The success of marketing for a tax preparation business is defined by the planning and organizing of that process. Your marketing strategy is as effective as your marketing plan. With the rising competition in this business, there is no more space for improvising and a lack of effort in a marketing campaign. You’ll need to dedicate yourself completely to forming a successful and thoughtful marketing strategy.

The first step is to coin the marketing plan. There are several aspects that you need to take into consideration while writing a marketing plan. If you want to create a plan that will present your tax preparation business in the best light, this is what you need to do.

1. Determine Your Niche

The marketing plan will be more precise and personalized if you know who are your target clients. Will you focus on individuals or small businesses?

Additionally, consider the type of services you want to offer. For example, you can emphasize working with law firms, service-oriented businesses or you can specify the type of tax preparation like individual stock purchase.

Narrowing down your niche will help you to create a marketing plan that will be personalized for a specific audience. Personalization in marketing is essential for attracting the attention of your target audience. 

Spreading a generalized message will fall into the shadow of businesses that claim to be experts in the domain that the clients want. 

Make sure that you write down the service you want to focus on and the characteristics of the target clients you want to attract. Marketing to the right clients will seal the deal much faster. 

2. Set Your Goals

Having a clear goal will make your marketing efforts more direct and specific. Goal setting is one of the basic steps of writing a marketing plan. It motivates you throughout the process and gives your marketing plan a purpose.

Your goals can be:

• Increasing the number of clients
• Promoting new tax preparation service
• Maintaining the satisfaction of current clients

These are just some examples of what your marketing campaign can focus on.

“Every business that wants to pull a successful marketing plan needs to set goals. The tax preparation business is no different. Goals need to be clearly defined and as specific as possible, so don’t hesitate to even put the number of new clients you want to bring into the business this year,” shares Amanda Willis, a marketer at TopWritersReview who worked on several marketing campaigns for tax preparation businesses.  

3. Analyze Your Competition

There is so much you can learn by observing your competitors – both the good and the bad. Their work and marketing can teach you what actions bring positive results and what actions fail with your target clients.

When you analyze your competitors, these are some of the aspects of their business that you need to look at:

• Type of clients they have
• Services they offer
• Their pricing
• Marketing messages aimed at individuals and companies
• Signs they use on their offices to attract street traffic

Write down in your marketing plan what works well to give your guidance but also write down what you shouldn’t do. You need to look at less successful competitors as well to notice the marketing tactics that you should avoid.

4. Think about What Makes You Different

Tax preparation falls into a large industry with many competitors who are trying to do the same thing as you – reach out to more clients and improve their business’s success rate. 

To write a marketing plan, you need to know what makes you different. In order to define that, look your business from four perspectives:

1. Strengths – Ask yourself what are your strong sides. Do you have well-trained employees? A long history of satisfied clients? Think about what brings success to your business to identify your strengths. Are you and/or  staff a certified Professional Tax Preparer?
2. Weakness – Knowing your weaknesses will help you to stay away from promoting less successful aspects of your business. You might be a new company with not many clients to support your credibility so you don’t want to put the focus on that.
3. Opportunities – If there aren’t many tax preparation businesses in your area that is one opportunity to focus your marketing on. There are many opportunities that you need to think through and identify if you want to promote the businesses in the right way. 
4. Threats – Government policies regarding taxes or other tax preparation businesses near you can cause a threat to your marketing campaign. You might not be able to eliminate the threats but being aware of their existence will help you prepare better. 

Based on the research you did on competitors, you’ll be able to pinpoint your unique qualities or think of a few new ones that you want to adopt.  For example, have you considered offering additional related services such as accounting, bookkeeping, as well as business coaching services to complement your tax planning and preparation services?  Perhaps now is the time for you to build the premier accounting business in your area!  (see what you can do to follow a Turnkey Business Plan)

Write each one of these aspects down to have a clear idea of your strong and weak spots that will be the baseline for creating a realistic and efficient marketing campaign.

5. Define Marketing Channels

The marketing strategy needs to be spread across different channels. There are several options and you have to make a pick based on your goals. However, the more channels you use, the higher will the chances be for improving your business.

Here are some options for directing your marketing efforts: 

• Website
• Social media networks
• Local advertising
• Networking (attending conferences and relevant events)
• Referrals
• Email marketing
• Sales letters

A combination of some or all of these marketing channels is the most effective choice. 

Finally, once you define your marketing plan you should keep track of the progress at all times. Writing a marketing plan is a task that comes to an end quickly, but applying the strategies you set demands consistent determination and dedication. Tracking the progress of your marketing plan is necessary for making corresponding improvements and adjust the plan based on real results. 

Author’s bio. Daniela McVicker is a blogger and a freelance writer who works closely with B2B and B2C businesses providing blog writing, copywriting, and ghostwriting services. Currently she many authoritative sources, you can check her last review of Trustmypaper. When Daniela isn’t writing, she loves to travel, read romance and science fiction, and try new wines.