CASE STUDY: Why accounting services firm Addition overhauled its lead gen content

Liesa Stecher, Chief Growth Officer at accounting software provider Addition [centre, pictured with COO John Miller (left) and CEO Graham Davies (right)], reflects on how and why the firm changed its approach to lead generation content.

Financial Services Forum: What business objective were you trying to achieve with your content?

Liesa Stecher: We have very ambitious growth targets for 2021. For that reason, we committed to testing various channels for lead generation and subsequently conversion.

How did you choose a strategy to address this?

Paid social media ads seemed to be the most obvious solution to our lead generation needs. Our target audience is very highly present on these platforms (mainly Facebook and Linkedin). In addition, FB offers very precise targeting features that allow us to narrow down on audiences with specific characteristics and interests.

In regards to ad format, we opted for content lead generation – meaning that we collected leads by offering them a free piece of downloadable content (eg. e-book, guide etc).

What partners if any did you work with on the project?

Since we have limited time and in-house resources (as well as a lack of necessary skill set), we outsourced the campaign to a performance marketing agency who took care of the set up, implementation and monitoring. To save costs and assure quality standards, the content was produced in-house.

How did the implementation go and what challenges did you face?

The implementation went smoothly and without any problems. Leads started to come in quickly. However once we followed up with those leads, we realised that whilst they were interested in our content, they were not considering using our services.

What were your KPIs for success?

The number of leads generated and conversion of leads.

How and why did you change strategy and what were the outcomes?

Once we noticed that incoming leads were not qualified, we started to tweak the downloadable content piece and tailored it more closely to our product offering. As a result, lead generation was lower but leads were generally more open to hearing about our services and some conversions occurred.

What did you learn from the campaign?

Testing out social media ads gave us important insights on lead generation and lead quality. It’s costly (especially when outsourcing the campaign to an agency), competition is high and the incoming leads are not really converting to a level that would give us a good ROI.

At this stage it does not work for us and as a result we paused campaigns on FB and Linkedin.

What’s next?

We continue testing new channels and ad formats such as direct mail, email or referral programs which already show better results than paid ads on social media.

Our client referral program has been an exciting new venture. Clients who sign up for the program receive a personalised link which they can share with their friends and family. The prospective client then contacts us via the link, and if they successfully sign up to one of our plans, they get their first month free. The client who successfully referred is also rewarded. It’s a win-win, and we’re expecting to see referrals snowball soon.