side benefit: you’ll serve your clients better.
by sandi leyva
the complete guide to marketing for tax & accounting firms
the latest marketing strategies and trends are almost as hard to keep up with as the tax law changes these days. here is a quick taste of three underutilized marketing trends that can solve a couple of issues in the accounting industry and increase firm profits.
more: you’re missing 60% of your revenue | calculate your business relationship ratios | set bold new goals for the rest of the year | generative ai: should you avoid it or adopt it? | five stages of any business | leverage your client list today | need leads? try a quiz | now’s the time to clean up your email list | don’t let prospects fall through the cracks
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1 – consumption marketing
does client attrition keep your firm’s managing partner up at night? consumption marketing is one of several solutions to this challenge. consumption marketing is designed to increase the consumer’s use of the product and avoid returns (think “avoid writeoffs”).
action item: build in tips to show your client how to consume your services for better client satisfaction and retention. this can be anything from extra status emails during the project to additional handholding through implementation and followup. go beyond the regulatory requirement and show the client how to improve their business with all the work you just did.
audit tip: show your client how to use the information in the audit to save money, tighten procedures beyond what’s necessary for the audit and otherwise repurpose the information for their benefit. your fee will be more palatable and pay back a little more.
2 – social metrics
the three lowest-cost ways for accounting professionals to market are retention, referrals and reputation. i call them the 3 r’s. we talked about retention above; social media is a great way for accounting professionals to build reputation. social metrics allow the public to rate your reputation to the community.
action item: engage your community; you will learn exactly how you can modify your services to meet needs and soar your revenues. i believe there is great opportunity here, but only the most progressive firms will do this.
management consulting tip: ask your community where their pain points are and move fast to solve them.
3 – bundling
it’s not new, but it’s underused, and the accounting industry could definitely benefit. bundling is packaging individual products and services together. this is the answer to decommoditizing the tax return. bundle the tax return with other value-added services so that the client benefits much more than simply getting the return filed.
action item: make a list of every service and product you offer and figure out what can go together. if you don’t have anything that fits together, develop something synergistic. i’ve bundled my marketing, coaching and client retention tools in a nice little yearlong membership package. i’ve bundled my foundation marketing course with my one-on-one coaching.
small business tip: if you’re not already bundling, bundle payroll, sales tax and the 1120 for a small business, take them out of their deadline misery. you could call it tax triple play, i don’t know. i’d buy it. the benefit of bundling is you won’t be compared hour for hour and when you add all the extra service, you won’t be comparable to the big-box tax services.