4 ways data can help accountants with lead generation

Lead generation for accountants used to mainly consist of buying lists of names, or spending many hours at networking events trying to meet people and build the relationships that might persuade them to move their business to you.

But, modern advances have made it possible for companies to generate leads based on specific criteria and information using large data sets. It has also made it possible to analyse information in your target market and create marketing communications that speak directly to your potential customers on topics that they are already interested in.

4 ways that accountants can use data for effective B2B lead generation:

1. Using data to establish thought leadership

Thought leadership content is high-level content (white papers, blog posts, videos or any other form of content ). Whichever form it takes, for your content to be considered thought leadership it must be well-researched, relevant to your particular industry and full of insights on the topic. Done well, thought leadership content can help you to build your credibility by demonstrating your knowledge and experience to your target market.

In today’s digital world, social platforms are becoming increasingly important, and your thought leadership blogs and articles can be spread far beyond your own website or blog platform.

Data can give you insights for these thought leadership and blog articles. Using data, you can identify trends or challenges which impact your audiences business, or find topics which may interest or inspire them.

You can also use data to identify important questions which your audiences are asking about their sector, or about developments or changes in taxation (for example) which may affect how they manage, structure or grow their business.

Being a thought leader in your industry can also help you to increase awareness of your brand. Widely shared and commented on articles (via LinkedIn, or platforms specific to the industries your target clients operate within) enables you not only to build your credibility, but to engage in conversations which build relationships and trust.

2. Using data to monitor the competition

Data is a useful tool to help accountants monitor their competitor’s activity.

With the right data, you can identify industries where companies are pulling out of a particular market. If these companies are your competitors, you can use data to assess why this may be, and whether this presents an opportunity for you to move in.

By collecting and analysing performance data, you can also identify where your competitors may be falling short of expectations and not providing the best service to their customers (your potential customers!)

3. Use data for business development

Data can help accountants with lead generation by providing them with the research they need for business development.

One of the challenges of lead generation is narrowing down lists of potential prospects to ensure you are targeting the right businesses. With the right data sets, you can generate highly targeted and focussed lists of companies to enable your sales team to concentrate on their efforts on the right leads.

Using data to search for companies in certain geographical areas, industries or sectors allows you to focus your activities on the areas which best match your accountancy firm’s customer criteria.

mnAI gives you access to a wide range of data in minutes – you can choose from hundreds of different search criteria to target your search by region or area, by industry, by company size or growth stage or by director to generate a list of companies and people to engage with.

4. Use data to search by specific criteria

Data can help accountants generate highly specific lists of potential target companies that meet certain criteria. Making your list of leads specific can save you a huge amount of (potentially wasted) time and effort spent reaching out to the wrong people, or companies – who either don’t fit the profile of your ideal customer, or who aren’t in a position to become warm leads.

As well as region or sector, there may well be additional criteria that you want to apply to your list of potential leads. You may wish to target companies by very specific criteria such as size, turnover, growth or even the gender of key directors.

How mnAI can help with lead generation for accountants

mnAI’s unique, award-winning data platform enables accountants to create a target list by searching for companies based on specific criteria.

Whilst there are other sources of data available, mnAI provides a single source data platform, and its sophisticated search capabilities and speed take the legwork out of collating and analysing multiple data sets. Historically, you needed to collect and collate data from a number of different sources (eg Companies House) – a time consuming and largely manual task.

Replacing older, often very time-intensive search methods, mnAI enables you to build target lists in minutes instead of days, eliminating the need for hours of manual collation and analysis of data. Results are presented in a simple to read dashboard, and our unique visualisation technology reveals your area’s business landscape in detail. With millions of data points added every week, you can be confident the picture you are seeing is in real time: up-to-date and accurate.

With over 350 search variables, users can easily identify companies that meet their exact criteria. From anticipated financial growth, specific director gender or age, location or sector, mnAI helps local governments to develop a deeper understanding of their local business communities, and gain strategic insights into the priority sectors and sub-sectors in each borough or LEP.

It’s currently the only platform which can identify the gender of the founders, directors and shareholders of over 7 million UK companies, and its billions of data points mean that searches can be detailed and focussed on specific sectors, business types and areas.

You can search to see who your competitors’ clients are; so if you know they are pulling out of a particular market, or are aware of shortcomings in their customer service levels, you can quickly and easily generate a list of potential targets who could be attracted to your own firm.

Equally, you’re probably active in local networks, so if you know which bank or legal firm potential target clients use, you can identify potential referrals from your contacts, which could be a good source of hot leads.

You can even use our Network Analysis Technology to visualise networks of companies, directors and shareholders, which can add a valuable dimension to your lead generation process by allowing you to find common connections and reach out to warm leads.

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