With the growing importance of social media as it relates to marketing and public relations, the question becomes, “Should your Accounting or CPA Firm have a formal social media policy in place?”

If you aren’t sure, ask yourself if you should trust your online presence to employees without providing them any outline of expectations. Are you comfortable that all of your employees will just automatically be on the same page as you, and that their representation of your firm, and themselves, will always fall within your desired parameters without a guideline? If your answer is no, you may want to consider implementing a social media policy.

There are generally some type of guidelines to every aspect of business, social media is no different. Without a guideline people will act based on their own judgement, which may not be in line with yours (and it may not be in line with your long-term plan).

Think about your in-office policies. While you probably think many of those policies should be common sense, the company manual serves the purpose of making sure expectations are clear (among other things) so that there isn’t room for someone to undertake guesswork or simply be unaware of the expectations. A social media policy serves a very similar purpose. Everyone will be on the same page because they have all been presented with the same expectations.

A social media policy shouldn’t necessarily be some complicated legal document but more of a simple outline of the ‘who, what, how, when’.

The Who:

• Who is authorized to represent your company online?

The What:

• What are the expectations of the representation of the company?
• What are the general topic expectations?
• What kind of things are expected to be confidential?
• What kind of things are unacceptable?

The How:

• How should employees treat each other (as well as clients, vendors, anyone else that may have an association with your firm) online?
• How will unacceptable behavior be handled?
• How should negativity from non-employees be handled?

The When:

• When employees are off the clock, how should they represent themselves online?

If you just cover your basic expectations everyone will be clear.

The Social Media Governance provides an array of examples of social media guidelines and policies across various industries. You can use these as a starting point.

by Brian O’Connell

Tax season is almost here. Once the Christmas lights come down and the New Year’s party is an embarrassing if hazy memory crunch season will be here and, for the most part, marketing will be the last thing on your mind. But the tax time rush is only a few months long, and before you know it you’ll be hustling for billable hours again. 

Cultivating prospects takes time. Don’t wait.

Work on your marketing right now while you still have time!

The competition for clientele among small and medium size accountancy firms in America tends seem secondary from late winter to early spring. This is the prime season for number crunchers in the US as both individuals and businesses prepare to file their final tax returns. There are no shortage of clients as Tax Day approaches. But once tax day is over most of your clients disappear for almost an entire year only to reappear for another tax filing. For your firm to grow it is vital to retain them for other off-season services like compilations and reviews during the remainder of the year.

An accountancy should establish a reputable foundation and client base right from the start. Building trust and relationships will grant your firm good standing among clients, and promote steady business with them throughout the financial year.

Exploiting Your Email Marketing System
So, how can your practice obtain and maintain leads after Tax Day? Market your accounting practice with custom emails to prospective clients.

Email marketing is among the simplest and cost effective ways of generating leads for your firm. Generally, tax and accounting firms are small to medium-sized organizations run by associates or partners. Your companies usually operate with small budgets and thin profit margins so you need affordable and manageable marketing campaigns to reach out effectively to your prospects and existing client base. This is possible through your CPA Site Solutions Email Marketing System or custom email marketing software available from other providers. Anyone in your company with basic computer know-how can operate such custom email applications with relative ease.

Targeted Cross-Sales
You can also advertise and market your accounting practice with custom emails among targeted clients. This is because the cost of conventional advertising methods such as television and radio is quite prohibitive for small-scale accountancy firms. For example… create a campaign for small business owners and send them information about the benefits of of your compilations, reviews, and strategic business planning services.

Changing Times
In the past, classified adverts on major newspaper were cheap and effective. Today, this is no longer the case, with ad spaces on mainstream newspapers shrinking considerably. You may still advertise your accounts business on a local newspaper but there is minimal guarantee that the envisaged message will directly reach its target audience, much less bring in returns.

Nowadays, customized bulk mail services from the US Postal Services are rarely in use for advertisement purposes like they were in the past. This leaves you with customized email software as the most affordable and convenient means of spreading the word about your company among prospects.

Proven Effectiveness
Currently, email is the leading form of communication and interaction for businesses in the US, according to a report by ExactTarget, an email marketing services provider. Data from this report shows that email facilitates 56 percent of business to business (B2B) communications in the US. Therefore, a plan to market your accounting practice that integrates custom emails has much higher chances of success than one that does not.

