How to Use Client Personas to Boost Your Accounting Firm’s Success

A client persona is an essential tool in the kit of every successful accounting firm. According to the Marketing Insider Group, the use of buyer personas are proven to help exceed revenue goals, generate higher-quality leads, and shorten sales cycles for businesses across the board.

A buyer persona can also help firms like yours better understand your ideal clients so that you can create more targeted and relevant content.

The Client Persona, Explained

A client persona is a profile of your ideal customer. It can be as simple as a one-page document or an extensive resource complete with imagery.

The first step to creating a client persona is identifying who your best client is. This is not about quantity but about quality. Your ideal client is someone who enjoys working with your firm, fits perfectly within your budget framework, and is a constant source of referrals. They are your firm's evangelists and your most ardent supporters.

To illustrate this process, let's name our ideal client, Chris. To create Chris's persona, we need to delve into their characteristics and life circumstances. What stage in life is Chris at? What type of business are they in? Is Chris a business owner? What industry are they in? What goals and challenges do they have? Are they married or single? Does Chris have children? Are they at the beginning of their career or nearing retirement? We need to ask these kinds of questions to flesh out our client persona.

To help with this process, you can use a worksheet or client persona template. This allows you to systematically fill in demographic details, describe a day in the life of your ideal client, identify their goals and motivations, and outline their greatest challenges. By doing this, you start to get a vivid and comprehensive picture of Chris, your ideal client.

The next step is to consider Chris as a prospect. What circumstances would lead Chris to start looking for a new accounting firm? How does Chris feel during the selection process? What does Chris need to know to make an informed choice? These questions can help you strategize on how to attract and convert prospects like Chris.

But your relationship with Chris doesn't end at conversion. Once Chris becomes a client, you have to think about what expectations they have of your firm. What kind of services are you providing Chris, and what other services could you offer? How can you exceed Chris's expectations? How often does Chris want to hear from you, and through what medium? These considerations can help you nurture and strengthen your relationship with clients like Chris.

Keep in mind that you may have multiple ideal clients at your firm – business owners, high-net-worth individuals, senior executives, etc. You can create multiple personas to ensure each of your target audiences is covered.

Using Your Client Persona

After you have created your ideal client persona(s), you'll need to segment and tag your contacts accordingly so you can get the right messages to the right people. Your sales and marketing CRM can help you categorize your personas and align content to their interests.

Segmentation refers to the broader idea of grouping your contacts by persona, whereas tagging is a more granular way to categorize individuals based on their stage in the sales cycle, industry, demographics, and topic interest.

Once your contacts are organized, take time to determine which tax changes, services, and other important information is relevant to each group. This is how you actually put your persona documents to use to benefit the business.

For example, if you have a persona of a high net-worth individual (over 55 years old, educated, a specific income level), you may want to educate this group on the upcoming changes to the Lifetime Gift & Estate Tax Exclusion. Because this exclusion is going away, high net-worth individuals should make changes to their estate plans now to prepare for it.

Conclusion

Even though a client persona can help you put a face to your target market, remember that your ideal client is not just a demographic or a set of characteristics. They are individuals with unique needs and motivations. Build on your client persona document over time by updating it with new needs, preferences, and challenges. This will enable you to provide a service that not only meets your audience’s accounting needs but also builds a strong, long-lasting relationship.