When the initial enthusiasm of marketing fades, there are three marketing elements which will help see you through the dark days, bringing you through to the place where leads trickle in almost like magic.

These three are email, follow up, and blogging.

Email marketing

Despite all the enthusiasm of social media and live videos and everything flashing past in an instant, email is still one of the most solid ways to stay connected with people.

Access to people’s inboxes is a serious thing, and is to be treated with great respect. You want to:

• Keep it real, and human. The more interesting and easy to read it is, the better. Salesy promotional emails don’t do much: ones written as if to one single person do a lot.
• Send what you promise (and not more). If they sign up for a newsletter, don’t send sixteen sales emails in the following few weeks.
• Don’t over-email. It’s okay to email every day, if that’s what they’re expecting and what they want. But it’s not okay to do do that if they’re thinking it’s once a month.
• Don’t under-email, either. If you only send an email every few months, they might forget who you are or why they signed up, and unsubscribe.
• Stay on brand. Anything that doesn’t match will look like spam and you can get people unsubscribing who really don’t want to unsubscribe.

Follow up

One of the biggest areas of opportunity for your accounting firm is the list of people who enquired with you months or years ago, but they never got back to you.

This can include:

• Emails asking for a call (but then they never replied to anything further)
• Enquiries about services that went back and forth and then slowed to nothing
• Proposals sent (with no response, either yes or no or maybe)
• Clients who signed up, but never completed onboarding

It’s tempting to presume that because you didn’t hear back, they’re not interested.

But you don’t know that for sure until they say they’re not interested. There could be business issues or family issues or health issues or any kinds of reasons they let it slide.

You’ll get a lot more business when you prepare a system for follow up with a long term timeline (one week, two weeks, one month, three months, six months, twelve months).

It doesn’t have to be complicated: a quick one liner to check in is enough. And you don’t even have to mention the proposal (otherwise it could feel salesy and annoying). Send a new article, share a video, ask a question. Stay in touch!

Blogging

This is where your long content goes. Your blog keeps your website content fresh, and helps Google to send buyers to your site when they are looking for your services (or looking for answers to the problems which will be solved by your services).

Things you can include in blog content are:

• “They ask you answer” content: Questions your clients ask which you keep answering over and over. Turn it into a blog post and help them see your authority and get their question answered at the same time. (Plus, it saves you time because you only have to send a link to a blog the next time you get that question!)
• Pricing content: How much does this service cost? Why? How is it different from that service? What are management accounts? Do I need bookkeeping as well? How much does that cost? You don’t have to give specific quotes on a blog post: this is your opportunity to explain your pricing methodology. The principles by which you prepare a proposal, so they don’t feel confused or lost.
• Comparisons, best of, reviews: This compared to that. Which is the best accounting software? Your review of the new app for their industry. You’ll need to share an opinion, which shows your authority and helps prospects get a sense of what it’s like to work with you.

Combine these three, and over time you’ll bring in the clients who would have otherwise drifted away.

Join us next issue for the final three: Events, Campaigns, and Social Media!