Personalize Your Message
A well packaged and customized email is hard to miss or ignore. Email software allows you to personalize the subject line and content of the email messages. Take a moment to learn how to use the system and apply these personal touches to your email marketing campaigns. Having a message addressed directly to the client or prospect by name in the body of the email significantly increases the probability of the messages being open and read by targeted recipients.

Email Marketing Benefits Everyone
Email marketing is currently the easiest and most effective way of personally engaging with your prospective and existing clientele. Typically, small businesses and individuals wait until the last minute rush to file their tax returns but professional accountants recognize the value of tax deadlines, and keep close tabs on any significant news regarding tax laws from the government. As an accounting firm wishing to built its reputation, therefore, you can position your company as a reliable and authoritative source of knowledge on financial matters pertinent to clients. This may include sending prospective and existing customers regular email updates and newsletters regarding the latest events in the financial world.

This is not just you doing your job! These informative messages are also part of the plan to market your accounting practice. By sending monthly or quarterly emails gently coaxing clients and prospects to take a more proactive role in their finances and sending them financial news blurbs and promotional materials in the form of email newsletters you are providing marketing information on services targeted to the needs of specific customers and keeping your brand in the target’s “front of mind”.

Attracting Referrals
The ability to get free referrals from existing networks is another key benefit of email marketing campaigns for your practice. A client may find the email contents useful, and forward it to his friends or business associates in need of similar services. This is a free form of marketing that can positively impact your accounting business by bringing in new customers.

Close engagement through email is a great way to maintain contact, and build long-term relationships with your clients. Email is an underestimated and severely underutilized tool for accomplishing this. Your accounting practice may obtain sufficient revenue from existing clients, but its future growth depends on the acquisition of new ones and one of the best ways of attracting them is to stay in touch with custom emails.

by Brian O’Connell

by Kenny Marshall

The mobile phone is rocking the world. Virtually everybody has one from street vendors to millionaires. Millions of people are chatting, texting, and socializing on their phones daily.

This trend has given rise to a new kind of marketing.  “Text marketing” is a challenging new concept that enables you to reach your target audience directly with a quirky and to the point marketing message.

There are plenty of companies that provide bulk texting services. There are free message systems for smaller firms such as “Text ‘em” and for bigger practices companies like “Text Mobster” charge about $40 per 1000 text messages.

A text marketing message is restricted to 140 characters, ensuring a quick and direct pitch. Your customer will benefit in that they immediately see what you are selling without having to read through paragraphs of sales pitch. Saving them time and you money. Everybody knows majority of pamphlets land in the bin, and emails get deleted when a person has minimal time to read them. However a text message on a cellphone beeps and immediately grasps the customers attention and if written right has pitched a sale to him or her at the point of reading. Text marketing ensures the customer sees the message immediately, wherever he or she is.

The disadvantage is that customers have to opt-in to receive these marketing messages. You’ll want to run some kind of special to get the customer to initially opt-in.

The best way to prevent opt outs is to show some discipline in using this tool. Limit your messages to 1 a month, 2 if something REALLY important happens. Make your texts relevant and interesting, and don’t go for a hard sell. All you’re doing is keeping your brand visible by alerting people to ways they can make and keep more money.

This marketing can also be used for cold canvassing, competitions and promotions, campaigns or even just to send out an incentive to get customers in during a quiet business day but in this business short term hard-sells usually flop. If you send out more than one or two of these messages a year all you’re likely to get is a bunch of opt-outs. Make it your business to entertain and inform, and let the customer decide when she’s ready to buy.

In addition to your marketing texts, texting reminders can also help with client retention. When tax season or quarterly tax estimate due dates are approaching a reminder in the form of a text marketing message will ensure that clients remember and will contact you in time to avoid penalties.

About Kenny:
Kenny Marshall is an independent marketing consultant in Florida. He is also the editor of and primary contributor to Marketing for Accountants.

by Brian O’Connell

People want the ability to use their computer and remotely get to their data from any location. This is more than possible for contemporary websites for accountants with the use of web-based software applications.

