review analytics to see what's working in your marketing emails.
• Use effective elements (like subject lines) that hook readers right away.
• Automate as many email processes as possible, so that you stay consistent in your client outreach and new client marketing.
• Stay top-of-mind with automated email newsletters or welcome emails that contain accurate information.
• Build trust in your brand by using mailing lists to send personal messages that resonate with your current client base. 
• Offer a clear and visible unsubscribe link to stay compliant with rules and laws set by email service providers.

Build Your Marketing Automation with CountingWorks PRO

Building an email list that benefits your tax or accounting firm isn’t an overnight solution. In fact, it’s bound to take some time, experimentation, and hard work to make your email list a reality. 

Once you have your growing subscriber base, you’ll need to put in the work to ensure that you’re sending relevant messages that keep clients engaged.

Fortunately, marketing emails don’t have to be impossible chores on your to-do list. Let CountingWorks PRO eliminate the stress in your email marketing processes. We’ll help you automate, organize, and build an even stronger reputation with your subscriber base.

If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to contact us to speak with an expert. Not ready to talk to an expert? You can always try out our platform for free here.