Staggered Through the Year
Year Long Positioning Efforts
These Cycles Work
Separate Quality from Selling

Marketing for CPA firms is similar to dieting. There is a lot of thought and planning that occurs before the diet. When the diet begins people feel good, expectations are elevated and the easy weight starts to come off. Then the bubble bursts. People find it’s harder than they initially thought and results begin to diminish. Everyone gradually slips back into old habits and the process falls apart. Marketing for CPA firms follows a similar pattern.

A typical firm is slow to act, but when they do, they act with a vengeance. Normally, actions are triggered by sluggish revenue, a developing personnel situation or because the firm feels static and motionless. The firm pours energy into their marketing ideas and tries to cram four years of effort into one five-day window. Some activity occurs, a few leads dribble in, then a client deadline emerges, the leads fade away, and the firm is back to next tax season.

The mistake many firms make is biting off too much and offering too little. They mail 5,000 general direct mail pieces without any call to action. Instead, they should try a 100-piece mailing to a defined set of targets followed up by phone calls. The letter should contain an offer, not a description of the firm’s quality or rich tradition. By the way, a free consultation is not an offer. That is the same as telling a prospect you will not charge for a sales call.

CPA firms are a cyclical business. Marketing needs to be adjusted to reflect these cycles. Many firms do 50 to 60 percent of their revenues in a three- to four-month period. Marketing is often limited to the months of June to October when the firm is beginning to recover from tax season and is not ready to begin preparing for the next one.

CPA firms are a lot like the dieter that cannot find time to exercise or focus on what they are eating. If someone is not preparing their meals, or the dieter cannot teach themselves long-term habit changes, it does not work. In a CPA firm, if someone is not consistently “grooming” targeted prospects and making it easy for partners to conduct marketing activities, plans do not convert to measurable actions.

To successfully win business over the long-term, follow these cycles:

Staggered Through the Year

January to May – Employee benefit plan audits.
Market for 401k plan audits, pension plans and defined benefit plans with more than 100 participants. This specialty niche is a method of acquiring off-season audit work with larger prospects. These audits have an October 15 extended filing deadline with auditor selection occurring from February to May with audit work beginning in June. Perfect off-season work. However, if you do not conduct the employee benefit marketing during busy season, the auditor selection window closes.

May to September – Search for a CPA firm acquisition or merger.
This process always produces interested candidates. Find a smaller firm with an aging or “tired” owner, or a younger firm who needs the infrastructure to grow. Seek someone looking for an exit strategy, a safety net in the event of health concerns, or a visionary with ideas.

The timing is critical. In May, most firms are still feeling the impact of the busy tax season. By October, many firms elect to wait another year before committing to a sale or merger. If you conduct a search properly, you create a series of potential acquisitions by establishing practice continuation agreements, purchasing a portion of the practice or developing a phased acquisition process.

June to November – Corporate audit and tax work.
Most private companies have calendar year ends. Although their audit and tax needs have been addressed by June, the “sting” of poor service, higher than expected fees and payment of those invoices is fresh in the prospect’s mind. If they are going to switch CPA firms, this is the strongest positioning period. By the end of November, many prospects feel it is too risky to switch firms. Opportunities will pop through the year, but the majority of direct selling and positioning should be concentrated in this timeframe.

December to April – “Mine” clients for advisory service opportunities.
Create a brief, targeted series of questions to ask clients. Get them discussing needs beyond compliance related issues and initiate thought about long-term issues to “create demand” for services they did not know they needed. Advisory service selling occurs during the busy season, but delivery should be planned for the off-season. Mining grooms staff, creates fees when revenues are low and should be conducted all year, but the best timeframe is during tax season when client communications are high.

Year Long Positioning Efforts

E-mail Marketing. Keep communication steady and frequent with brief, professional e-mails. The cost advantage of e-mail marketing is tremendous. If done properly, you can target clients, prospects, referral sources and groups that influence owners. Never include an attachment. If you have detailed information to share, include a hyperlink in the e-mail so the recipient can elect to click on the link and go to your website for expanded content.

Media and Publication Coverage. The best advertising is a published article or write-up of your firm. To get written up as a news item requires something unique to occur. This does not include staff promotions or new certifications.

Great examples of a potential news item is if your firm was involved in cracking a municipal fraud incident or conducting a public service event such as free financial planning for low income families at a local bank, etc.

Writing articles increase your chance of getting published. With articles, you need to generate something of interest that tells a story a reader may relate to. If you are not involved in a local fraud case, write about the topic of fraud, innovative pricing ideas or something to catch the eye of a key executive. Create demand by being innovative and write on speculation. Do not ask permission to write for a publication. Write the article and then ship it out to find a home. If you write a good piece someone will pick it up. You just need to know how and where to send the articles and press releases.

Referral Partner Marketing. This is the heart of new business opportunities and key to any CPA firm. One relationship can create an annuity of leads through the years. E-mail is an excellent method of developing new relationships and expanding old ones. To effectively develop referral opportunities you need to differentiate and “package” services. Presentation is vital. Would a referral partner send a client or prospect to a firm with a poor web site, old literature and no differentiating service offerings?

Niche Development or Expansion. Penetration of defined targets in a niche takes time and patience. Your good clients will not leave without a series of service issues or fee disputes so do not expect a competitor’s good clients to leave them without valid reasons. Change is difficult for clients. The more prospects read articles from or about your firm, receive professional e-mails and hear your name mentioned by their banker, lawyer or other advisor, the easier it is for them to begin rationalizing making a change. Start planting ideas to get owners questioning if they are with the right CPA firm.

Non-Profit and Government Agency Opportunities. These opportunities are often bid opportunities and rely on RFPs. By staying in front of them all year, you should get the chance to bid. Once you get in the door and a relationship is established, you can position “non-RFP” advisory services to help with special project needs that only you may be able to perform.

These Cycles Work

The difficulty firms face is distinguishing themselves from competitors. Low-carb is the “in” phrase for food manufacturers. Even at your local convenience store, the havens of high fat, high sugar, high calorie foods, low-carb products are displayed. The problem with low-carb is no one is looking at the calorie count.

Marketing is banking on the consumer seeing the low-carb “energy or power” bar and getting them to think it’s a healthier selection than the candy bar with the same calorie content at half the price. CPA firms need to think less about selling themselves on quality and more about adding a little “low-carb” sizzle to the process.

Separate Quality from Selling

Old clients buy quality and remain because of it. New prospects need quality, but every CPA firm claims to have high quality, so who does a prospect get attracted to… an old web site, no literature, high quality firm, or a firm with a nice presentation and a high quality claim?

Consumers grab the better packaging. That’s why food companies invest billions in product and packaging research. The food company has to sell a quality product to survive, but they attract new consumers by changing the packaging to remain current with the times.

CPA firms can follow the food industry’s lead. Presenting a high quality product in a nice wrapper can make the consumer think they are getting a better product even if it is the same tax, audit or advisory service they can get from the other CPA firm down the street.

About the Author
Bob Lewis is the founder of Visionary Marketing, a firm that helps CPA firms develop marketing strategies to target new clients, increase existing client revenues and build referral partner networks. Visionary works with marketing directors, or becomes the marketing director for small- to mid-size firms. Lewis can be reached at 800.995.9186 or at blewis@ThinkVisionary.com.

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