Cloud-based applications are very flexible. Further, software applications that support the field of accounting and auditing are actually well-suited for web-based administration.

Accounting businesses ought to integrate accounting solutions into their accounting websites for many reasons. The main reasons are advertising possibilities, decreased expenses, and increased efficiency, and of course (by extension) client retention.

Improving Efficiency
CPA firms frequently get great opportunities to exploit “remote assistance”, either working from home, at the office, or from the client location. Remote assistance using services like Join Me and GoToAssist make it possible to see or even control a clients computer from your home or office!

Clients that need to provide documents or other types of data can be granted access to accounting websites using file transfer systems. Here, the information can be uploaded quickly and securely and is readily available. If you are a CPA Site Solutions customer you have a system called the File Vault that serves this function, but if you’re not there are services like Drop Box that can easily integrated into any website.

These features offer CPA firms the opportunity to generate more revenue by servicing more customers. Accounting websites can and should be used to significantly improve the productivity of accountants, regardless of whether they are working from their home, their office, or remotely from the nearest Starbucks.

Cost Savings
Web based solutions on accounting websites reduce the need for travel as the majority of the work can be done from a workers home or office. Travel expenses can be reduced if not eliminated. This includes transportation, accommodations, and meal expenses. It also reduces the need for the client to provide work space and other work accommodations, such as copiers, printers, and internet access.

For tax, bookkeeping and payroll jobs, clients that own small businesses can share their documents online. Their financials are then available to be updated and/ or accessed as required. Online applications can reduce and sometimes eliminate the need for an in-house staff.

By the way… these savings can be extended to your clients as well. Helping a client reduce the need for accounting staff and delivering services more cheaply and efficiently can significantly reduce their overhead costs and cement customer loyalty.

Marketing Capability
Accounting firms can also benefit in terms of marketing via the internet. The entire global market is at their fingertips. Using modern websites for accountants, everything can be done via the web. It is no longer necessary to meet with clients face to face. CPA firms can use the increased efficiency and lower cost to show their clients how they can save money. This cost savings can be passed on to clients by allowing firms to underbid the competition for work, while maintaining profit margins.

Audit, accounting, and tax services are often being delivered via the web. This is possible through modern technology. Accounting firms that don’t use modern technology and internet-based applications on their accounting websites will eventually be left behind. They will find themselves substantially less competitive as time goes by.

Odds are you already have a really good website. Heck you probably got it from me, in which case you have a really great website.

This article isn’t so much for you. Please keep reading! It may help you use your website more effectively, but rest assured all the toools and design features I’m about to talk about are already integrated into your CPA Site Solutions website!

If you have a paid a professional design company to custom build your site I want you to take a look at it and honestly evaluate something: Did they hone in on your website’s customer retention potential?

Current clients are an important component of your CPA firm website’s strategic market. A little attention to what current clients secretly want from your website will go a long way towards keeping them with you.

For example, consider putting a “Secure File Transfer” tool on your website. Clients will enjoy the ability to quickly and effortlessly transmit records to your accountancy. Whenever tax season rolls around, it can be a Godsend. Your customers, especially the ones most prone to procrastination, will genuinely value being able to deliver their late forms to you without the cost of priority delivery.

Another tool that clients love is online tax organizers. Most accounting website providers offer downloadable tax organizers, but the cutting-edge is a tax organizer that can actually be filled out online. These secure forms can be filled out from anyplace with an internet connection and include a save function so they can be completed at the client’s leisure .

Business owners’ needs are probably a priority for your firm. Imagine how much time they can save with online payroll. Not only is it easy for your clients, but payroll companies make it easy for you too.

These elite clients will also really appreciate an online library of relevant tax forms that they can print out as needed. The IRS offers all their forms and periodicals as downloadable PDFs so it’s a simple matter to include links to these resources. Your website will help clients navigate through to what they need.

Another IRS feature that’s easy to re-brand and add to your website is an automated form for tracking your clients’ tax refunds. This wonderful client benefit will also save your staff time answering the common question “when will my refund arrive?”

