Accountant Web Design Case Study

Learn how this accountant achieved success using Bloomtools products.

Accountant Jared was facing the same challenge that many businesses face demonstrating his point of difference and increasing his revenue by getting his current customers to buy more of his services and to tell their friends about his business.

Jared prided himself on his proactive approach to managing his clients and the value-adding education services he offered. However, he was unsure of how to promote this point of difference to his current clients and prospects. He was also struggling with the administration side of his business - his receptionist was constantly tied up on the phone with clients requesting copies of their basic information and statements. This cut into the both of their genuine work time and was forcing him to bill his clients more, so he wanted a system in place to give his clients easy access to their information.

Stage 1 - Website presence

Jared wanted to keep his website design to reflect the standards in his industry so the Bloomtools team created a simple, streamlined designed with lots of white space and an eye-catching flash header on his website with images and text that showed his point of difference. In order to demonstrate that he offers a value-adding education service to his clients, Jared advertised an offer on his home page for a free finance information guide for businesses. Having this promoted on the front page immediately positioned him as an expert in the field.

Jared also decided to run regular workshops and training sessions to give his clients and prospects information and 'how to' advice on their finances. The accountant then put the details of these events on a calendar on his website and gave people the chance to book a place at the event directly through the site. He also advertised these workshops on the front page of the website to promote his point of difference.

To solve his administrations challenges, Jared added a secure client repository area on his website where clients could securely access their own information and files. Each client was given their own username and password to the section so they could freely obtain all their information themselves, without requiring the assistance of the accountant or his receptionist. This demonstrated the accountant's proactive management approach and freed up more of his time for other tasks.

Stage 2 - Driving traffic to the website

Jared's biggest source of new leads was alliances so he wanted to maximise this online. He wrote a monthly article that all his alliances put in their own newsletter as a guest column. This had the dual benefits of showing his expertise and generating website traffic. He also arranged for his alliances to send out a link to his business finance ebook as a value-adding gift for new clients and they had to go to his website to download it.

Jared knew that the accounting industry was very competitive in the search engines, so he decided to focus his search engine optimisation on some very niche keywords, such as 'BAS statements Gold Coast', because he would have a much higher chance of appearing near the top of the listings. He also set up a Local Business Centre account on Google and added his business to Google Maps for even more visibility in the search engines.

Jared also advertised his finance seminars in local papers and radio. This drove people to the website to book online and he also promoted a feature to "invite a friend" so the event details could be easily forwarded on to get more website traffic.

Stage 3 - Direct people back to the website

Because Jared was so big on valuing his existing clients, he created an email campaign for new clients to receive periodically over their first three months. The campaign included a welcome letter on the first day, and then regular updates, tips and advice over the next three months. This process was automated, so he only had to start the process when a new client signed up, and then the system would automatically send out each email at the scheduled time. This process was great for making the client feel appreciated, educating them on his processes and services and minimising the administration time needed for new clients.

As an added service to his clients, Jared scheduled reminder emails to go out to them when super payments, BAS and other important dates were coming up. This gave him a lot of kudos with his clients, saved his time in producing these regular letters and saved him a lot of money too.

Jared was also constantly building his database of prospects through a newsletter signup on his site, the free ebook giveaway and seminars and would send out a monthly email newsletter to keep in regular contact with them and draw them back to the website.

Tools used

Does your business need an Internet marketing plan like this? Contact us here if you would like one of our expert consultants to evaluate your business and recommend strategies that will suit your unique business and target market.