November 3, 2023

Cold Email CPA Firms – The Do’s and Don’ts of Cold Emailing

Cold emailing is your golden ticket to new connections as a CPA firm.

However, getting a prospect to respond to an ice-cold email can be tricky! It can even be intimidating in the beginning.

Still, cold emailing for CPA firms is a worthwhile endeavor. The ability to reach your potential clients and customers directly and maintain connections has endless possibilities for lead generation and sales.

Thus, if you want to elevate your accounting business using cold email, here are the do’s and don’ts of cold emailing and all about cold email strategy for CPA firms.

But before diving in, defining cold email is essential. That way, you can identify what makes a powerful cold email.

What is Cold Email?

A cold email is the initial email you send to a recipient without a prior relationship with you or your CPA firm. Making your cold email appear spam is easy when you don’t observe the best email marketing practices.

Nevertheless, this email marketing technique is a way of saying hello to a prospect.

Source: Canva/Proxima Studio

6 Benefits of Cold Emailing for CPA Firms

Cold email marketing has fantastic benefits for CPA firms. These include the following:

1. Waits On the Recipient

Unlike social media ads that users can quickly scroll on and later forget or miss, an email waits for the recipient when they’re ready to open their email.

But remember, just because it’s easy to get a response doesn’t mean your recipient will. Email marketing is a number game. So, avoid continuously sending emails to the same people.

2. Helps You Build Relationships with Prospects

Cold mailing can help you build relationships with others and develop professional or social contacts. You can reach out to prospects who may still need to learn your accounting services and connect with others whose professional expertise you need.

3. Sends to Many Leads at Once

By using your own cold email templates, you can personalize them and send them to many leads at once. Doing so also saves you time, rather than writing each email individually.

4. Potential Conversion

Each cold email campaign you send to your prospect is a step toward potential conversion. Even if the potential clients don’t avail of your service when they receive your email, they will still remember your offer or brand name and search for it later.

5. Lower Costs

Another evident benefit of cold emailing for CPA firms is that it requires no high budget compared to other marketing channels.

In addition, you don’t have to pay fees for exposure on search engines, social media channels, or even in a television or magazine.

While there may be costs to using software to track and assess emails and automate the process, the overhead is far lower than what you need to pay for other marketing channels.

6. Allows You to Track and Measure Your Marketing Efforts

Data is essential for marketing nowadays. Therefore, tracking and measuring your cold email campaign will be a considerable advantage to your campaign and your accounting or bookkeeping firm.

Along the way, you’ll learn how to cold email correctly by adjusting your email campaigns based on the data.

Source: Canva/bongkarngraphic

5 Do’s of Cold Emailing for Accounting Firms

1. Understand Your Recipients

Daniel Wallock, the Vice President of Digital Marketing of Profectus Beauty, who generated $726,000 in new leads through cold emails, told Forbes that you’ve got to understand your recipients and show them what you do to be successful in cold emailing. [1]

Put, it’s about showing your target audience very quickly that you recognize a problem they have and that you may have the solution.

Therefore, the first contact should be about something other than selling to them but piquing their interest. You can do this by showing them you know them and what your firm can provide.

2. Have a Strong or Catchy Subject Line

Aim for a solid or catchy subject line to encourage your recipients or pique their interest in opening your email.

Moreover, make your subject lines relevant and short, and A/B test different subject lines to see those that work best.

3. Provide Significant Value

Providing significant value to your cold email means more upfront work for you or your team. However, doing so will help you stand out in your prospects’ inboxes.

So, make sure your emails are not about your company but about them — your recipients. Explain how your accounting service or product can help them achieve their goals.

Making a compelling offer in the first or second opening line and even in your subject line can also be beneficial.

4. Cut to the Chase

Take note that a successful cold email is simple. So, do not cloud the issue and sound like Shakespeare. Instead, be short and clear with your message. It’s a hello message, after all.

Remember also to gain your prospect’s trust. At this stage, you are still a stranger to them. So, we encourage you to point out facts to gain their trust.

5. Use Email Analytics

Track your emails. Know what your open, click-through, and reply rates are.

If you notice that you’re getting lower rates than the average in your industry, it may be a sign that your value proposition or copy itself isn’t any good.

But don’t worry; that’s where email analytics play an essential role. So, use it to track your email performance and fine-tune your cold emails to improve delivery.

Other Tips for Sending Cold Emails that Win Leads and Convert

Don’t Rely on Clickbait to Increase Open Rate

We get it. First impressions are hard in cold email marketing. After all, you are contacting strangers and convincing them to avail of your accounting services.

