don’t forget to track your results.
by sandi leyva
the complete guide to marketing for tax & accounting firms
it’s time now to start executing your marketing plan for your business. let’s review the steps that got us here.
more small firm growth strategies: marketing materials 201: some advanced tips | testimonials: why and how | how to use ‘warmed-up’ telemarketing | awards can boost your reputation | technical aspects of video and youtube | social media basics for accounting firms | how to maximize online profile sites
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you created your revenue plan, which gave you the number of new clients you need to attract. you met your ideal client. then you were introduced to the idea of creating a marketing plan for each channel you use, and only selecting the number of channels you need to get to the number of clients you desire.
as a refresher, here are the channels:
- client retention
- referrals from all sources
- reputation
- events
- online marketing
- press
- case studies, white papers and published articles
- telemarketing
- email marketing and newsletters
- direct mail
although they’re in order from least costly and most effective to most costly and least effective, we know you have certain preferences, skills and even biases that will affect your choices.
mix and match
once you get comfortable with a particular channel, the real synergy comes in when you can use multiple channels on any one campaign.
for example, if you followed how we marketed accountant’s accelerator, the primary channels were a combination of these three:
- email marketing and newsletters
- partnerships
- webinars
we set up complimentary webinars and asked our affiliate and other partners to invite their lists of clients and subscribers. we also invited our list of subscribers. the webinar allows new people to experience me so that they can get a taste of what i have to offer. the webinars build trust, in other words. the people who were right for the program were then able to make a choice about their participation.
winning combinations
an example of a winning combination is to create an open house and invite all of the people on your list whom you have been warming up with your newsletter. invite the media, too, and see if you can get an article written about the event. for those who attend, follow up with a warm telemarketing call to set up a complimentary session.
combining these channels exponentially increases your results, so be sure to think about what you can do to ad one more touch to your campaign.
one last confession: contacting leads so many times will feel uncomfortable if you are normal. i really dislike sending so many emails. but they work. before i became knowledgeable about marketing, i would only send one email and wonder where everyone was. well, hardly anyone saw it. you have to send far more emails, postcards, phone calls, etc. than you might be comfortable with to get noticed. i can’t tell you how many times we have someone email us and say, “i know you sent an email but i can’t find it now.” imagine how many more people don’t write and don’t take action because they missed your first and only email. well, there’s a statistic for that: it’s 97 percent.
tracking your results
how will you know what part of your marketing program is working and what’s not working? you must measure it. you want to do this so you can spend your marketing dollars on the items that are paying back the best.
tracing and evaluating sources of business
every time an accounting prospect calls you, you’ll want to know how they heard about you. a lot of times they will tell you before you have a chance to ask, especially if they are a referral. in case they don’t, you’ll want to put a procedure in place to track this.
i recommend you make a spreadsheet with three columns: client name, revenues to date, and how they found you. periodically (monthly or quarterly) have your staff build a pie chart by “how they found you.” also have them do a similar spreadsheet on a higher level. keep two of the three columns – revenues to date and how they found you – and collapse it by “how they found you” or channel, which maps to your marketing plan. add your marketing costs to each method and then divide revenues by costs to get an roi for each method.
if you’re in a larger company with multiple professionals marketing and making client contact, you will want a more sophisticated tracking system such as salesforce.com or hubspot.com.
tip: find out what marketing methods are working the best and revise your plan.
with this information, you have some amazing insight into your marketing investment and can make some informed decisions. be sure to factor in the cost of your time and your staff time as a part of the costs to truly tell which method is the best payback for you.