CPAs: How to Use Social Media Marketing to Generate Good Clients
Social media marketing is one of the most effective and inexpensive ways to generate high-quality leads. According to statistics published by HubSpot, the average person spends 2 hours and 25 minutes on social media every day. With 420 billion people active on social media, the right marketing strategy can help you reach a large portion of your target market.
You put in hard work to become a Certified Personal Accountant (CPA). You studied for hundreds of hours, strengthened your knowledge and confidence with a CPA prep course, and finally passed your exam. Along the way, you may have had doubts, but you made it through.
Getting certified is the first step – the next step is generating clients
Now that you’re certified, it’s time to focus on generating clients. Depending on your area of specialization, you’ll probably have repeat clients. For example, if you prepare tax returns, you’ll likely have the same clients each year. If you’re working with a business, you’ll probably consult with the business owner or CEO on a regular basis.
Although CPAs tend to have regular clients, it takes work to establish those long-term relationships. That’s where social media marketing can help.
If you’ve never used social media marketing, or if you need some fresh ideas, here’s how you can use social media to generate leads and turn them into paying clients.
1. Write your copy to simultaneously attract and exclude
The secret to generating leads isn’t to cast a wide net. The secret is to define your target market as specifically as possible so you can then write copy that speaks directly to that market. For example, millions of people need tax preparation, but you don’t want to target millions of people with your marketing messages.
Although those millions of people might need your CPA services, you’ll need to use generalized messages to reach a group that large. Unfortunately, you won’t snag many leads with a generalized message.
When you narrow down your target market, you can write specific messages that will make people think, “that’s me!” even if it’s just a subconscious thought. Generalized messages won’t resonate deeply with people, but specific, targeted messages will.
Use your copy to exclude undesirable leads
Sorting through leads is time-consuming when many of them are unqualified. You can pre-qualify a lead by crafting your copy to exclude undesirable leads.
For example, say you only want to work with clients earning $100,000 per year or more. If you run a PPC ad on Facebook, make sure your landing page opt-in form asks leads for their income range. Then, use your email marketing platform to filter unqualified responses through segmentation and don’t include those leads in your active marketing campaign.
2. Think of social media marketing as lead generation
Don’t worry about converting fans or followers directly to paying clients through social media. Consider social media marketing a form of lead generation. When people use social media, they’re usually multi-tasking and distracted. They’re not always in a space to become a paying client at that moment.
Social media marketing is a great way to establish a strong brand, generate relationships, and collect leads to nurture over time.
3. Share helpful tips and ideas with people
Social media has a search function that can be exceptionally useful when you’re looking for ways to connect with new people. Try searching for posts containing questions about finances or taxes and provide some courtesy help to others. Don’t be pushy; just drop a line or two whenever you can.
If you want to be bold, write some high-level, in-depth guides and publish them on your website. Then, when you find someone who needs help, answer their question and refer them to your blog.
4. Create and maintain an email marketing list
Email marketing is essential for generating and converting leads. When you’re using social media to run PPC ads, for example, you’ll want to capture their information on your landing page. Whether they sign up for your services or request more information, you need to get their email address.
Once you have some email addresses, you can send out regular emails to stay in touch with your leads and nurture them into becoming clients.
Be patient. Email marketing is a long-term strategy. If you’ve never run an email marketing campaign, check out HubSpot’s Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for a step-by-step plan.
Social media marketing is powerful
Social media is a powerful lead-generating platform. Whether you’re running PPC ads or directly connecting with people, a good strategy will generate targeted leads for your CPA business.
