It’s important to ensure that your e-mails comply with relevant anti-spam legislation: in Australia, this is the Spam Act; in New Zealand, the Unsolicited Electronic Messaging Bill.

To ensure compliance,

• only send an e-mail to an address when the recipient has consented to receive it – consent can be either express or inferred (which is based on a business or personal relationship);
• ensure your e-mail contains relevant information about your firm;
• include accurate contact details;
• provide an unsubscribe facility so readers can opt out of receiving future e-mails.

There is no point setting up an effective e-mail campaign if you don’t have any subscribers to send it to. To get more subscribers, you could try some of the following techniques:

• Have an e-mail subscription form on  your firm’s website
• Place a sign-up link in your employee’s e-mail signatures
• Ask people to join when you exchange business cards
• Ask your clients and prospects for their e- mail address
• Offer an incentive to join your mailing list
• Include a sign-up URL in print advertising

Although e-mail marketing uses a different medium to deliver your message, it should still conform to basic marketing principles in order to ensure its effectiveness. Marketing does not just “happen” – it requires careful research, planning and strategic thinking. There are three basic steps to any marketing effort:

1. Determine your message– identify what your message is, and what target market you are trying to reach
2. Deliver your message – identify what medium best suits your message and target market
3. Evaluate your message – evaluate your results to determine future strategies

In order for your e-mail campaign to be successful, it should:

• be clear and concise – readers do not read every word and tend to scan general content;
• target a specific target market – not everyone will be interested in your message: only target those potential or existing clients who are most likely to make a purchasing decision;
• include a value proposition – tell your clients why your services are worth their time and money;
• support your value proposition – provide additional information that supports your statement, such as testimonials, facts and incentives
• include a call-to-action – don’t just leave your clients with a whole lot of information, tell them what to do with it (“Call now for a free consultation”)
• use appropriate design elements – use images, formatting and colour schemes to reinforce your message: a text-only message is boring and often difficult to read

E-mail marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing and will help your firm expand its potential client base whilst maintaining its existing one. Benefits of e-mail marketing include:

• Allows your firm to target specific target markets
• Cost-effective
• Fast
• Easy to distribute
• Drives direct sales
• Builds relationships, loyalty and trust
• Data driven

Returns on permission-based email campaigns are high and can be effectively measured and monitored. According to research conducted by the Direct Marketing, e-mail marketing in 2009 generated a return on investment of $46.89 for every dollar spent. The expected figure for 2010 is $45.24 per dollar, outperforming any other form of marketing.

With an increasing number of accountants creating a presence on the web and more and more clients turning to online resources before making financial decisions, e-mail marketing has become an integral part of up-to-date marketing strategies.

E-mail marketing simply means broadcasting marketing-related e-mails to a list of subscribers. These mass e-mails often include some form of news or update about your firm and a special promotion or offer. By using an e-mail marketing system, you can set up a template e-mail campaign so you don’t have to send individual e-mails to every subscriber.

There are different options available when deciding on how to best distribute your firm newsletter.

You might want to send out your newsletter electronically, especially if you have a website or an existing database of online contacts. You can upload your newsletters to your website and make them available for download, or e-mail them to a list of subscribers. Online newsletters are fast and convenient, can be easily forwarded to other contacts beyond your distribution list and can be easily altered. However, they can sometimes get lost, ignored or deleted as recipients receive many other e-mails.

You might also consider distributing your newsletter in print format. You could give your print newsletter to clients who visit your office, leave some in your reception area or send them to prospects in response to an enquiry.

All newsletters produced by Practice Advantage will be given to you in two web-appropriate formats (low and high) and one high quality print format (print) – so you can decide for yourself what form of distribution best suits your firm.

Your blog can be used as a great SEO tool: as you update your blog, your ranking on Google is automatically improved. There are different techniques you can use to make your blog SEO compatible, such as:

• Use meta-tags. When writing your post, you will see an option on the right-hand side of the page that says tags. These tags are like keywords which reflect the main content in your post and are used to index your blog. For a post about recent tax changes, for example, your meta-tags could look like this: “ATO, tax update, tax legislation, legislation changes, accounting”.
• Use slugs. A slug is your post’s title without unnecessary stopwords (“a”, “you”, “and” – words which downgrade your ranking with Google). You can edit your slug by changing your post’s permalink. The permalink will appear under the title text box after you have published your post.
• Use the All in One SEO Pack. This plugin can be found down the bottom of the page. For Title and Description, put in the text you want to appear in search engines. In the Keywords box, you can use the meta-tags used previously.

Your Firm  Online offers three website packages with a range of different features. Firms should choose the package that best matches their marketing strategy and budget.  However, as your firm changes or grows, you might want to make some alterations to your website. That is why you can upgrade your package at any time. The cost of upgrading is simply the price difference in the setup cost and ongoing payments. To compare the different packages, features and prices, you can use the chart on our website.

A website has become a necessity for any accountant or accounting firm which is serious about the success of their future. It is no longer enough for an accounting firm to use traditional print advertising to attract customers. Today, when clients are looking for an accountant, they find out about them on the net – if they have heard about the firm by word of mouth.

The lesson for accounting firms looking to attract high quality, business savvy clients is clear – if they don’t have a website, they will be viewed by potential clients as a firm that simply isn’t serious about its business. Not an ideal role image.

A website will give prospects and current clients an overview of your firm, your team of accountants and the kind of services you provide. By offering incentives, such as an initial free consultation, and publishing testimonials or business news and tips, you can attract new clients and expand your client base.

Once you’re logged into your editor account, you’ll see a navigation menu on the left-hand side of the page. The two main functions you’ll use from this menu are Post and Page. Post refers to the blog function of your website; page refers to the content on your actual website (such as your Home-page, About us-page etc.). If you are happy with the content on your website, only use the Post-function to update your blog.