Don't take your existing clients for granted

A few weeks ago, I encouraged you to slice your marketing efforts into three buckets:
1) Existing Clients
2) “Lost” Clients (those who didn’t return last tax season)
3) New Clients
So many tax pros focus on getting *new* clients that they don’t focus on the two easiest clients to get: A) Ones they already have and B) ones they used to have, but no longer do.
I beat this “lost clienbts” drum every year for a simple reason … it was consistently the most profitable form of marketing we did, each year, when I ran the marketing for a huge tax firm in Virginia.
(If you’d like a sample of what we used to send out to “Lost” clients shoot me an email at nate[at]taxpromarketer.com, and I’ll send it to you with my compliments.)
But I’d like to focus on your existing list here today.
And yes, getting new clients is great, sure. But in order to not have to keep chasing the hamster wheel of replacing lost clients with new ones you need to be doing something real (i.e. — systemized, and not blind hope) to build deeper relationships with your existing clients.
Quite obviously, we’ve seen deep results with effective email marketing (i.e. relationship-building over email, not spamming with “tax tips”), as well as authoritative, regular — and smart — social media efforts.
But keeping your good clients engaged is a multi-variate effort.
Here’s a few more ideas for it:
1) Send a personal note with your tax planner, not just include a bunch of forms for them.
2) Announce new services, new bundles of existing services (tax planning, retainer plans, audit protection, financial services, to name a few) and encourage your clients to set early appointments to take advantage of special bundles, etc.
3) Outbound phone calls during the next few weeks to simply ask questions and make sure your clients are prepared and ready for tax filing. Use that opportunity to “seal the deal”, and invite them to send referrals. Heck, incentivize them to do so, if you’re able. Set their appointment FOR them, and create that sense of social obligation not to break it. A teetering client might just stick with you, simply because a slot is filled in their calendar.
4) Offer a special discount for early appointments so you and your staff have the space and time to go after the laggards with more focus and determination.
Those are just a few ideas you should implement here, at the start of filing season. Do them.