As a tax professional, you know that retaining existing clients and recruiting new clients are both crucial to maintaining and growing your business. One way to tackle both of these tasks while setting yourself apart from the competition is by marketing your firm, products, services and staff. To help get you started, we’ve put together a few tips for creating an effective marketing plan that won’t break your budget.

Pull, don’t push.

“Push” marketing strategies such as television ads, radio ads and telemarketing – methods that take you and your services to prospective clients – are on their way out. Meanwhile, “pull” marketing strategies – that is, strategies that convince the customers to come to you – are taking center stage. “Pull” marketing approaches can be anything from word-of-mouth referrals to social media engagements to advertised sales promotions. Typically, it is best to employ more than one.

Go digital.

Creating an online presence for your firm is crucial to developing a “pull” marketing strategy that will meet existing and prospective clients where they are. Create a website that is easily searchable and clearly conveys who you are, what services and products you offer and what sets you apart from the competition. Be sure to provide a call to action, and don’t forget to optimize your website for multiple devices like mobile phones, tablets and more. Being active on social media will also help strengthen your brand and provide new ways for you to connect with current and prospective clients.

Create meaningful, client-focused content.

You’ve created a website and have accounts for your firm on multiple social media sites – so now what? Establishing a website and a social media presence is only effective if they are maintained. Create powerful connections with your existing and prospective clients through intentional and genuine communication. Don’t simply offer a laundry list of the services you provide; instead, try framing these services as solutions to real-world problems your clients might face. Creating content that strengthens your credibility and gains the trust of potential clients is a powerful marketing tool that shouldn’t be overlooked. Plus, posting regularly online is a great way to align your business and sales objectives with your marketing initiatives and goals.
The success of everything from sales to marketing can be evaluated by setting measurable goals, and the good news is it doesn’t have to be expensive. To learn more about how to implement an effective marketing strategy on a budget, download Surgent’s webinar, “Surgent’s Marketing Mastery Boot Camp: Achieve Ferrari-Type High Performance Marketing on a Fiat Budget.”