Growing customers into true fans is not just beneficial for customer loyalty, it’s also good for appealing to new clients. Incorporating a “Testimonials” section on CPA websites is an excellent marketing tool. Customers enjoy the interactivity of adding their experience. What’s more, great testimonials speak more convincingly and more personally than any marketing effort, so you’ll be getting a double bang for your buck.

Although the economic climate may be tight, this is actually a great time to build your firm.

The recession affects everyone. Still, those worries are paired with opportunity. Make arrangements to connect with your business customers, new leads, and clients that are influential and offer them some extra, highly personalized services. This can result in not just developing your customer base, but it can also help you increase your client base.

Your best clients will always be by referral, and when there are fewer clients to go around it’s a good idea to try to shift your focus from getting the most clients to getting the best clients. Providing exceptional personal service is the best way to do this. For a relatively small investment in time you’ll soon find your clients are no longer customers but have become fans, and they will eagerly refer you to their friends and associates.

Before the busy tax season, a great way to get started with your clients is to plan 4th quarter tax planning sessions. Most professionally designed CPA websites have calendar functions that can help with appointment setting. The uncertainty of the economy creates an opportunity to explain to your clients that their lives are dependent on impact planning. It has a direct impact on their future.

An important metric for the impact of successful tax planning is money. However, boosting the confidence of your client and giving them some hope is the real value. This provides a real competitive advantage for your business. Your leadership gives your clients confidence and a sense of hope. This will make them more dependent on your firm. It will also help them manage day to day stress. Reducing stress can of course improve your clients’ lives.

Tax planning effectively isn’t just about minimizing the amount of taxes a client needs to pay over a period of time. It also has to do with investing, managing cash flow, and in some cases, planning an estate. You want to bring your clients lives back to order. This is the true value of effective tax planning. The natural result is managing fear, reducing negativity and alleviating stress. This can significantly improve the quality of your clients’ lives.

Once you have properly executed a planning session, it can make a big difference in terms of referrals. Your clients will speak of their experience to their family, co-workers, and friends. It is a great way to set your CPA practice apart from the competition, increase your client base, gain referrals and for existing clients, expand your service engagements.

At the planning session, you should:

1. Listen to and validate the concerns about the current economy. You don’t want to sound too optimistic or you will not seem realistic. Your client is not thinking optimistically.
2. Relate the client’s concerns to their situation in particular. Everyone is affected differently by recession, so speaking generally will not be as effective as if you connect someone’s personal concerns about the economy to their situation.
3. You must be realistic. Everyone needs to file taxes, it is inevitable. This shifts the client’s focus to their lives instead of the act of filing taxes.
4. Effective tax planning can bring a sense of hope. You need to present strong guidance. You can create a CPA website reference library of topics on which you can coach, which will help you improve your clients’ lives by giving them a sense of direction.

Here’s how to combine all of these points:

Keep in mind that everyone is feeling stress and anxiety about the economy, and the reality is that it will likely become worse before it improves. For clients with kids, this is especially hard. The responsibilities of parenthood are frightening enough even in the best of times. To help your clients adjust do more than just file a return, help them out by doing some strategic financial planning with them. Show them that no matter what the future brings they’ll be able to adapt effectively.

It is important to remember that recessions bring anxiety, stress, and uncertainty. In order to make informed decisions, you must provide strong leadership for your clients. It isn’t just about filing a tax return.

Arranging tax and fiscal planning with influential customers is the most effortless and cost effective method of increasing your firm’s profile within your local community. Your customers will speak of you, telling others how your business spent the extra time with them helping them manage their lives and their finances, not just filing their tax return.

OK, maybe this isn’t the most original post I’ve ever done.

If you Google the keywords “Charlie Sheen Marketing” you’ll see at least a dozen articles with titles like “Charlie Sheen: Crackpot or Marketing Genius”. Now personally I don’t see why he can’t be both. Madness and genius has never been an “either or” proposition and I’ve certainly seen plenty of evidence to support both contentions. Of course exploring narcissistic personality disorders probably won’t do much to help you build your practice, but whether with intent or just by dumb luck he’s demonstrated some highly effective marketing techniques that even us mere mortals should be taking advantage of.

CPA firms are no different from other businesses in that they need to bring in new clients as well as retain old ones. To accomplish that, your optimal weapon is an useful, pleasing website that clients find helpful over and over.

