Called To Account
Educational and informative website content is central to how Accountant Online attracts new customers, writes Darren O’Loughlin
Rose Kervick’s CV charts a career of roles in a diverse array of businesses, and when she joined Accountant Online in 2017, it wasn’t for her bookkeeping skills. “I’m not an accountant but I admired how this business was set up and its potential,” Kervick recalls.
Launched by accountant Larissa Feeney a few years before, Accountant Online.ie clicked with firms looking for online accounting solutions, but the founder Feeney needed someone with digital marketing nous to realise its potential.
Nearly every accountancy firm has transitioned to delivering services online during the pandemic, but before Covid, numerous new bookkeeping and accounting ventures were developed with an online-only focus. As office accounting packages have increasingly moved to the cloud, the idea is that instead of having a part-time or full-time in-house bookkeeper, everyday accounting tasks can be outsourced over the internet.
Accountant Online, based in Letterkenny, says its client base has increased from 300 in 2017 to c.2,000 last year. Kervick says that a solid digital marketing strategy based on educating startups about business formation and accounting is an important propeller of growth. “Our website traffic in January was up by 50% year on year,” says Kervick. “I know there are now more business webinars taking place than you could shake a stick at, but these free resources play a big part in attracting clients.”
Kervick’s career began with Delta Air Lines, where she worked as a call-centre manager in London. She returned to Ireland in 1999 and worked in managerial roles with Microsoft and Esat before becoming the European regional director of ebookers. “It was an important time in my career, as I learned about the power and growth potential of the internet,” she recalls.
More recently Kervick worked at eumom.ie (now called everymom) before launching a consultancy and coaching service. “I met Larissa Feeney through the consultancy. We weren’t pitching to each other but I knew what was required to attract and convert people into customers online. We talked a bit more and I came on board. Accountancy is a commodity, so there isn't much difference across small accountancy practices. Our client surveys tell us that they come to us for our service.”
Kervick says her first task was to work out a digital marketing strategy. “Because I’m not an accountant, I took the perspective of a business owner and tried to reflect that in how we market ourselves, using the kind of language that makes our services as accessible as possible for business owners. The average age of an early-stage entrepreneur in Ireland is 38. That’s an audience that has grown up with the web, and they tend to look for free education resources.
“We started education webinars in 2017, providing advice on company formation, tax management etc. Addressing business owners’ needs in this way develops trust, and we’ve seen clients sign up for our newsletters or webinars, mull over forming a business, and then become a client a year later. ‘Educational’ has definitely been the tone of our digital marketing approach.”
Website conversions are the chief source of clients for Accountant Online, with social media marketing geared towards luring people to the site. “Most of our clients come from the IT and consultancy sectors, and we’ve seen growth in mid-sized business clients looking to automate their accountancy requirements over the last year. We don’t work with many clients in the hospitality or retail sectors, so Covid-19 hasn’t had a big effect on the business. It’s not that we offer services that you can’t find with other accountants – it’s just that we have become particularly good at delivering them.”