Your next R&D clients look like your last 20. Find the companies that resemble them, and write to the person who answers for the filing. In a larger company that is the CFO or finance director. In a smaller one it is the founder.
The April 2024 reform gives you a reason to write now. The merged scheme, ERIS and the mandatory additional information form changed how claims work, and each one gives a company something new to check before it files. Run LinkedIn and email as one sequence. Ask for a short call before you explain your service. All of this assumes your firm has already filed claims it can learn from. A practice starting from zero needs a different plan first.
Which past clients show you who to target?
Before anyone opens a data tool, pull the last 20 claims you prepared. For each one, write down the sector, the headcount, whether the company was profitable or loss-making, and who signed your engagement letter.
A pattern appears fast. You end up with a line like "profitable engineering manufacturers with 50 to 250 staff, where the finance director signs." That line is your first target. Pay most attention to who signed. If most of your letters carry the managing director's name, that is the title you search for, whatever a data tool suggests.
What changed at HMRC, and who needs an adviser now?
For accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024, a merged scheme and enhanced R&D intensive support (ERIS) replace the old SME scheme and the research and development expenditure credit (RDEC). The merged expenditure credit is 20%.
ERIS covers loss-making SMEs that spend heavily on R&D. Its payable credit is worth up to 14.5% of the surrenderable loss, which is the loss the company gives up in return for a cash credit. Relevant R&D spend must be at least 30% of total expenditure, connected companies included (HMRC guidance).
HMRC also says a valid additional information form (AIF) is now mandatory for a successful claim (HMRC quality report). The merged-scheme guidance tells companies to check whether they must notify HMRC in advance of a claim. HMRC's policy paper on the merger says it will monitor the new scheme through claims and claim notifications.
Claim numbers are falling. HMRC estimates 40,325 R&D claims for 2024 to 2025, a 17% drop on the year before (HMRC statistics, September 2026). Some of the companies that stopped claiming are worth a second look, and your own client history is the first place to find them.
Each change gives a different group a reason to talk:
| Change | Who feels it most | An opening line that fits |
|---|---|---|
| Profitable SMEs claim under the merged scheme | SMEs that used to claim under the old SME rules | "Your claim is calculated differently now. Has anyone run it against the merged scheme?" |
| ERIS and its intensity condition | Loss-making SMEs with R&D spend near the threshold | "Does your R&D spend still clear the intensity test this year?" |
| Mandatory AIF | Companies that filed short project write-ups before | "The AIF now has to carry the project detail. Who is writing yours?" |
| Claim notification | Companies returning after a gap without a claim | "Do you need to tell HMRC before you claim again?" |
| Fewer claims overall | Companies that claimed before and then stopped | "Did you decide to stop claiming, or did it slip?" |
Use these lines only to open a conversation. Check each prospect's actual position against HMRC guidance before you advise them on anything.
Which companies belong at the top of the list?
HMRC's September 2026 statistics show where the money sits: claims in the cost bands of £500,000 and above were 6% of all claims but 69% of total value (HMRC statistics). If your fee follows the size of the benefit, a short list of R&D-heavy companies beats a long list of small claimants.
Inside that group, pick the sector where your past clients already sit, so your proof matches the reader's world. Most claims come from 3 sectors. HMRC's September 2026 statistics show Manufacturing, Information & Communication, and Professional, Scientific & Technical firms made up 75% of claims and 71% of the amount claimed in the 2024 to 2025 financial year.
Manufacturing and Information & Communication each had 27% of claims, and Professional, Scientific & Technical had 20%. If your offer includes site visits or face-to-face meetings, add a local segment. A finance director in your own city opens a conversation with less friction.
The claimant pool is small by B2B standards: HMRC estimates 40,325 claims for 2024 to 2025.
I like a first list of at least 20,000 contacts so there is room to test angles, and one sector in one region rarely gets there. Widen in this order: go national, add companies you know claimed before and stopped, add a second contact per company, then add a second sector. Keep the title rules strict while you widen.
Who decides, and who should you write to?
Search for the exact title that signed your past deals, then apply this:
- CFO in place, usually a group: write to the CFO, plus the head of tax if there is one.
- Finance director but no CFO: write to the finance director.
- No visible finance lead: write to the founder or managing director.
- Every company: add the technical director or head of engineering as a second contact. That person holds the project detail the AIF asks for.
Accountants need their own campaign and their own offer, because they buy a partner for their client book. It helps to understand how accounting firms win clients with outbound before you pitch them a partnership.
Build the list from Sales Navigator, Apollo or ZoomInfo, never from a scraped file or a cheap freelancer list. Strip generic titles such as Assistant, Manager and Associate. Verify every address and keep bounces under 0.5%. Tag each contact with the table row it belongs to, so the right opening line reaches the right company. More on sources and filters sits in the lists and targeting FAQ.
