Email Marketing Automation for Accountants Explained
What is Email Automation and Why do I Need it?
Email automation allows you to create emails in advance, then schedule them to send to your email list at just the right time. With the right automation tool, your accounting firm will easily stay in touch with clients and potential clients without the hassle of breaking away from other tasks to create and send an email. Think of it as a "set it and forget it" approach to marketing for accountants and CPAs. For example, during tax season when you still want and need to keep in touch with current and prospective clients but simply do not have a moment to spare.
Effective Automated Email Marketing
Once you have a solid email content marketing plan in place, it's wise to automate your campaigns. While the automation process varies from one email newsletter software system to another, there are some common steps to automation that you should consider.
- Use a Branded Email Newsletter Template – Customizing the emails your firm sends out is important. Doing so maintains consistency and reinforces your brand, making your firm easily recognizable. If you outsource your email marketing to a professional, look for one that incorporates your logo, branding, and complementary color scheme for a seamless, attractive appearance.
- Use a Mobile-Friendly Newsletter Template – Your email newsletter template should be mobile-friendly to make sure your clients experience your email marketing campaigns as intended. This will significantly enhance the customer experience and ensure readers see the content exactly as you want it to be viewed.
- Segment Your Subscriber List - Effective email marketing campaigns incorporate list segmentation. By using what you know about your email subscriber list (i.e., small business owners, individuals, potential clients, existing clients, etc.) to group or segment readers, you can customize their experience. Doing so allows you to create more personalized campaigns based on your relationship with the recipient and the recipient’s interests. For example, you may want to send a special offer only to prospective clients, encouraging them to use your services but you may want to send a completely different email to existing clients, asking them to leave a review on Google. Segmenting your subscriber list allows you to easily do both.
- Use Pre-written Content – Unless you have an excess of spare time, choose an email newsletter platform that provides accounting, tax, and small business articles that you can send to your list. This, along with being able to automate sending, can save you dozens of hours every month! Just make sure that the content provided includes quality and subject matter will appeal to small business owners, individual tax clients, and any other type of client or potential client that will receive your email newsletter.
- Use an Email Platform Made for Accountants – Perhaps most important, select an email marketing solution designed for accountants. When you choose an email newsletter platform that’s designed for the accounting industry, all of content and features will be customized around the way you work with clients. A general small business email newsletter software may not offer enough content or the right kind of content for an accounting firm. After all, you work in a unique field. It pays to have your marketing needs met by someone who understands that.
Make Your Email Newsletter Platform Work for You
As you can see, it pays to automate your email newsletter system. Keeping up with clients and marketing your accounting services to potential clients is too difficult to do one email at a time. So do yourself a favor and set up an automated email newsletter system. Build Your Firm offers a free accounting email newsletter system as part of our website hosting packages.