8 min read

Harnessing HubSpot for accountants: A comprehensive guide to unlocking revenue growth

Picture of Jorge Fuentes Jorge Fuentes Jun 7, 2023 4:07:22 PM

Attract Engage

Rather listen to this post?

HubSpot for accountants: A comprehensive guide to unlocking revenue

13:18

Here’s the thing about being a HubHero alongside George B. Thomas — we’re all about the humans. (Not a surprise, I’m sure, if you’ve known George for any length of time or have listened to the HubHeroes podcast.) More specifically, though, we’re all about helping humans with HubSpot.

Now, I’m sure the title gave it away; in this article, we’re talking to a specific group of you HubSpot-lovin’ humans! Accountants! Yes, we think accountants are humans, too. Essential ones, in fact.

Through our experience, we’ve seen how HubSpot has improved sales, marketing, and customer services for different types of SMBs. However, if I were to point out a specific niche of professionals who benefit massively from a thorough HubSpot and inbound implementation, it would undoubtedly be those with the prestigious CPA designation.

We’ve learned in working closely with several accounting firms over the past year that they have particular needs and processes (that differ from other industries) for their inbound sales and marketing efforts. On top of that, we’ve noticed there are specific HubSpot approaches that can be replicated across different accounting firms.

So, that’s why I’m here today to shed light on the ways in which accounting firms can harness the full, cosmic superpowers of HubSpot for your revenue growth.

1. Develop your buyer personas

This one isn’t exactly accounting-specific, but it is still insanely important, as your personas are the cornerstone of your inbound strategy. You should develop between three and five positive personas, and these question prompts can help you:

Are you going after small businesses, or are you targeting larger organizations?
Do you want to provide accounting services for enterprise-level companies?
Are you interested in working with solopreneurs with their own individual needs?

Think about the scope of your business, who you’re best built to support and serve, and (most of all) who you’re the most passionate about serving as accountants.

In addition to positive buyer personas, you’ll also want to create one or two negative buyer personas. Yes, negative buyer personas. These negative personas should capture who you don’t want to work with or aren’t best equipped to support. For example, maybe you’re ideally suited for SMBs looking for accounting support, but you’re not interested in startups or solopreneurs. Those two would be your negative buyer personas.

As the old saying goes, “A smart man knows what he wants, but a wise man knows what he doesn’t want.”

2. You've gotta dig into meetings-based automation

Now, you might be wondering why the heck I’ve put something a little more specific so close to the top of the list. Meetings-based automation is where things get really interesting in HubSpot for accountants.

You see, we’ve been working closely with several accounting firms since George opened up his virtual doors last year. And in that time, we picked up on a trend — sales teams of one are crazy common in the accounting space. And that one salesperson is left trying to close as many deals as possible to keep their firm surviving and thriving with new business.

No matter how effective they are, though, that one person will often struggle to find ways to streamline their day effectively.

Enter stage left, meetings-based automation in HubSpot.

With this fun bit of automation magic, accounting firms can make it a breeze for their salesperson to migrate from a chaotic world of Post-Its and Excel spreadsheets to a seamlessly integrated single source of truth within HubSpot that’s connected to their email.

Here’s how you set it up:

Integrate Gmail Calendar or Outlook Calendar with a HubSpot account
Set up HubSpot meeting link
Integrate meeting link with Zoom account
Set up HubSpot meeting form (considering second-smart questions to filter leads per Buyer Persona)
Set up Automated Email: “Thanks for booking a call!”
Set up a workflow to deliver follow-up email(s) to HubSpot meeting submission
Set up workflow with pipeline/deal stage/deal creation updates
Meet with the prospect, manually log the relevant data, and/or move to Closed Won (Deal stage within your pipeline) if you landed the deal.

Also, as more and more accountants are going virtual to serve their clients from the comfort of their own homes, meetings-based automation makes it easy to achieve more work-life flexibility.

3. Yes, you need a blog to educate prospects and delight customers

Let’s hop back into something that may be slightly more “expected” in the inbound space. Yes, accounting firms, you need a blog. You’re not exempt, even if you don’t think your industry is exciting to talk about. Trust me. You’re interesting to the people who need you to have critical questions about their taxes.

Blogs help you establish thought leadership (especially if you have a specific niche you serve), improve your website ranks in search engines, and make it easy for prospective clients (and current customers) to trust you through education.

In addition to a powerful, intuitive CMS that makes blogging a cinch, HubSpot also makes it easy to keep your subscribers in the know when you drop new content. You can set up instant, daily, weekly, or even monthly email notifications when new blogs go out, depending on how often you’re publishing.

4. Don’t forget about creating downloadable resources

It doesn’t matter if you call it resources or a learning center, a section on your website dedicated to downloadable resources. Now, when we say downloadable resources, these could be anything. They could be helpful year-end or quarterly checklists for tax time. You could do a long-form guide/pillar page (like this guy!). You could do a guide to payroll taxes. The sky's the limit!

Whatever you choose to create, you need that centralized resources or knowledge hub for your prospects and clients. These downloadable resources not only aid clients in managing their financial affairs but also build trust, drive engagement, and position the firm as an authority in the field.

Furthermore, these resources can serve as lead magnets, encouraging website visitors to share their contact information, thereby aiding in lead generation and nurturing efforts.