What should the first message say?
Before a finance director replies, they look you up. They answer for the filing, so they read your LinkedIn profile and website before deciding whether your email deserves a reply. Fix the profile of every partner whose name goes on outreach before the first send.
The first message has one job: earn a short call. Explaining your claim process in the opener gets you ignored. Put one real piece of proof in it and keep it to a few lines:
Subject: Your first claim under the merged scheme
Hi [first name], [company] looks like the kind of [sector] firm that claimed under the old SME rules. The calculation has changed under the merged scheme, and the AIF now has to carry the project detail. [One line of real proof: a similar company you prepared a claim for, and what happened.] If your year end is close, would a 15-minute call to check your position be useful?
Fill the bracket with a true result from your own files. If you have no result in that sector yet, start in a sector where you do. A finance director who finds a full profile, real case studies and a named partner will forgive a plain email. An empty profile sinks even a good one. And no copy will save a bad list or a sender sitting in spam.
Should you use LinkedIn, email or both?
Both, as one sequence. With a pool this small, every touch counts, so I open on LinkedIn and let the email arrive from a name the prospect has already seen.
- View the profile, then send a connection request with no pitch.
- Once connected, send one message about the change that fits their table row. Follow the pattern for the first message after an accepted connection.
- Send the warm email with your proof line and the call ask.
- Follow up on LinkedIn with something new, for example a point about the AIF.
- Send a short email follow-up.
- Close the loop politely and leave the door open for their next year end.
In our own sending, the third follow-up is usually the message a finance director finally answers, provided there was a proper gap before it. Stopping at two cuts that off. Before every send, check against an exclusion list of current clients, clients of partner accountants and anyone who opted out. Domains, authentication and warmup have their own deliverability FAQ.
What should advisers measure before they scale outreach?
Track four numbers each month: conversations started, replies, booked calls and signed engagements. I set the monthly target at 50 or more new conversations. Conversations feed calls, and calls feed engagements, so count the conversations first.
For a sense of range: in the email campaigns my team runs, about 1% of contacts usually reply, and closer to 0.5% at thousands of emails a day. Roughly a tenth to a half of replies lead to a booked meeting. Treat these as ranges. They slide down as you send more, and none of them is a promise for your firm.
Results in advice businesses build month by month. The closest case I can show comes from financial advisory, a trade that also sells expert advice to cautious, numbers-first buyers. A firm in Canada had its advisers' LinkedIn profiles optimized, then ran LinkedIn outreach with warm emails.
Over the 12 months, that work added 1,224 new connections with the people the firm wanted to reach. Month 1 brought 19 booked calls. Month 2 brought 26, and month 3 brought 32. The full 12 months added up to 421. Week one tells you very little.
Booking a call and closing a client are different skills. A weak close rate gets weaker as calls grow. Small numbers that do not convert will not convert at scale either. Add LinkedIn or email accounts only after a month in which booked calls became signed engagements at a rate you accept. Until then, train whoever takes the calls on how finance buyers decide.
Start with the 20 claims in your filing cabinet. They already tell you who buys.
If you run an R&D tax practice and want a view on which of your last 20 claims should shape the first list, book a call and bring the sector and headcount for each.
Questions R&D tax advisers ask about finding clients
Should I lead with compliance or with the money a client gets back?
Lead with money for founders and with risk for finance directors. A founder wants to know what the claim is worth this year. A finance director answers for what gets filed, so a complete AIF and a claim that holds up matter more to them. Split the list in half, test one angle on each half, and keep whichever starts more conversations.
Can I use HMRC's regional figures to choose a region?
With care. HMRC assigns each claim to the region of the company's registered office address (HMRC quality report). A group registered in London may run its engineering in the North East. Use the regional tables to shortlist areas, then check where each prospect's technical team actually works before you open with a local angle.
Is intent data worth paying for in this market?
Rarely as the core of the list. Intent data pays off when the addressable market is large. With 3,000 target companies, signals might show on roughly 15. Fifteen companies make a short call list. They will never fill a campaign. In a market this size, an offer that speaks to every company in it, such as the merged scheme change, does more work.
How many sending domains and mailboxes do I need?
For cold email I start with 10 to 20 domains and 20 to 40 mailboxes, more for larger firms with several partners sending. Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC before anything goes out. Let each new mailbox warm up for 10 to 14 days at minimum. Only when warmup is finished do you raise the volume.
How long should I run outbound before judging it?
Give it at least 3 months, because outbound needs time for feedback and rewrites. Getting it fully working usually takes around 6 months. Booked calls can arrive within the first 30 days after launch, but the engagements from them may close 4 or more months later. Judge month one on conversations started rather than signed letters.