Good inbound marketing for CPA websites is dignified but never boring. If you’re providing valuable content to your clients with online articles and targeted emails, you will attract clients. And you will keep them because they appreciate your responsible guidance.

Good accounting websites consistently report on the latest developments in the profession. Show that you’re looking towards the future. Or as Charlie Sheen says, “I’m more interested in what I can do next than what I did last.”

Don’t be hesitant about sharing tips that can save tax money and expenses. Other firms will envy your confidence.

Keep abreast of the latest tips to aid your clients, and load them onto your website. Along with your valuable information should be an easy financial calculating tool for the client to see how much money can be saved by using the suggestion he or she just read.

To be dignified is not to be cowardly, but to show your strength as a smart defender of your client. Great accounting websites project loyalty to clients, and confidence in yourself–”you’re either in my corner, or you’re with the trolls” says Charlie, but if you turn this around a little it can actually work for you. Show your clients you’re in their corner and they’ll respond with loyalty and respect.

Effective accounting websites should be personable and very open to communication. Want to encourage contact and trust? List contact information for all your professional staff on your website.

Prospective clients are taking a risk when they meet with a new accountant. You can lesson that risk and welcome them by offering free initial consults. That signals to the client that you’ve got their back.

Having blogs on accounting websites adds friendliness and builds a community of clients and professionals who all share the same concerns and goals.

Follow these tips and you’ll be amazed. An online inbound marketing campaign is more powerful and more economical than traditional advertising.You’ll build credibility and loyalty by drawing people interested in financial services to you, instead of shooting ads blindly to the masses.

Often there is backlash against the offensive marketing “hard-sell.” But inbound marketing, involving communication only with individuals who locate your accountant website due to their own drive, takes only a gentle assurance that the person has identified the most expert accountants in town, who rightly may proclaim like Charlie, “I try to be known more for my work than for anything else.”

Retailers offer great deals and interesting products to get repeat customers, but CPAs and accounting firms need to be more creative to keep their clients coming back. Superb bookkeeping, helpful CPA websites, and flawless tax filings make for satisfied clients – but a competitor down the street could be offering the same excellent service. CPAs need an edge to make sure their clients stick with them. Otherwise, they need to spend too much of their time attracting new work.

Here are several tips for how to retain clients.

Use CPA Websites and Other Tools to Develop Client Relationships

When the job is all about numbers, a personal feel is sometimes difficult to establish. Here are some steps you can take to humanize your business:

• Make follow-up calls to ensure clients have no further questions, that their tax forms were processed correctly, and that their business is doing well.
• Set up a web presence. Accountant websites provide helpful tax tips and financial information for clients, as well as time-saving features like a client portal or a credit card processing service.
• Utilize social media and answer easy accounting questions on your Facebook page or blog.
• Keep small personal notes on each client. Ask about their children, their career, or their success in school next time you see them; it gives you instant likability. People are more comfortable trusting financial issues to those with whom they have personal relationships.

Be Realistic – Then Wow Them

It’s important not to set your clients’ expectations too high. For example, if they turn in their tax materials on April 13, you don’t want them to be disappointed when you need to file an extension.

That being said, you should always work to deliver more than you’ve promised. If a client does turn in her documents on the 13th and you ARE able to get her return done on time, make sure she understands you’ve gone above and beyond for her.

CPA websites can help here, too. If you invest in a high-quality site with a client portal, online bookkeeping, QuickBooks support, and similar features, your clients will benefit. The increased efficiency and convenience of online tools make a great impression.

Act with Integrity

Unfortunately, many people automatically assume those who deal with financial matters are dishonest. Since the deck may already be stacked against you, you must work that much harder to provide honest services.

To combat this, never stretch the truth and always provide bad news in a gentle, straightforward manner.

It also helps to express your trustworthiness in other ways. Being courteous, considerate, and always following through on your promises are other ways you can convey your honesty. The little things really do add up.

Practice Prompt Communication

Hard-to-reach businesses lose customers. When clients are worried about money, waiting hours or days for a return phone call provides ample time for increased fears. Regardless of the reason, clients may be concerned that lack of contact means something is wrong.

