marketing

Keep Clients from “Balance Due” Shock

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With just a little advanced marketing, you can get paid year-round AND have more satisfied clients.

By Frank Stitely
The Relentless CPA

When I talk with prospective clients in any medium, I lead with tax planning. I don’t care if I’m meeting them, calling them or emailing them. I lead with tax planning. The number one complaint clients have about CPAs and tax preparers is a lack of planning. They get tax returns and nothing else.

MORE: Stop Clients from Performing “Favors” | Who Needs Fall Tax Planning? Clients … and You | Get Clients to Bring Tax Docs Early…Yes, EARLY | Why Time Tracking Still Matters | Make Fewer Mistakes, Increase Revenue and Capacity | Six Ways to Create a Millennial-Friendly Firm
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The fun part is seeing the reaction when I mention planning. I tell them that they can know the results while there’s still time to change the results. Tax season is no longer stressful because they know the answers in advance about refunds and balances due.
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What’s In a (Domain) Name? Plenty

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Not knowing what you’re doing can cost you plenty.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

Domain names are cheap compared to other marketing costs. They average $15 to $20 per year per domain. But if you register many domains, they can begin to add up. And if you switch domains, you could end up costing yourself far more than $15 in lost revenues if you don’t know what you are doing.

MORE: Need Leads? Try a Quiz | Five Emotional Skills for Entrepreneurs | Transform Your Marketing with CRM | Five Kinds of Small Thinking | Five Tests: How Open Are You to Change? | Maybe Price Isn’t the Problem | The Seven-Step Plan for Marketing by Spreadsheet
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Here are my thoughts and what’s possible with domain names, especially as they relate to search engine optimization at the macro level.

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Now’s the Time to Clean Up Your Email List

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Sending emails from a laptopYou’ll engage more and spend less.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

Hopefully, you are building a list of contacts who have given you permission to email them on a regular basis. This can be done via a newsletter opt-in, free report opt-in or simply a client list.

MORE: Five Kinds of Small Thinking | Three Questions for the New Year | 13 Reasons to Master Consumption Marketing | When to Talk About Fees | Take a Moment for Appreciation | Beyond Compliance: What More You Can Provide  | Boost Your Cross-Selling in Two Easy Steps
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As time goes on, your list will get larger, and many contacts with email addresses you collected years ago may stop interacting with you. As your list grows, you may be charged more to maintain a larger list size. As people stop opening your emails, it can affect the deliverability of all of your emails.

These are the reasons why you should periodically clean your email list.

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Transform Your Marketing with CRM

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The right system can streamline client communications and simplify prospecting leads. Streamline sales and marketing with the right CRM.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

A CRM is a system that helps you centralize marketing and customer communications with clients and prospects. It stands for customer relationship management, and most of these systems are now in the cloud as web apps.

MORE: Nine Thoughts on Self-Marketing for the Introvert | Don’t Let Prospects Fall through the Cracks | Five Kinds of Small Thinking | Three Questions for the New Year | 13 Reasons to Master Consumption Marketing | When to Talk About Fees | Take a Moment for Appreciation | Beyond Compliance: What More You Can Provide  | Boost Your Cross-Selling in Two Easy Steps
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What CRMs Do
It’s amazing what CRMs can do these days. As client contact points have grown over the last few decades beyond phone and fax, so have CRMs’ capabilities to unify client messaging. At the core level, all CRMs typically allow you to store customer and prospect contact data, such as name, address, company name, titles and so forth. Most of them allow you to create custom fields to store things like type of entity, marriage or filing status, and what accounting software they use.

Here’s where it starts to get fun.

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Nine Thoughts on Self-Marketing for the Introvert

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Are you afraid to put yourself out there?

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

Are you shy? Do you consider yourself to be a private person?  Do you hate marketing because you feel exposed and prefer not to be the center of attention?

MORE: Three Questions for the New Year | Five Lessons My Clients Taught Me | How to Fire a Client | Five Tips for Virtual Team Member Happiness | Boost Your Cross-Selling in Two Easy Steps | 11 Kinds of Wealth
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If so, you are not alone. But if you are also an entrepreneur or partner, you are probably sabotaging your marketing investment and you have a higher chance of your business failing (or suffering from low revenue).

What can you do? Is there a way to attract clients and stay shy or private?

The answer is maybe. In any case, a mind shift needs to happen.

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Going Viral: Today’s Top Marketing Strategies

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When did you last optimize?

By Penny Breslin
It’s Not Just the Numbers

The global pandemic has significantly impacted every aspect of business and our society, including digital marketing and how we do business. Accounting firms had to pivot and shift their practices to increase their online presence to stay connected with clients, find a way to stay relevant, and increase their client base.

MORE: Marketing? Know Your Goals First | Pick Your Favorite Clients | Keep the Accountants Focused on Accounting | What Do You Want Advisory Services to Be? | Meet the New BOS | Why AI Is Not the Enemy
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The pandemic initially muted and almost eliminated traditional marketing, such as in-person meetings, conferences, and other events, and it amplified the importance of digital marketing in growing accounting practices.

Many turned to social media, producing more relevant content, increasing their paid ads budgets, and launching webinars and podcasts. Digital marketing is here for good, and firms must embrace it to grow. Whatever business goals you have, you can utilize several digital marketing strategies and platforms to achieve them and significantly impact the future of your practice or firm.
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Why Value Pricing Works

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And how marketing fits in.

By Bruce Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

We’ve seen accounting and law professionals learn to work as partners with marketers. Typical proponents of this new form of marketing are accountants who have learned to think and act like marketers, accountants who have developed new kinds of accounting firms and new kinds of governance structures. It’s a system that in at least one aspect draws upon a product marketing practice – in that the marketers participate in designing aspects of accounting and law practice.

MORE: How Marketing Has Evolved | Accountants Don’t Sell Soap. | Why Competition Matters Most | Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm

EDITOR’S NOTE: CPA Trendlines was privileged to have a long relationship with Bruce W. Marcus, who was ahead of his time in his thinking and practice in marketing for accounting. We are publishing some of the late expert’s evergreen work, which retains wisdom for the present.

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It’s a system in which accountants relate to clients in more constructive ways, and in dialogues rather than monologues. In accounting firms in which the barriers between partners and associates who are skilled and talented have eroded, and client service teams that not only serve clients better, but function as marketing instruments, by virtue of developing better ways of demonstrating the possibilities of extended service.
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