CPA_Practice_Advisor_March_2020 - 19

MARKETING YOUR FIRM

THREE

Marketing Tips to
Increase Summer Billings
By Becky Livingston

YOU MAY HAVE been so busy during tax season that you've not been
focusing on your marketing initiatives for summer. Unfortunately, now's
the time to be thinking about it.
Rather than spending a huge amount of time
on content development, consider how you can
leverage social media and online advertising to
move the needle.
Here's how.

NON-TAX SERVICE FOCUS

Think about the things your clients
should to focus on during summer
months, for example succession planning,
bank loan preparation and financial statements,
payroll updates, cash flow reporting, audits,
and software upgrades. Create a landing page
on your website for each service on which you
plan to focus. Then:
■ Send an email to clients with a service reminder
and a link to schedule an appointment. There
are several good scheduling apps (w w w.
cpapracticeadvisor.com/21124539) you can
add to your website to make this process even
more efficient.
■ Prepare several social media organic, non-paid
posts over the course of four to five weeks that
link back to each service page.
■ Create social media ads for less than $1/day
on Facebook and $10/day on LinkedIn that also
point back to the service page.
■ Spend less than $100 on Google Ads that link
back to the service page.

CCOUNTING TIP VIDEO
A
CAMPAIGN

Develop a video campaign focusing on
accounting tips for your target market-those you
most want to have as new clients. One tip per week
for several weeks is all you need. Remember to
include a call to action at the end and branding in
the beginning to help drive traffic to your website.
Also, post the videos on a free YouTube channel to
keep the collection in one area. Then link to that
channel from your website.
The videos should be less than 60 seconds in
length each. Free or paid tools, like RawShorts,
Biteable, Animaker, Promo, Pixabay, Pikwizard, or
InShot (mobile only), help to reduce the amount of
work on your plate.
Leveraging popular, social media weekday
hashtags like #TipTuesday, #WednesdayWisdom,
#FeatureFriday, or #SpotlightSunday, also increase
your audience reach.

YOU'VE GOT MAIL

Old-school marketing techniques, like
postcards, are a great way to get attention. People are so swamped with electronic mail,
that receiving an actual piece of mail can be exciting. Consider an image that business owners will
understand and better yet, think, "Yes! That's me."
Choose one topic for the postcard, such as

payroll headaches getting you down, cash flow
slowdown keeping you up at night, succession
planning putting the brakes on retirement, sales
tax confusion stressing you out, and more.
Then, add how you can help and include a
unique URL or promotional code people can use
to contact you.
How do you get the mailing addresses?
■ You can use a service like Hoovers that provides
mailing information based on your defined criteria.
■ An advanced search on LinkedIn is also a great
resource to find business names and a contact
person.
■ State government websites often have a search
services for businesses, e.g., https://dat.maryland.
gov/businesses/Pages/default.aspx.
Sending postcards at a bulk mail rate is also a
good way to keep costs down.
Go ahead, put on your summer gear and think
about a fun way to engage your target market. ■
Becky Livingston has over twenty-five
years' experience in marketing and technology in financial services and engineering
firms. She is the President and CEO of
Penheel Marketing, a boutique marketing
firm specializing in social media and digital
marketing for CPAs. In addition to being a
marketing practitioner, Becky is also an adjunct professor,
author, and speaker. With a graduate degree from Pace
University in Information Systems, Becky also holds
undergraduate degrees from two other colleges and also
has a Certificate in Corporate Training from NYU. She is
also an active member of the Association for Accounting
Marketing (AAM). Connect with Becky's firm on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Pinterest, and YouTube.

MARCH 2020 ■

www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

https://www.dat.maryland.gov/businesses/Pages/default.aspx http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/21124539 http://www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

CPA_Practice_Advisor_March_2020

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