Make sure your office is able to deliver prompt communication on all issues. Follow up by phone or email as soon as you can, even if it’s just to report that you’ll be in touch with more information later.

Be Yourself

People like to work with other human beings, not robots. If you are funny, be funny. If you are smart, be smart. Not every customer will see your personality as a fit for theirs, but that’s okay. Conforming to the desires of every customer means you are not a match for any.

Learning how to retain clients is important for anyone in the service industry, and CPAs and other financial professionals are no exception. Remember: the more you can use accounting websites, social media, and your own winning personality to satisfy your clients, the easier it will be to keep folks on your client list. Focus your client-retention efforts most intensely on the highest paying clientele and you should be able to enjoy a stable base of clients and a pleasing bottom line.

As CPAs, we serve the unique needs of governments and non-profits, individuals, and businesses from every corner of the private sector. They all turn to us to help them resolve some of their most complex, vexing, and urgent issues.

Of course, clients retain CPAs because of our experience and expertise in knowing how to save them money and grow their assets, but most CPAs also know that there’s something more that underlies all of this.

Our clients entrust us to provide solutions to some of the biggest problems they face because we offer them peace of mind. CPAs are paid to be flawlessly organized, trustworthy, and responsible in resolving client issues, and equally so in handling sensitive client information.

Why We Need Client Portals

The unique level of responsibility that comes with acting as stewards of our clients’ most sensitive information has made the use of secure, Web-based client portals an absolute necessity for all CPAs. Client portals allow a secure, streamlined, and customizable alternative to email for the transfer and storage of sensitive information, as well as an interactive platform in which to engage and collaborate with clients.

Since their introduction, client portals have been used to:

• quickly and easily transfer large files, including QuickBooks files;
• a way to receive client source documents and make completed tax returns available to clients;
• invoice clients and collect credit card payments; and
• provide a real-time environment in which to update payroll information for payroll clients.

The Question of Security

Using a password-protected client portal is tantamount to having a safety deposit box for each client’s files that only the client and his CPA have a key to. Many client portals include the same impressive 128-bit SSL encryption used by banks and other financial institutions to ensure that only authorized individuals have access.

Portals are also extremely reliable, usually offering the assurance of network uptime in excess of 99.9%.

CDs and Thumb Drives: A Real Advantage?

The transfer of traditional hard copy files to digital media has been in practice for years, and it’s a great way to reduce storage space, save cost, provide an environmentally responsible alternative to paper files, and add redundancy for backup purposes.

However, digital media of this kind has always had the same intrinsic flaws: information on hard drives, CDs, and thumb drives cannot be easily accessed or updated by individuals in different locations.

And because most email won’t allow more than 10 MB of data to be transmitted, larger files stored on CD or thumb drives have had to be sent by courier. This has meant a lot of extra expense and often unacceptable delays, not to mention the inherent security risk.

Due to these limitations, digital media has NOT been a great improvement from the archaic paper filing systems used years ago.

But with client portals, both the client and his CPA have immediate access to files anywhere in the world, as well as the ability to make real-time updates.

Client Portals Get Rave Reviews

Since most clients are familiar with Web-based systems – taking advantage of similar systems that have been in place for years to review bank statements and pay invoices –  they are quick to embrace and adapt to the use of client portals when working with their CPA.

In fact, they are so widely used now that many clients have come to expect client portals and show a strong preference for them over more archaic and less secure methods of payment, data transfer and storage, and real-time collaboration.

Find more accounting information, like details on how to become an accountant and CPA requirements, on AccountingEDU.org.

Looking for a way to make tax season simpler? Our Tax Organizer just got its annual makeover and is ready for the 2011 tax season.

This next-generation Tax Organizer is a dynamic web application that allows your clients to organize their tax information online, saving you time when preparing their taxes. You and your clients can securely access your client’s tax information anytime from anywhere, eliminating the time and expense involved in mailing paper organizers.

As always, the fully customizable Organizer offers you a secure way to catalogue your clients’ documentation and returns from year-to-year. Encouraging your clients to use the Tax Organizer can save you both the hassle of driving around town to deliver paperwork, and saves you the hassle of having to manually enter their information into your tax software.

Interested in learning more about the Tax Organizer? Click here to watch a video.