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Of all the digital marketing tactics available today, email marketing still remains one of the best ways to reach and engage your target demographic.
Once you have targeted and profiled your data (as per last weeks blog: Target Marketing for Accountants , how do you reach them?
There are a number of channels you can use to communicate with your target audience and in this week’s blog we look at one of the ways in which you can reach your ideal prospects.
It’s a very brief and simple guide (we could release a series of blogs on this subject alone) but hopefully it will give you the basics to start implementing your own outbound marketing strategy.
This week we’ll start with email:
Email Marketing
Of all the digital marketing tactics available today, email marketing still remains one of the best ways to reach and engage your target demographic. According to a recent eMarketer study, the median email ROI is 122%… that’s a sizeable 4 times higher than any other digital marketing channel! In fact, since 2012 the estimated average return from email marketing has increased by 16%. Quite simply, if you are looking to generate new business, email marketing has to be part of your strategy.
Ideally you will have harvested your own ‘opted in’ list from your website. This is always the most effective way to ensure your content will resonate with its recipients. They’ve visited your website, liked what they’ve seen and subsequently signed up to your newsletter giving you permission to email them at a later date with related content.
But what if you want to reach a larger, colder list of prospects?
Firstly, we would only ever advise B2B email marketing. We do not advocate any form of B2C email marketing unless you have their express consent. If however you are emailing business to business, there are a few ways you can reach a cold list of prospects with your marketing message. It’s also worth pointing out here that you must establish your legal basis for contacting your recipients prior to marketing, be that for necessary processing or legitimate interest. You can read more about GDPR consent options here: ICO: Guide to GDPR
As discussed in last weeks blog (Target Marketing for Accountants), there are a variety of data providers that will supply you with GDPR compliant data to market to. Some of the providers we work with are Creditsafe, Experian, Corpdata and Email Movers, to name a few. You can give these providers a list of the type of businesses you would like to reach and they will provide you with data lists that meet your criteria. Data is usually charged on a per k basis and ranges anywhere from £75 per k to £250 per k.
Some of these data providers also offer their own email marketing platforms, such as Espiromail which is the offering from Email Movers. Using such platforms, you can create easy to use templates for email marketing. This may seem daunting if you have no prior experience with email marketing, but these packages are designed with simplicity in mind and therefore are relatively easy to navigate your way around. Of course, if you are a more experienced email marketer, you’ll be familiar with HTML code to create your own email templates. But if you’re a little less experienced, you can simply ‘drag and drop’ and create simple designs that will deliver your message.
Pricing is based on the volume of data you upload and is billed monthly, you can however send as many campaigns as you wish. Such platforms usually offer comprehensive reporting suites allowing you to track exactly who has opened your emails, who has clicked through to any links and who has unsubscribed from your database. This insight is a really powerful tool for profiling your prospects and the type of content they resonate with and respond to. You can then follow up on this interest with specifically tailored campaigns or join the dots online with social media platforms like Linkedin.
As with any marketing that involves prospecting a cold database, consistency and persistence are key. Of course, you should always provide a clear opt out option for your recipients and respecting their wishes is absolutely paramount. But if you’ve really given some thought to the type of content your carefully profiled prospects would want to receive, then you can quite quickly turn that cold list into a warm list of potential new business leads.
To conclude, you previously may not have needed to market your services with referrals and word of mouth generating enough business to keep your practice busy. But with the challenges Making Tax Digital presents and more and more accountancy firms being increasingly proactive with their marketing efforts, a marketing company such as Herald Chase (0118 9474888) will be able to help you strategise and plan your marketing campaigns to maximise your new business opportunities.
Also, just to remind you we work closely with many accounting practices and offer:
• 30% of our fees for finance introductions*
• 10% of our fees for Business sale introductions*
*This may be taken in monetary form or as marketing services and data to the equivalent value.
If you are interested in finding out more about our collaborative marketing services, email us at: info@thebusinessboard.co.uk or call our office on 0118 338 1818.
We look forward to speaking with you.
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