How Financial Software Companies Use Accountants Contact Databases to Drive Growth

1. Building a Precisely Targeted Prospect List

In order for an outbound marketing campaign to be successful, a clearly defined prospect list is the foundation. For example, financial software companies will want to have a list of prospects that reflects the intricacies of the accounting profession, which means not just using job title filter(s). 

If a tax software company wants to develop a clear target audience, for example, they would most likely create different segments of their audience, such as independent CPAs and smaller public accounting firms (as opposed to large corporate finance departments). 

If a financial close automation platform is looking to build out its target audience, it will likely want to target Controllers and VPs of finance with companies/organizations that fall within the mid-market segment (those with 200 to 1,000 employees). 

If audit software companies want to segment their target audience, they will likely want to be targeting those in regulated industries where audit complexity is likely the highest (banking, healthcare, insurance). 

Additionally, having access to an accountants contact database, will allow for this level of audience segmentation to take place by allowing marketers to focus on developing a list of targeted individuals that is based on using relatively few contacts  (in this case, 5,000) who would be most likely to engage in your company’s outreach efforts as opposed to having a large number of contacts (50,000 or so) who would be less likely.

2. Running Personalized Email Campaigns That Actually Get Replies

Many accounting professionals receive cold emails daily, but they rarely read them. Most email inboxes are filled with generic, product-focused messaging that does not show an understanding of the recipient’s job duties, so a lot of these emails end up in the trash without even being opened.

However, some financial software companies cut through the noise of email junk and deliver value through well thought-out, targeted outreach to specific departments/roles type across multiple companies. 

The best way to accomplish this would be to develop a comprehensive accountant contact database and build targeted messaging based on the receipt’s specific role/industry and the context in which they are working. For example, an email sent to a CPA working for a mid-size public accounting firm could acknowledge the increase in volume of work experienced due to tax season and how the financial software can reduce the time spent on manual bookkeeping during the first quarter. 

Similarly, an email sent to the Financial Controller of a manufacturer could outline the unique pain points (e.g., the amount of time required for closing the month-end book across multiple entities) that need to be addressed in order to streamline their month-end close process.

Email outreach to the above-mentioned people should not be accomplished through simply adding the first name token into a generic email template. Instead, the outreach should have been written as if it were solely for him/her and should have had a personal touch associated with it (like a personal email). 

Ultimately, when the recipient feels like the email was written directly for him/her, he/she will be more likely to open the email, respond to the email, and/or put him/herself into your pipeline as someone who is interested in learning more rather than just being a name on a list.

3. Powering Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Campaigns

Account-based marketing (ABM) has become one of the most effective strategies for marketing B2B software providers. ABM is the perfect fit for marketing financial software; the buyer universe is well defined; and the size of the deals warrant a high-touch approach.

With ABM, a focused list of target accounts are identified. Sales and marketing efforts then coordinate around each of these target accounts by delivering personalized messages via multiple channels simultaneously.

A contact database of accountants provides the foundation for running an ABM program. The contacts verified in the database will supply the marketing team with the necessary verified data to execute targeted LinkedIn campaigns, programmatic ads, and content syndication to the specific firms and professionals they want to reach. 

The sales team will receive context to ensure that outreach to prospects for follow-up occurs in a timely manner that feels contemporaneous to the marketing outreach.

When sales and marketing are both using the same verified contact data, and targeting the same target accounts, the effect on the pipeline can be cumulative. Prospective customers will see your brand frequently across multiple channels, the message will have the same tone in multiple ways, and the time it takes to move from awareness to having a conversation with you will be substantially shorter.

4. Accelerating Product-Led Growth with Targeted Trial Outreach

In order to increase the rate of initial product adoption many financial software companies employ a ‘freemium/free trial’ type model. The challenge for companies having trial users convert to paying customers can be dependent on who their trial users are.  

Using your accountants’ contact database can assist financial software firms to be more proactive in getting relevant extra accountants (based on your ideal customer profile) into your trial process/funnel by identifying candidates (accounting firms & finance departments) and then providing targeted trial invitations directly to those individuals based on their role (job title). This will help ensure that you are bringing a higher quality of user into your product on day one and providing users likely to receive real value from the product & use important components of the product are more likely to convert to a paying customer. In addition, this approach will give your customer success team a cleaner and better-defined account base to work with during the trial period.

5. Supporting Channel and Partnership Development

Often, financial software companies do not grow as a direct result of their own sales but rather through building strategic alliances with CPA firms and other organizations where there are opportunities to recommend each other’s services and products, as well as leveraging associations that have an established reputation within the industry. 

There is no shortage of ways that you can build partnerships; however, the most successful way is to utilize CPA databases to identify and create these partnerships.

A CPA database can be an asset when your business development team uses it to find CPA firms of a size, specialty, or geographic regions that provide significant potential as either referral or reseller partners; identify CPAs and financial advisors who have established credibility and authority within their accounting community, or established advocates, potentially as channel partners, who would be able to recommend your product with credibility and authority. 

This is one way that CPA databases are used and often undervalued in favor of targeted outreach to the markets served; however, partnership-based growth is one of the least expensive acquisition channels for financial software and utilizing a CPA database to identify the most suitable partners is the first step.

6. Retaining and Expanding Existing Accounts

As previously mentioned, growth isn’t simply about finding more customers to buy from you; it’s also critical to the overall picture of revenue generation for most software companies offering financial products through upselling and cross-selling and renewing contracts with your current customers.

An accountant’s contact list will aid both retention and the ability to expand your business with the customer in two primary ways. First, by providing the Customer Success and Account Management teams with an accurate, current list of contacts at each customer location, either due to a change in decision makers or new budget holders coming into play, they will be able to react quickly to the changes taking place.

Second, a contact list can also assist in identifying potential areas for expansion of existing customers based on firmographics. For example, if a customer has added employees, opened new locations, or expanded into different services, these changes can typically be identified using firmographics before the company even enters into discussions about renewing the contract. 

Additionally, if you have accurate data to support proactive management of your current customers, you will begin having discussions about expanding the relationship with them before your competitors have a chance.