Do Accounting Firm Newsletters Actually Work?
About a month ago, deep inside one single line of The 15 Hour Accountant Newsletter, I casually mentioned that I’m pulling back on my newsletter (my firm newsletter called “Money Stuff”, not this one!) and my podcast. You can read the original mention here.
Y’all jumped into my inbox about the newsletter like “Why are you pulling back?” … “Why do you think it’s not working?” … “I thought newsletters were God’s gift to marketing!”
So let’s talk about it, but let’s start at the basics…
Why would an accounting firm want to write a newsletter?
Answer: To create trust in potential future clients (or what sales jargon would call “leads” or “prospects”)
An email newsletter is a “top-of-funnel” (more jargon) activity for your “marketing funnel”.
Here’s a quick and dirty (definitely not perfect) AI visual of what a marketing funnel for building a relationship with a lead would look like.
The newsletters you’re sending to the list of prospective clients is building trust and proving your authority and expertise in accounting and tax. Eventually, the hope is that they “Know-Like-Trust” you, see their problems as something you can solve, and then they ask you to work with them (or more likely, you ask them if they’re interested in working with you…scary, I know.)
I see a lot of accounting firm owners of all sizes filling up their client rosters and finding success. But are they doing it through newsletters?
So yesterday, I ran a LinkedIn poll (for whatever you think that’s worth). The people who voted were almost all US-based accountants, with about 40% being CPAs.
Interesting results…
In general, I think writing a newsletter is what common social media noise and other people’s marketing will tell us we “should” be doing. I mean, I fell for it too. You can even see the reflection of that in the comment thread of that LinkedIn poll.
But I don’t know that writing a newsletter is necessary for accounting firm owners.
If it were, why do we see such a high percentage of accounting firms at or near client capacity and such a lower percentage of firm owners writing newsletters?
The math isn’t mathing for me.
The last thing I’d want anyone to do is spend precious time doing something in their business that won’t bring them more profit.
But.
For the record…
I’m not anti-newsletter at all (I happily sit down to write this one every week). Newsletters work phenomenally well for many types of business models, but it’s probably not necessary for every business model. Are you on any plumber’s newsletters? I digress…
I think maybe newsletters can still work well for accountants too, but mine just wasn’t working how the beautifully AI-generated image above said it would.
More on my firm newsletter and why I’m pulling back on it next week…
Cheers,
Erica
PS - If you have an accounting firm newsletter that’s routinely driving new, great clients for you, please hit reply and let me know. I’d love to hear about it, if you’re willing to share.
What’s Happening in Aligned
Ramp: Demo & Discussion
MeetUp: Offering Advisory & CFO Packages
Wed, Jan 28th - 11am MST > RSVP Here
Anchor: Demo & Discussion
Wen, Feb 11th - 11am MST > RSVP Here
Question of the Week > Is 1099 filing a service you provide to any of your clients?
(There’s a ton of info in the comments if you’re curious how others are charging for this)
Current Discussions On > Erica’s “Just Books” service level, referral needed for QBO clean up job, Anchor proposals, 1099ing Venmo & PayPal, and more!
Join the discussion with 170+ like-minded, non-scaling accountants / really cool humans in the link below. $75/mo, no commitment - come and go as you please :o)
Money back guarantee, if you get in there and don’t see the value. No questions asked.
More details in the link above.