beyond referrals: getting new clients

19 proven growth strategies every accountant should know. 

by sandi leyva

tax and accounting firm owners seeking faster growth than mere referrals ill allow now have a slew of new options for finding new clients.

if you’d like to find out more about how other tax and accounting firms acquire clients, take our survey, and we’ll send you the results.

join the survey. get the results

the problem is most accountants don’t know about them.  the opportunity is huge for accountants willing to learn and experiment with these new marketing methods.

here’s a quick checklist of places where businesses in all industries and of all sizes are getting leads online.  how many of these is your firm utilizing?

  1. your firm website (non-advertising) via organic seo ranking
  2. online ads from google, bing, yelp, linkedin, facebook, twitter, youtube, or other sources
  3. social media inquiries
  4. online forums such as reddit or quora, answering people’s questions
  5. online listings, including yelp, google business listing, bing, or other directory sites
  6. email, newsletter, or opt-in campaigns
  7. chatbots
  8. messenger campaigns
  9. webinar speaking engagements, class instructor via a university, adult education center, or own classes
  10. live video or live tv or live radio
  11. recorded video, podcasts, or webcasts

many of these channels, such as messenger and chatbots are fairly new. others, such as live video, have been around a while but have greatly improved in the past year or so. still others such as email campaigns, have crazy-high roi and have been around for more than 10 years but just haven’t caught on or are poorly executed in accounting firms.

many accounting firms are still using some of the following tried and true methods.  these tend to be more expensive at this point.

take a look to see how many of these are currently effective for your firm:

  1. networking groups
  2. volunteer work connections
  3. making phone calls to people i want to do business with
  4. newspaper, magazine, or online news column or article or guest blog post
  5. book or ebook author
  6. press mentions or press release publicity
  7. publicity through award(s)
  8. trade show exhibits or sponsorships
  9. nonprofit sponsorship