What you write must also resonate with their needs so they will feel compelled to learn more. Otherwise, your email can land in the digital waste bin if the recipient doesn’t see its value.

However, you should avoid relying on clickbait to increase your open rates. Even if you grow it through clickbait, it will significantly increase the number of people who will not purchase your service because of annoyance or deception.

Additionally, make your subject line or headline not so outlandish that you can’t deliver the promise but interesting enough to be effective.

Consider Your Return on Investment (ROI)

To measure the profitability of your cold email marketing campaign, consider your ROI.

Here’s the formula we use:

ROI = (Final Value – Initial Value) / Costs x 100%

ROI varies considerably based on factors, including the quality of your list, the goals you set for your marketing campaigns, and the effectiveness of your content and strategy.

Tracking your ROI helps you tell how effective your efforts are and understand what motivates your recipients to click on certain links and visit your website.

Boosting your cold email ROI may take a lot of work initially, but it is crucial for serious growth.

Do vs Don't - Cold Email CPA Firms

Source: Canva/PhotographerOlympus

5 Don’ts of Cold Emailing for Accounting Firms

1. Send Generic Cold Emails

The main difference between a spam email and a legitimate cold email is that the former doesn’t have a personal style. Spams also often have that robotic feel and appear generic.

This can cause the recipient to think your email is a scam. Yikes!

So, remember that your target recipient receives many sales emails daily, making them more likely to read only those that stand out.

Since cold emails are sent to people without prior contact with you, your first goal should be building rapport and making the readers feel special.

Generic cold emails without personalization are the ones that most prospects are more likely to ignore.

Source: Canva/Prathan Chorruangsak

2. Write Long Emails

Once you’ve nailed your subject line, the second most crucial part of the email you should pay attention to is your cold email message.

Remember that your prospects, especially the B2B ones, receive plenty of cold emails daily. They are also usually busy and likely only open or continue reading short emails.

So, avoid squeezing all the benefits or features of your product or service into one email. Instead of giving too much information, be short and on point. For instance, inform them briefly how your bookkeeping services can address their pain points.

3. Be Vague

When writing a cold email, put yourself in your recipient’s shoes. Why would they care about your email when you’re a total stranger to them, more so if they’re getting dozens of marketing emails with almost the same subject line as yours?

Therefore, it’s essential not to be vague. What is it you want your recipient or prospect to do? Do you want to share your blog post that they may find interesting? Provide feedback about your accounting services. Or contact for a demo call?

4. Use “No-Reply” Emails

These are emails that use the format noreply@company.com in the email address. Many businesses use such a format, which discourages prospects from sending a response to their cold emails or campaigns.

In short, they’re bad for business.

Not to mention, your prospects won’t appreciate it. Regardless of how big or well-known your CPA firm may be, your prospects are still individuals.

These people also don’t want to be treated as part of a technology that only generates sales for your company. Hence, avoid using no-reply emails to prevent harming your email deliverability.

5. Send Too Many Cold Emails

Cold emails are different from marketing emails and newsletters. These two are sent to people who are already in your sales funnel.

More specifically, you can use automation tools for marketing emails and newsletters to send them to your subscribers in seconds.

However, you can’t do the same with your cold emails. Instead, there should be a strict sending limit every day and ensure it is sent gradually and randomly.

Sending too many cold emails at once can damage your sender’s reputation and trigger the email service providers.

In effect, this will impact your email deliverability and your future cold emails may no longer land in your prospects’ inboxes.

email icons and a person holding a smartphone Source: Canva/Getty Images

Cold Calling vs. Cold Emailing for Accountants: Which One Should You Choose?

Cold calling and cold emailing are both practical and have their benefits when prospecting.

But which one should you choose for accountants or accounting firms, regarding convenience, volume, and directness? Well, it’s cold emailing for us.

Generally, cold emails are less time-consuming and easier than cold calls, although the latter can be more personal and are more effective in getting direct responses. But, of course, cold calling has downsides, too.

For instance, a cold call is, by nature, intrusive and more difficult to track.

Your Cold Emails Are Destined For the Inbox!

The inbox is the most personal connection you’ll have with your clients. So, remember the do’s and don’ts we shared above. Doing so can help you maximize the effectiveness of such a connection and ensure your cold emails make it to the inbox.

This can result in a client’s lifetime and high revenue for your CPA firm. Eventually, you’ll stay in the loop and remind your prospects and existing clients of your expertise.

Make cold emailing a breeze with InboxAlly. It’s a unique email deliverability tool that teaches email providers to put your messages in the Inbox right from the start.

See for yourself how it works. Book a live demo.

Reference:

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/joeescobedo/2017/06/01/cold-emails-that-get-responses/