The last two years of the pandemic have seen many firms adopt a fire-fighting approach to running their businesses and communication activities. With the emphasis now focusing on how we live with the Covid-19 virus, it means that firms have to be more proactive with their marketing and communications strategy. The question is, who should be on your 2022 keep in touch list?
Who to keep in touch with?
Regardless of the size of your firm, there are certain stakeholders that you need to have proactive and regular communications with, in order to sustain and build a successful practice. They are:
- Your staff
- Your clients
- Your business associates and third-party advisers
- Prospective clients, including those who you have previously met and those who are not yet on your radar.
2022 should be the year to reconnect with all these stakeholders and reaffirm your positioning in the marketplace.
So what are the best ways to do this?
How to keep in touch with your stakeholders?
Marketing and communication activities vary from firm to firm. Below are my suggestions for the most effective formats that can help you to stay in touch with your stakeholders and deliver results.
Staff retention, motivation and satisfaction
- Regular meetings (at least monthly) to give feedback on client matters and workload, internal systems and procedures, celebrating success such as people passing exams, new clients or the practice entering/winning awards, and providing an open forum to ask questions and discuss problems. Ideally, this would be face to face but depending on the office set up may need to be via zoom.
- Staff newsletter – an emailable version of the above, particularly useful if you have staff located across different offices.
- 1-2-1 meetings to give people the opportunity to ask questions they may not be comfortable asking in an open environment.
- Staff surveys – to get their feedback on what it is like to work for your practice, including what they like and what improvements could be made (if any)?
With all the above scenarios it is important that the message is consistent. Ideally using a mix of the above activities helps to get your message across, as people absorb information in different ways.
Client communications and retention
- Meetings – preferably face to face, but if not, over zoom or regular phone calls. The aim is to ‘check in’ with clients to see how they are. If they have issues that you can help to resolve, even better, but this isn’t about making every call a sales call. It’s about being a sounding board, a friend, a trusted advisor.
- Newsletters – email or printed, still have a place in today’s digital world, but make them just as much about personal/practice news as they are about tax and business updates. Your clients want to engage with you (as you want to with them) it’s not always about being an accountant!
- Seminars and events – 2022 will see a resurgence in people wanting to meet up, rather than having all communications done by phone or zoom. Organising your own events presents a great opportunity to reconnect with clients and make them feel part of ‘your club’. However, you could also attend other events such as awards evenings, charity days or regional or national events which offer corporate hospitality where you can invite your own clients.
- Client surveys – with so much happening over the past couple of years, now is an excellent time to carry out a client survey to check in on your clients. Surveys can be used to understand their current and future plans and how you can assist with them, to get their feedback on your help and support during the pandemic, and also to help shape the future of your practice. Plus, in my experience, most surveys will reveal some great feedback about the practice which can be used for your own marketing purposes. Further thoughts on carrying out a client survey can be read in our blog here.
Keeping connected with business associates and third-party advisers
- Networking – as more and more networking events become face-to-face rather than virtual, 2022 will be a great year to reconnect with business contacts. If you’d like some pointers on how to network effectively (and overcome any fears you may have), read our networking tips blog here.
- LinkedIn can still provide a useful way of engaging with others (and them with you) and so keeping your name at the forefront of your connection’s minds.
- Seminars and events, as with your clients, inviting key connections to your seminars and events can be helpful to you and to them, so do extend an invitation to your third-party connections.
Getting to know your prospective clients
- Client referrals – you should draw up a list of businesses you would like to work with and then see if your staff, clients or business contacts can introduce you to the key contacts.
- Lead generation activities should be ramped up this year. This will include sending more mailings and emails to target prospects AND making follow-up calls to arrange appointments to discuss their businesses in more detail and of course how your practice tice can help them. Such campaigns need to be planned in advance, the messages agreed and communicated clearly, and the follow-up phone calls executed.
- Website – reviewing your website is a must. It should be up to date with information about the practice and your services. It should contain all the information you want it to, but most importantly it should be inviting, interesting and engaging to prospective clients. Accountancy firms are moving away from quite a masculine, corporate feel and more towards a personable, approachable website that puts the firm’s people centre stage, not just the work that is done or how much tax can be saved.
- Seminars and events – when you’re organising such events, invite your target prospects who would likely benefit from the event. It gives them another reason to get to know you better.
2022 will see us transition from internal to external communications. Implementing a cohesive, well-thought-through marketing plan which integrates different activities to target different stakeholders is what will set successful accountancy firms apart from the ‘also-rans’.
If I can help at all with your strategy and implementing different marketing and communication activities, drop me a line at vicki@momentumforprofessionals.co.uk.
