Case Study: 1st Class Accounts

Increased monthly new clients from 29 to 50 and ranking 1st in Google search results with a content-first organic marketing approach (and no advertising!)

The client  

1st Class Accounts is a fast-growing accountancy business based in London. They specialise in supporting contractors, small business owners and sole traders to get on top of both their business and personal finances.

They have an exceptional level of customer service and pride themselves on being able to deliver bespoke and cost-effective guidance to all their clients in industries ranging from construction to entertainment. 

The challenge 

1st Class Accounts had recently tried to hire in-house marketing support as they grew their business; however, this didn’t work out as they needed more strategic guidance alongside day-to-day marketing implementation.  

They wanted: 

  • A clear marketing strategy to help them reach their business goal of increasing the number of new clients 
  • Consistent implementation of marketing across all channels 
  • Content that better reflected their quality brand and commitment to excellence 

The solution 

We started by working with 1st Class Accounts to create a tailored marketing strategy in line with their business goals. They wanted to improve their online visibility to prospective clients and use organic marketing to support an increase in inbound enquiries. 

As there were a number of diverse audience groups to cover, we decided on a comprehensive content marketing strategy to maximise reach, including the LinkedIn company page and profile, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, blogging and email marketing. We also supported them with award entries and team training. 

We identified LinkedIn as a key channel and a great opportunity to connect with small business owners. We optimised the team’s profiles and also provided training to support our employee advocacy strategy, which greatly improved the reach of LinkedIn content. 

The blog gave us another opportunity to raise brand awareness and strengthen 1st Class Accounts’ reputation. We created a comprehensive blog content calendar that answered their clients frequently asked questions to make their website an essential resource for anyone looking to find out more about accounting for their business. 

Another priority was to keep current clients engaged, so we created and implemented a monthly newsletter, which consistently maintained a high open rate of over 50% every month by regularly testing and optimising the subject line. The newsletter encouraged existing clients to refer 1st Class Accounts by promoting their referral scheme and kept them top of mind. 

One of the biggest areas we were able to help with (which is usually a big headache for many B2B business owners!) was engagement across social channels. We tailored this to each channel and target audience. For example, on Facebook we concentrated on sharing relevant content to groups, whereas on Instagram we followed and engaged with target audience accounts every week. 

The bits we’re most proud of 

  • Increase from 29 new clients per month in January 2021 to 50 new clients per month in January 2022 
  • SEO-optimised blog posts on the website to rank 1st in Google search for key search terms ahead of other trusted resources such as gov.uk

The overall results 

  • Audience size increased by 199% between January 2022 and May 2023 (from 3344 to 10,017) 
  • Reach increased by 507% between January 2022 and May 2023 (3980 to 24170) 
  • During our work together, we had a total reach of 266,510 
  • Average monthly engagement across all content increased by 214%
  • Consistently generated a click-through rate of over 55% on the monthly newsletter (compared to an industry average of 27.6%) 
  • Increased blog views by 1,837%, driven by cornerstone blog content including ‘UK Accounting Calendar’ 
  • Increased monthly web traffic by 284%

 

“Since we started working with Catherine and her team in August 2021, we have experienced huge growth at 1st Class Accounts and our marketing results speak for themselves. Since then, on our own channels we’ve seen:

  • Over 200% increase in audience size
  • 360% increase in reach
  • Over 2000% increase in engagement”

Yemi Ajala, 1st Class Accounts

Ready for results like these in your business?