Growth Hacking for Accounting Firms: What is It and How to Do It

Today, growth hacking has been accepted as an integral part of digital marketing for most businesses. Nowadays, it has become essential for a new accounting firm or startup to have a dedicated digital marketing team or growth hacker to acquire new clients and businesses. Moreover, it is also crucial for an old accounting firm to keep acquiring new businesses to stay in the race.

However, a growth hacker is sometimes confused with a consultant who is found to be more of a motivational speaker rather than someone who knows how to increase profits and grow business.

So, What Does Growth Hacking Mean?

Growth hacking is a new term in the corporate world which is nothing but the strategies that lead to the growth of your business and increases in profits. So, a growth hacker is someone who is a marketer along with a data-driven tech expert who uses creative and innovative strategies to achieve the growth for a business.

The growth hackers are good at interpreting data through reports and analytics to identify market potential, trends, product and service performance, etc. They can understand and analyze the spreadsheets, databases, and graphs in detail.

At each customer journey stage (Attract, Engage, and Delight), growth hackers use various strategies to acquire new business, increase profits, keep customers engaged, and develop a brand image in the market.

A growth hacker always knows how to grow your business and the best marketing strategy to be used. They implement the changes in strategies and policies based on the quantitative data and react as fast as possible to make use of that data in their marketing strategy.

So, one can merely say that growth hacking is the process of adapting to the market trends, and performance of your services based on the quantitative data or reports and stats.

If accounting/CPA firm doesn’t have a growth hacking expert, then you must consider hiring one. However, until you do that, we have enlisted some of the most popular hacks for the accounting firms to grow your business.

1. Figure Out Your Target Clients

Every lead is different from each other, and every client has different needs. So, identify your target clients for better compatibility and check if they are a valuable client for your firm or not. You must be clear in your mind on how your target client must look like. Analyze the USP (Unique Selling Point) distinguishing your firm from others and how can you take advantage of it.

For instance, you can market a specific feature in front of your clients. You may also consider targeting the clients in the area you specialize in.

To identify your client, you must consider these factors.

• How much money are they bringing to your firm?
• How easy is it to work with or deal with them?
• Are they bringing positive exposure to your firm?
• Do they bring new leads and clients to your firm?
• Can they help you out in referring to their colleagues and partners?
• How effectively can you work with them?

Such factors can help you decide if a specific client is a right fit for your firm or you should consider focusing on other clients. However, there can be other factors that you may consider before collaborating with a client.

2. Connect with Other Trusted Professionals

There are chances that your clients are collaborating with other firms to use those services which are not offered by your firm. It is essential that you help out your clients in finding the best services provider for your clients.

This way, you can recommend your clients those firms which provide the required services and can expect the same favor from them. So, it’s better that you have good relations with other trusted professionals and firms like investment advisors, recruiters, lawyers, technology consultants, etc. for mutual benefits.

Moreover, such practice may result in a non-competitive environment among your firm and others.

3. Ask for Referrals

Your firm’s clients are the best salespersons. They do interact with other professionals, businesses, peers and you can take advantage of this fact. Make sure that they are satisfied with your services so that they can refer your firm to their colleagues and partners.

You should not wait for them to refer your firm to new clients, people and businesses. Instead, follow a proactive approach by requesting them to do the same.

Moreover, you can use professional mediums like LinkedIn for spreading the word and recommendations. Ask for reviews from your best clients and put them on your website.

4. Sell Additional Services to Your Clients

This is one of the most effective methods to increase business, and many accounting firms make use of it. You can offer complementary services to your existing clients. They already use your services and are in regular touch with you. Hence, there are high chances that they may accept your offerings and retain your firm for a long duration.

5. Improve Your Networking

It is common knowledge that networking events can help you and your firm in obtaining new contacts, leads, and clients. But, it’s important to make sure that you know how to make the best out of it.

In such accounting related events, there are big opportunities to connect with like-minded people and to display your ideas and product.

6. Go Viral

There are chances that you are targeting a small section of a vast pool of potential clients. You must make efforts to reach out to a wide audience, and for that, you must go viral. It is one of the widely used concepts by growth hackers as they understand the power of getting viral.

Image Credit: Outgrow

For that, you may use relevant hashtags and various social media platforms for your content marketing like blogs and videos. It can help your business reaching its potential with a viral marketing approach. So, don’t restrict yourself to a small part of the audience when you can reach further.

7. Establish Your Goals and Objectives Firmly

Most of the growth hackers help their firms in establishing goals and objectives which can be measured and improved. There are many cases where a firm sets a goal, and when they fail to achieve it, they have no clue what went wrong and how to implement the strategy in achieving that goal or objective.

So, always set a goal which is achievable, measurable and timely bound. If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Look at your business model, assess the market, compare it to your competitors’ model and think of a marketing strategy or plan which is achievable, timely bound and measurable.

This will help you in analyzing your practices, and you can improvise them or improve them. This way your firm can reach its potential as fast as possible.

Wrapping Up

Growth hacking has become a popular term among businesses and for good reasons. If your firm is continuously failing at achieving its targets or goals, then you may consider hiring a growth hacking specialist. However, you can take the help of above-enlisted hacks to make sure your profits keep increasing and so does your business.

Growth hacking is nothing but making a marketing strategy based on quantitative data and reports based on your services. If you are smart enough to analyze your plan and practices, then you may not face failures, and even if you do, then you will find out where to improve.

What do you know about growth hacking? Give us your valuable inputs in the comments section.