What is Growth Hacking and How to Do it for Your Accounting Firm?

Accounting firm growth strategy nowadays has been considered as a vital aspect of internet marketing for almost every business that seeks business growth by using digital platforms. Moreover, in the current era, it has become crucial for a startup or new accounting firm to employ a skilled team of growth hackers or digital marketers to acquire new business in the form of more clients.

However, people should not get confused between a growth hacker and a consultant as a consultant is one who recommends solutions, but a growth hacker knows how to increase your profits and grow your firm and does the same.

So, What Does Growth Hacking Mean?

Growth hacking is a new term in the corporate world, defining strategies that lead a business toward attaining profits and growth. Thus, growth hackers always strive to create the best marketing strategies and practices. In fact, growth hackers are marketers having data-driven technical expertise.

They interpret data using a multitude of analytics & reports to identify the performance of products & services, market trends & potential, etc. By utilizing the analytical data, they build creative and innovative marketing strategies for business growth.

For this reason, growth hacking can be defined as the process of adopting change as per the change in market trends and performance of a service/product based on analytical reports and/or statistical data.

You might now search for some talented growth hackers for your accounting firm, but by the time you hire one, here are some of the growth hacking strategies you can follow.

Top Growth Strategies for Accounting Firms

1. To Earn More, Offer More Services

Review your services and find ways to expand them. Ask yourself the below-mentioned questions, and you will know what to do.

• Are your customers inquiring about services that you are not offering currently?
• Are you completely making use of your and your employees’ qualifications & skills?
• Apart from bookkeeping and accounting services, could your firm provide other or related services such as advisory or financial planning services?

In addition to finding answers to these questions, ask your employees if they have any ideas for the same, or get feedback from your clients. After that, you will have options to either build new strategies or educate your employees further or hire people for the same.

2. Consider Technology Investment

Adopting new technologies for your accounting firm growth can help you enhance operational efficiency, deliver services proficiently, save your time & money.

• You can get collaborative work done by using online project management tools such as Slack or Trello, and for file sharing, consider Box or Dropbox.
• Save time and effort by following the concept of virtual meeting: use web-conferencing services such as Skype for Business or Glip by RingCentral.
• You might already be using one of them, but if not, know that accounting software such as NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, Wave, and Xero can impressively simplify the way you perform daily accounting operations.
• Similarly to prevent tax mistakes and simplify complex tax calculations, use tax preparation software such as Intuit ProSeries, TaxWise, ATX, UltimateTax, Drake, etc.
• For accurate and quicker payroll management, use Wave Payroll, Gusto, Patriot, ADP, Zipbooks, etc.
• To manage interactions occurring between your firm and clients, use CRM tools such as ZOHO, Salesforce, InterAction, Sugar, Hubspot CRM, ContactEase, HighRise, etc.

The technologies mentioned above, when utilized by your firm, can free up potential time & resources that could better be used otherwise for business growth.

3. Identify The Clients Your Firm Needs

As one lead is distinct from the other, every client of yours has different requirements. Thus, for better compatibility of your firm and clients, identify your target clients and check if they will turn out to be valuable or not.

Find out the USPs that make your firm different than others and find out ways to take advantage out of them. For example, you can highlight and market a feature of your services, or target the clients in the industry you specialize in; for instance, real estate, hospitality, retail, manufacturing, etc.

Consider these factors to identify the clients you need:

• The amount of money they are bringing to your firm.
• Find out how easy it is to work for or deal with them.
• Find out if they are bringing positive exposure.
• Figure out if they are bringing new leads or clients.
• Know if you are willing to work with them for long.

These and many other factors can help you identify the clients that would bring value to your firm. However, there can be many other factors that you might consider before closing a deal with a client.

4. Networking Was, Is, and Will Be The Key to Success

In this digitally growing world, social networking websites are the best means of networking, and for B2B networking, what else could be better than LinkedIn. Create or update your profile on LinkedIn and connect with your employees, business partners, clients, industry peers, etc.

However, avoid using it only to market your firm. Use it for engaging with industry experts, asking questions, responding with your answers to others’ questions, posting thoughtful/inspiring/motivational writing pieces, being a part of conversations, and talking about your firm decently.

All of this will help you frequently appear on the feed section of the people connected to your profile; additionally, you will be easily reachable if they are interested in your services or wish to refer someone to your firm.

5. Consider Providing Client Accounting Services

If you start offering CAS, you will be handling a wide range of accounting functions of your clients, including cash flow, accounts payables & receivables, payroll, trial balance, financial statements, regulatory compliance, etc. Doing this will help you perform financial forecasting for them and give them valuable pieces of advice accordingly.

CAS will help you improve your client’s business, and happy clients will refer your firm to others, leading to more leads, more business, and growth.

6. Go Viral

Chances are there that you are missing out on a whole lot of potential clients. It is vital to reach a broad target audience, and for that, going viral would turn out to be your smartest step. This is an effective accounting firm growth strategy that hackers follow.

Spreading your firm’s information across online platforms might include improving the look and feel of your website, sending e-newsletters, ensuring your details on Google My Business listing are up-to-date and investing in online advertisement campaigns, especially on social networking platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Considerable Social Media Statistics:

• 94% of all social media users frequently post content (either text or image or a combination of both) on social media, out of which 42% post at least once a day.
• People across the globe share a variety of content on social media, where images are the most common type of content posted by 69% of social media users.
• 52% of social media users most often use Facebook: however, people might be spending more total time on other social media platforms, such as Instagram & YouTube.

7. Set Measurable Goals

Across the world, growth hackers actively assist their firms in establishing trackable and improvable objectives. There are many instances where a firm fails to achieve an established objective; they have no information on what went wrong and what to do next to make it right.

Thus, analyze your business model, conduct market research, perform competitor analyses, and build a strategy that is measurable, achievable, and time-bound.

This will help analyze your marketing practices, which you can improve as per the requirements and situations. That way, you can partner with an accounting firm and implement a growth strategy to efficiently meet objectives.

Conclusion

If your firm has been failing to achieve its objectives, you might want to consider getting a growth hacker on board. However, the above-enlisted accounting firm growth strategy would also have a significantly positive impact on your business, but only if you are ready to analyze your current marketing strategies and practices yourself.

Or else, you may consider contacting Cogneesol – one of the leading global accounting outsourcing services providers, delivering quality finance and accounting solutions to businesses since 2008. Get in touch with us today at +1-833-313-3143 or email us at [email protected].