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| May 15 , 2005 | The
Newspaper of the NYSSCPA |
Vol.
8, No.9 |
Marketing Your Firm
By Peggy Urso, Marketing Manager
One of the key elements of marketing is knowing your target audience. To whom are you marketing? Who do want as your client? Which kind of client do you serve best in terms of your firm’s skills, your professional staff, your services and your area of expertise?
Once you’ve deduced who your target audience is, you, your staff professionals and your marketing can become more focused.
As you work with your target audience (both existing and prospective), be sure to learn what they need, what they want and how to meet their needs. Have a clear understanding of their business needs, their objectives, their challenges, their outlook and their motivations. Show knowledge of their timing, budget and decision-making process. Demonstrate that you understand their challenges.
Most important, learn their business. When you do, you will discover other needs and problems for which you and your firm can provide the solutions. Because that is ultimately what you are providing, or selling: solutions. You’re in a service business. Your knowledge, skills and creative thinking are your unique problem-solving tools. And as you learn their business, you discover where you can make a difference. Throughout the process, you build trust and forge a relationship.
As you uncover your target audience’s needs, remember to cross-sell the services your firm provides. Perhaps your tax client is in need of estate planning. Or perhaps a family situation has created a need for eldercare planning. Stand ready to refer your client to key professionals in your firm who are experts in these services. Live the one-firm culture and view this client, whose needs you know so well, as belonging to the firm on a long-term basis. Make sure that it’s your firm that is ready to meet the spectrum of your clients’ needs.
