I seem to be getting an increase in the number of mail shot letters sent to new companies that I incorporate with my office address as the Registered Office. Are others finding this to be the case?
I've never lost a client to a mail shot (as far as I'm aware anyway). Does this method work in getting new clients? I'd love to hear from anyone who actually does it.
thanks
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I was surprised when Accountancy Manager made a big deal of this a couple weeks ago when they announced the acquisition of Nexok - it seems to me that sending out letters is an extremely expensive and inefficient way of marketing, surely 99.9 % go in the bin unless you can really narrow it down and have a really flashy offer rather than just a boring old letter
We tried it back in the day probably 20 years ago
I remember it being a complete waste on time., hardly any response
But we never really did enough follow up. I remember the idea that it should be drip, drip and may need several mailshots to same co before anything likely to happen
I would expect new companies have directors that already have an accountant or do not intend to get one until they think they need one.
However one client at the time said that we would be amazed how much marketing from accountants and auditors they got each month.
Long established client, Medium sized group and audited
Well you are self selecting client who set up a company without any advice....
Doesn't sound like the ideal cohort to me.
nor those who will go to you just because they saw your mailshot
They might well be off when they see another.
A local medium sized firm does this annually to any companies who RO is my office. They also send follow up mailshots with taxation and other advice. I've tried telling the senior partner to stop it but he seems incapable of managing this so I've reverted to asking the postman to return them. However doesn't seem to stem the flow
That is daft
Sending to a registered office that gives the incumbent the opportunity to intercept.
But chances are those a a tiny number from a big database.
Sender cannot be 4rsed to amend because even if he does the database gets updated regularly and those get added again
The very few RO we have I just junk all spam mail
Nexok allows you to exclude addresses where there is more than one company registered, a good option but I still think it is a daft idea to send letters these days
I have the same. After a deluge of them came in from another local firm, I contacted them to let them know their money was being wasted especially as it cannot be too technical a challenge to filter out obvious registered office services but obviously took little notice.
As we are all aware of the high percentage of new company incorporations that will never go on to do anything anyway, it seems a hopelessly optimistic approach.
I doubt they realise - probably all companies in a certain postcode area.
If they were targeting you surely they'd use the RO duplicates to create a client list and then research trading addresses for those companies and mailshot direct.
We used to do it, took the XML feed directly from Companies House, narrowed down to our required postcode areas and then mailshot from there. We were offering something quite specific at the time for new start companies and did quite well out of it. One prospect we found from this process is still with us today and has become an £8m t/o business in the 10 years we have dealt with them.
We had a piece of software written (by someone on PPH) to download the CH feed and this had facility to auto exclude certain addresses, so whilst there would be some waste, it was not as great as some other firms.
We regularly get crap for new companies who we incorporate at our address, normally 3 or 4 from other local accountants, plus mail from Capital on Tap, Funding Circle, Counting Up and a few others......
Personal experience is that it doesn't work. To do it properly you have to weed out the other accountants' office addresses in your target area otherwise you're spending money on a straight to bin letter!
Just an FYI Johnt27 - Nexok allows you to exclude Sic Codes and Keywords from the search criteria, along with the option to exclude companies with shared addresses to stop you from sending lots of mail to registered office addresses which may never get read.
All of the above (along with other search criteria) designed to prevent spending more money on a campaign than necessary.
Thanks James.
Didn't say I was against it per se but just my opinion from personal experience the ROI is often not worth it and you have to be careful with the data collected to clean it up. As you say that's relatively easy now and accessing Companies House data is incredibly simple, even compared to a few years ago.
All part of the sales/marketing mix and choices over what works best.
I can speak confidently about this method of marketing having tried and tested it.
The purpose of founding Nexok was due to the success we were having from Direct Mail marketing campaigns which subsequently led to the formation of AccountancyManager to help us manage and maintain all the new business that was being generated (now used by over 4,500 accountants and bookkeepers in the UK).
Digital marketing campaigns are essential, however, due to fewer letters being received these days, it makes them more impactful when they are.
The key to this method of marketing is ensuring the letter content is short and to the point, clearly identifying your USP. Too much 'fluff' and people won't read it. It's also a numbers game, we'd send out 3000 letters and get contacted by 1% (30) limited companies, our conversion rate would be 30%-40%.
Landing just 10 limited companies made it worthwhile and we did this every month.
We tried this method for AccountancyManager and were very successful (so even accountants have been receptive to this method of marketing). It's worth noting, we wouldn't release a product that wasn't tried and tested.
James that is a very useful insight, my conclusions
1. The campaign has to have a very tight criteria to be successful
2. If you are getting 10 clients for 3000 letters, its not a terrible return but represents a big initial investment
3. You really need to be sure than you are targeting a certain size of client to make it worthwhile, clients with fees more than lets say 1/1.5k PA if not more
I am not sure you would lose a client to a mailshot, they are targeting the "self starters" who do not take any advice before forming the company. Trying to recruit a client who doesn't seem to want to pay for professional advice seems a strange business model.
As others have said we used mail shots over 20 years ago. We bought the names and addresses from a firm (can’t remember their name now), and they weren’t just newly registered companies. We sent, from our office, the letters and a telemarketing firm followed up on our behalf. Initially we had some really good results and grew our business quite rapidly. The quality of the clients we obtained varied quite a lot, and after about ten years we found that businesses rarely read the letters and almost never took the follow up telephone call.
From then on we relied on referrals.
Now I’m happily retired!!