New Normal Accounting: Improving Your Firm’s Visibility for Tax Season Profits

In light of the new wave of lockdowns, at the peak of the tax season, we interviewed three leading marketers to advise accountants on how they can be increasing their firm’s visibility with tax preparation outsourcing– while running their firms from home to maximise tax season profits.

For decades, most of us in the industry have witnessed the evolution of accountants from mere number-crunchers to financial advisors, analysts and often the sounding board for businesses. As the pandemic clumped years of evolution together into moving everything online, a new breed of accountants emerged: the accountant marketer.

In a time when accountants can no longer rely on the physical networking events or the brick-and-mortar presence of their firms, digital marketing has taken the center stage. From webinars to thought leadership events, Instagram updates and video marketing, most firm owners are slowly realising the importance of increasing visibility online.

But with most of already recuperating from zoom fatigue, tired of bright-coloured webinar flyers filling up our news feeds and advertisements following us everywhere online – how do accountants improve their firm’s visibility, without adding to the noise? How do they create a unique, significant place of their brands online? More importantly, where do accountants start?

Here’s what the marketing experts had to say:

Being visible is more than just digital marketing

With the tax season knocking on the doorstep and the added pressures of cybersecurity and project management while running your firm from home during lockdown – the thought of investing time and funds into marketing your firm might often feel out of reach.

But visibility isn’t just technical. Karen Reyburn, Founder of The Profitable Firm, a creative agency of accountants, believes that increasing visibility for your firm often means meaningful, organic conversations with clients. These are often interactions that leave a lasting impact on clients about your firm’s commitment to their welfare.

Here’s what she had to say on gathering visibility by leaving a lasting impact:

 

Gather publicity over pouring money into advertisement

For most of us, the first thing that crosses our minds when thinking of digital marketing is advertisements. In fact, most accounting firms would approach online brand building by investing hefty funds into digital advertisements.

However, Vishal Kurani, Head of Marketing, QX Global Group, suggests a counter-intuitive approach to building visibility online:

Clearly, the road to building your firm’s identity online doesn’t have to be an expensive ordeal that leaves a dent on your firm’s profits. Instead, it could just be an effortless approach of gathering enough client testimonials and reviews: a byproduct of your firm’s exceptional service, offerings and relationships with your clients.

New ways to engage in the new normal

Your firm’s engagement with potential and new clients has a clear impact on your firm’s visibility and branding. But at this time of remote collaboration and lockdown, when social and personal interaction with clients is often missing, are firms prepared for engaging in the new normal?

Moreover, accountants today find themselves on a forked path. The organic experience of meeting with a client and discussing matters across the table has now turned into 30-minute zoom calls, followed by spells of zoom fatigue and emailing.

With no organic interactions, setting up too many online meetings and sending too many promotional emails to clients could easily tip over to being a cause of annoyance. So, what is the key to engage effectively and add value to clients in the new normal?

We spoke to Rob Iles, Founder & Managing Director of Visionise Ltd., a commercial marketing firm that specialises in branding and marketing for independent food and drink businesses in the UK.

Here’s what he had to say on new media engagement and how one can often draw parallels between online engagement and real-life meetings:

Free up your time for increasing your firm’s visibility

Time often becomes a cautionary hurdle for many firm owners when it comes to marketing themselves and their firms online.

For some, their time-consuming responsibilities may have sky-rocketed in the advent of remote working. Now, with resourcing becoming trickier during the lockdown, most firm owners end up taking matters into their own hands and spend hours on the groundwork of peak season.

This tax season, we’re encouraging accountants to focus on improving their firm’s visibility and inviting new clients for tax season profitability – with a little help from offshore team members.

At QXAS, we help over 400+ accountants prioritise the upscaling and growth of their firms by increasing their capacity to invite more clients during peak season with our personal tax preparation outsourcing services.

How does tax return outsourcing help?

• Free up more time to focus on clients
• Make space to invite new tax season clients
• Reduce your in-house costs by 50%
• Makes you stand out to your clients with a fast 24–48 hour turnaround and 100% accuracy
• Maintain your work-life balance while running your firm from home

Are you focusing on improving your firm’s visibility this tax season? Speak with a tax outsourcing expert today to explore new ways of making the most out of Tax Season 2020, without the headache of filing the returns.