Email marketing is a great way for you to attract or shore up some of the client base, and accounting firms know that once the April rush begins, there will be no rest until it is all put aside. It won’t be long until tax filing season comes into focus; no sooner than the holiday decorations are returned to their resting place. It’s a vicious cycle familiar to those in the world of tax preparation and unique to that industry.
The CPA’s and EA’s we work with strive to build up their rest over the period between holidays, and avoid drinking too much bubbly on New Year’s Eve. You know you are going to need your strength once the pressure builds and the back and forth of communications starts with your clients and your staff.
Marketing is probably not even on your mind, especially email marketing. If it isn’t in your wheel house, you just may be in deep water. Not to worry, we at Zen Marketing have life safety devices nearby to bring you back on dry land.
We all know that competition is stiff under normal standards, and 2013 will be no exception.
Competition combined with the never ending changes in the Tax Code, expiring incentives and the rush to get it all done can make your head spin off your shoulders. Add marketing to that mix and some service professionals may be considering moving to a desert island.
Having said that, utilizing email marketing can streamline the process of getting or staying in contact with your client base, as well as nurturing existing leads that have yet to commit. Getting some of that work done now can put your firm in good stead once the filing season restarts. Normally, clients rush in, and then rush away almost as quickly. Generating some leads and nurturing them with an automated email marketing campaign is a great way to smooth out the bumps and dips in clientele once the madness of April is behind you.
Email marketing is one of the most affordable methods of new business generation, so why not exploit it. Scheduled content delivery builds reputations, relations and keeps your potential client in the loop. Utilizing a pre-planned and coordinated email marketing campaign can be automated, so you can focus on matters at hand.
Your Firm Can Afford This
The affordability is one of the most attractive aspects of lead generation through email marketing. Still considered the best form of lead nurturing, when you compare it against snail mail, email wins hands down. With the postage rates in a constant upward motion, it has become cost prohibitive for most accounting firms and other small businesses.
As for other forms of marketing, the costs for television and radio ads have skyrocketed, mainly because of lagging usage. Revenue targets must remain so even though usage has declined, the average cost per ad has gone skyward, and will remain in an upward climb. Even more reason for email.
You can cross-sell targeted batches of your overall database by segmenting them into their position in the sales process. Sending get acquainted email content to seasoned prospects is not productive, and may even offend or disenchant prospects. Using data culled by what we refer to as “lead score” will allow for targeted messaging to the right group of prospective clientele. The same holds true for delivering a buying decision email message too soon in the process, which may cause you to lose that prospect all together. Targeted lead nurturing is a tactic that works well, if implemented correctly.
Another worthwhile tactic is to personalize the email marketing messages so that the information is deemed “just for me,” which builds your brand and the relationship. Using the prospects name in the salutation and in the body of the content makes you get noticed, and it can be done through technology rather than individually creating each message.
Email Marketing easily integrates into other marketing tactics
If your budget allows for it, the use of landing pages and personalized URL’s in tandem with email marketing has been shown to generate very high conversion results (also known as KPI’s or key performance indicators). They are easily tailored to the specific segment of the audience you wish to speak to and can actually allow you to extend the reach of your marketing campaigns, because they are searchable and found in organic online searches.
Email marketing is a great tool for accounting firms of all sizes. You know the big boys use it, and you can as well. All it takes is a bit of knowledge, effort and someone to help guide you toward a successful campaign.
