If you own an accounting firm, you’ll probably need a regular flow of new clients each year to maintain the health of your company and to take the place of any current clients who decide to part ways. However, since the majority of accounting firm owners are focused on running their businesses during the day, there may not be much time left over to concentrate on new business initiatives.

Additionally, it is common for the cost of acquiring new clients to go toward marketing expenses as well as other internal or external resources, such as a specialized agency. Your existing client turnover rate and any future ambitions, such as a desire to grow, will probably affect how much time and money you invest in acquiring new customers.

We’ve provided some fundamental guidance for accounting firm owners below, which should help them make better-informed decisions regarding the resources they should devote to new business ventures.

1) Improve Your Website

The public face of your company is its website. Making your website expert, beneficial, and appealing can help you attract (and keep) more customers.

There are systems like WordPress that are free to use and may assist you in creating professional-looking themes that are device responsive and search engine friendly if you have a very small budget. Make sure pages aren’t overloaded with unclear or irrelevant material in addition to having a professional template. On every page, you should also include a clear call to action (CTA), such as “schedule a consultation” or “contact us.”

Positive reviews and testimonials are one method to make your website stand out. Prospective clients will be inspired to learn more about your accounting firm after reading the good testimonials of your present clients. These potential customers will learn more about you and think more highly of you if you also add an “about us” section. Last but not least, ensure that the site loads quickly—ideally in less than two seconds—as slow-loading websites have been shown to boost bounce rates.

2) Use Software Tools to Improve Your Efficiency

It goes without saying that potential customers want to collaborate with an accounting business that completes jobs precisely, effectively, and promptly. Therefore, you must demonstrate to potential clients that you follow these fundamental principles if you want to acquire additional clients. Additionally, prospective customers will be much more willing to collaborate with an accounting firm that can assist them in automating activities and boosting productivity.

For instance, building a client self-service portal would not only save you time but will also be more effective and convenient for the client. Additionally, by collaborating with a trusted cloud-based accounting software vendor (s), your clients will have access to their data around-the-clock and from any place. Being more effective has the overall effect of giving you more time to focus on new business prospects while allowing prospective clients to recognize the advantages of working with you.

3) Focus on Digital Marketing

One of the most crucial and efficient ways to attract more customers is to increase your internet presence. The alternatives for doing this, however, are numerous, so you must ensure that you have a clear plan for what you want to do and how you are going to do it. Again, this will be determined by your objectives and financial constraints.

There are free hobbies you may attempt if you just want to dangle your toes in the water, like creating informative, helpful material for your blog. If done right, this can establish your accounting firm as a leading voice in the field, considerably enhancing your reputation and assisting you in gaining new clients.

Examine social media as a further low-cost option, and make sure your company is present on all pertinent social media networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and in particular LinkedIn). To keep viewers interested and expand your audience, try to post frequently. An excellent strategy to develop the brand and reputation of your company is to post your content on social media.

4) Obtain Referrals

Many clients still prefer to locate an accounting firm through recommendations from friends, family members, suppliers, business acquaintances, etc., despite the clear influence of marketing. As a result of being explicitly recommended by someone they know and trust, referrals are typically simpler to “close” as a new client.

If your company is good and provides outstanding service, you should eventually start receiving organic referrals. Attending networking events, some of which are created particularly for business referrals like the BNI, may help you encourage this process.

5) Target High-Value Clients

Quality might occasionally outweigh numbers when it comes to gaining new clients for your accounting firm. You might want to concentrate on securing a select number of very valuable clients who are more likely to stick around over the long run rather than acquiring a large number of new clients who don’t each bring much financial worth.

It could be helpful to define your specialization and the areas in which your business actually excels if you want to attract these high-value clients. You’ll probably have a much better notion of which clients would be the best long-term fit for your accounting company once you’ve done this, and you’ll be able to start focusing your marketing efforts on these specific prospects. Additional excellent advice on how to get higher-value clients is provided in this eBook.

The majority of small business owners, as noted in the beginning, favor working on the day job above marketing and bringing in new clients. However, it’s also true that ignoring these two tasks for an extended period of time could eventually put your accounting firm at grave risk, so it’s crucial to have a plan in place based on your goals.

There are various lower-cost activities to assist you to get started, as mentioned above, so doing this doesn’t necessarily require spending thousands of pounds on additional employees, advertising, or agency costs. There is always the alternative to invest more resources to try and accomplish the objectives you have set out in case these do not produce the number of new clients you require.