5. You need an email newsletter

Inbound trends may come and go, but for some reason, email marketing is forever in terms of bringing home the ROI bacon for businesses — including your accounting firms out there!

Newsletters are a powerful tool for accounting firms to maintain regular contact with clients, prospects, and colleagues. They provide a consistent stream of valuable information like industry updates, tax changes, and practical tips, thus establishing the firm's credibility and expertise. Moreover, newsletters enable firms to showcase their services, promote new offerings, and generate leads.

They also facilitate two-way communication, encouraging clients to engage directly with the firm (make sure contacts can reply to your email), thereby fostering stronger relationships and client loyalty.

6. Get your website on the HubSpot CMS (trust me on this)

Alright, this last bit is somewhat technical, but it’s probably the most important of all. (And we can help you out if you need it!)

When you have everything pertaining to your inbound marketing, sales, and service efforts under one digital room (e.g., HubSpot), you have no idea how much more effective everything you do will be. You won’t need tons of patch-worked integrations to make your website talk to your blog platform or your email or your sales CRM — everything all lives together, natively built to talk to each other.

But let’s talk in more detail about why the HubSpot CMS Hub is so freakin’ amazing:

HubSpot CMS Drag & Drop + Themes

HubSpot’s CMS is so user-friendly you don’t need a tech degree to figure it out. All of the themes are highly accessible for almost all skill levels, thanks to drag-and-drop modules. They also offer easily customizable themes, so it’s a cinch to get your website up and running on HubSpot.

What does that all mean for you? You can build and maintain your website without extensive technical knowledge. Or, if you work with an outside partner to help you with your HubSpot CMS website, it won’t be as expensive as building a website from scratch with an agency. You also won’t need a third party to make simple updates to your site!

HubSpot Integrations

OK, so one of the best parts of HubSpot is how powerful its integration capabilities are. In fact, there’s a whole HubHeroes episode dedicated to HubSpot’s app marketplace I’d definitely recommend you check out. You can supercharge your use of HubSpot with integrations to common tools and platforms like Zoom, Google Calendar, Quickbooks, and much, much more.

If you’re an accounting firm that uses special software, I’d strongly urge you to check out the HubSpot App Marketplace to see if a native integration or app already exists.

HubSpot SEO

Content is not only educational; it’s also how you keep your website fresh and ranking well with search engines like Google. (That way, when the right people start searching for what you offer, you’ll actually show up in their search results!) HubSpot’s CMS comes with loads of built-in SEO tools that will help you improve the visibility of your website.

What’s also really neat is you can take a look at how your website is performing SEO-wise, and if anything is broken, HubSpot will offer fixes for you. For example, are your pages missing meta descriptions, or do you have images without alt text? HubSpot will let you know!

Then there’s the whole SEO content strategy piece that HubSpot makes so easy for you to implement. But that’s literally a whole topic unto itself, and we’ve got this handy SEO content strategy guide right here to help you get started creating SEO content that will drive traffic, leads, and sales.

HubSpot Security

OK, this one shouldn’t be a huge surprise. In this day and age, you need a secure site. It gives your visitors peace of mind and minimizes your risks with hackers and other cybersecurity threats to your business. HubSpot has your back here, too, with SSL, encryption, data privacy protections, and much more.

If you’re an accounting firm using WordPress or Drupal, my guess is you’re not always getting a good night’s sleep. For example, if you’re using WordPress, each third-party plug-in is a weakness that can be exploited by the wrong people; and if something goes wrong, WordPress isn’t accountable.

On the other hand, HubSpot is there for you proactively with features and options to keep your site secure, where you don’t have to wonder if your site is out of date constantly.

HubSpot Personalization

Now this is super cool. With HubSpot, you can create personalized experiences for your visitors (if they’ve converted on your site before) with smart content that populates based on what you know about them. You can also add their name in places — where it makes sense, don’t be too creepy! — and other fun personalizations.

HubSpot Analytics & Reporting

Saying HubSpot’s analytics and reporting game is strong is the understatement of the century. So much so that I’m just going to recommend you take a look at these two resources we’ve developed for you that showcases how crazy easy HubSpot makes reporting ROI:

And with your website also on HubSpot, not just your marketing or sales … your reporting will be unstoppable because no touchpoint will ever be missed in your customer’s journey with you online.

Built for Scalability & Growth

This one is short and sweet. HubSpot is flexible, with multiple tiers of options that make it easy for the platform to grow and scale along with your business … without a lot of hassle. You don’t need to jump into HubSpot ready to commit to enterprise-level options you may not need. You can begin your HubSpot journey with the free CMS and then scale up as it makes sense for you and your accounting firm.

HubSpot Support

In addition to all of these amazing features, HubSpot has your back. There’s HubSpot Academy. There’s their insanely extensive (and always updated) knowledge base. They have live, HUMAN customer support options, chat support, and more.

That means if something goes wrong, or you ever have questions, you’re not left to figure it all out alone. HubSpot is there to ensure you’re successful because they want to see you thrive.

We’ve got your back, too!

Look, moving to any new platform (or even just considering your options) can feel overwhelming, no matter how easy HubSpot is. So, if you ever have questions, need a bias-free demo of what’s possible with HubSpot, or need help making the move to HubSpot for your accounting firm, start a conversation with us.

We’re here and happy to help!

GET THE NEWSLETTER