Email marketing can be a powerful tool for tax professionals looking to grow their businesses. With clever segmentation, thoughtful messaging, and some technical know-how, you can use emails to stay top-of-mind with existing clients and attract new ones.
In this article, we’ll explore 11 proven email marketing strategies to help tax pros like you 4x your business.
Whether you’re new to building an email list or want to improve your existing efforts, these practical tips will give you ideas for standing out in an inbox and driving results no matter which email marketing platform you use.
Reasons Why Tax Pros Should Use Email Marketing
Email marketing delivers results for tax professionals. On average, email generates $42 for every $1 spent, providing an excellent return on investment. According to recent statistics, searches for “email marketing” have jumped 46% in the past few years.
Email also allows tax pros to stay on the top of clients’ minds year-round, not just during tax season. This facilitates cross-selling and upselling opportunities.
For example, you can promote tax planning, bookkeeping, payroll, and other services to nurture relationships. The email further enables targeting specific client groups with tailored offers and messaging based on their needs.
Ultimately, the ability to automate communications, track results, and continuously refine campaigns makes email marketing a highly effective strategy for boosting revenue 4x or more. The personalized connections and convenience it provides are well worth the effort.
1. Build an Email List
The foundation of successful email marketing is building a robust list of contacts. Yet many tax professionals fail to properly cultivate email subscribers. They simply don’t make it easy for people to opt in.
With some smart lead capture forms though, you can grow your list organically year-round.
Place signup boxes prominently on your website, especially pages like “About” and “Services”. When clients are checking details on those pages, invite them to sign up to receive tax tips, deadline reminders, and more.
Make the value clear upfront. Also consider giving away free tax guides, checklists, or calculators in exchange for emails. The offer of useful resources can incentivize sign-ups.
Lastly, have a plan to import existing contacts. If you already have client emails, follow proper permission protocols before sending any emails. But don’t leave this huge asset untapped. Segment and customize messaging to turn current relationships into loyal, lifetime subscribers driving major business growth.
2. Send Welcome Series
Making new subscribers feel valued should begin immediately after signing up with a welcome series. This is a pre-scheduled set of 3-5 emails that provide useful information to new contacts.
For example, the first welcome email could share a bit about your credentials, experience, and services offered. The next email might provide a discounted tax planning consultation as an exclusive subscriber perk. Additional emails in the series could cover what to expect for the upcoming tax season, ways to get organized early, and so on.
This warm introduction allows you to demonstrate expertise, highlight available services, and incentivize you to take the next step faster. It leads subscribers into your regular email campaigns smoothly.
With automation in place, you can focus on creating killer content rather than worrying about sending timely one-off messages. The payoff is establishing authority and building early engagement.
3. Share Relevant Tax Tips
One of the best ways to provide ongoing value is by sending regular tax tips. This content shows your specialized knowledge while nurturing relationships between tax seasons.
For example, share reminders leading up to annual deadlines for things clients may forget like IRA contributions or estimated quarterly payments. Provide analysis on new rulings, laws, and deductions that could impact returns. Or send planning tips related to life changes like having a baby, getting married, retiring, and so on.
This information demonstrates your expertise so clients keep you top of their minds year-round. It also facilitates upselling services when you uncover potential needs. With curated tax advice tailored to your subscriber segments sent on an ideal cadence, you become a trusted advisor versus a once-a-year preparer.
4. Promote Your Services
Email marketing enables targeted promotion of your different services to clients. You can increase awareness of everything you offer while positioning the value.
For example, segment subscribers by prior use of services.
- Send bookkeeping and payroll clients content about how you help businesses track expenses and manage reports for smooth tax prep.
- Share case studies showing how your tax planning has saved other clients money.
- Highlight experience handling particular situations relevant to different groups, such as rental property or self-employment taxes.
This showcases the range of your capabilities beyond tax return prep. The tailored messaging by the subscriber group demonstrates how you can provide customized solutions for their needs.
As a result, email campaigns make it easy to cross-sell existing clients while attracting new ones. Promoting services in context drives exponential business growth.
Here’s an example of an email template you can use to promote your services:
5. Spotlight Team/Experts in Your Business
Emails are also excellent for putting your team and areas of expertise in the spotlight. This builds a more personal connection between the people behind your business and clients.
For example, when sending tax planning content, highlight the credentials of advisors available for consulting.
Make sure decision-makers know who specifically would handle the work and their specialized background. Similarly, for bookkeeping and payroll, introduce clients to the accountant managing daily financials directly.
Featuring bios allows subscribers to get to know key team members, not just your brand name. It shows you are a firm of real people they can rely on year-round. Whether they need specific qualifications or want a long-term relationship manager, this transparency helps clients find the right fit and facilitates further referrals.
6. Leverage Event Promotions
Email is a dynamic channel to promote events that bring tax and financial education straight to your subscribers. In-person seminars, webinars, and workshops build brand authority while generating leads.
For example, host an annual tax law changes presentation before every filing season. Or put on quarterly webinars related to estimated payments, college planning, retirement strategies, and more. You can promote the value to subscribers, send follow-up recap emails afterward then repurpose portions of the content too.
Events establish your firm as a proactive resource for clients versus simply reactive preparers. Driving registration with email campaigns provides lead gen opportunities as well.
With automation, you can schedule promotions ahead of time and then focus on crafting great presentations that position your expertise. The result is events that pay customer acquisition dividends for months and years beyond.
7. Send Webinar Invites
Webinars deserve special highlights as an email-friendly event you can host year-round to attract and nurture leads on an ongoing basis. The digital format makes them easy to promote and scale.
Segment your subscriber list around topics of interest to send targeted webinar invites. For example, small business owners would appreciate a webinar on maximizing deductions. Retirees want guidance on withdrawal strategies and lower tax bills. Tailor the title, overview, and registration page for each audience.
Following up through email automation after events connects with every registrant to push them down the sales funnel. Send those who attended a thank you, links to resources, and a next-step offer.
For no-shows, re-engage them with a customized promotion to watch the recording now and still benefit. This two-pronged approach delivers results pre and post-webinar from every email campaign.
8. Create a Newsletter with Insights
A regular email newsletter allows you to bundle great content into a format that builds anticipation and engagement. It demonstrates thought leadership beyond tax preparation.
For example:
- Publish a monthly newsletter with rotating sections like Tax Law Updates, Small Biz Spotlight, Lifestyle and Wealth Building, and Ask the Experts.
- Share brief articles, infographics, and videos tailored for different subscriber segments.
- Allow clients and prospects to submit questions to showcase helpfulness.
This provides a regular destination for showcasing expertise through varied, digestible education.
Teach don’t sell.
Build loyalty and trust with insightful versus promotional content. Just don’t make the newsletter too text-heavy. Use images, headers, bolding, and bullets to facilitate quick scanning for time-starved readers. The goal is to guide them to click for more.
9. Craft Client Appreciation Emails
Showing appreciation through email is an excellent way to strengthen relationships with existing clients. Sending carefully crafted messages prevents taking loyalty for granted.
For example, set reminders to send “Thank You” emails at certain times of the year. Thank clients after April tax deadlines for trusting your services again or at year-end for allowing you to support their success all 12+ months. Also use milestone indicators like 3, 5, or 10+ years of working together as moments for special acknowledgment.
Handwritten notes may seem more genuine but email enables personalization at scale. Automate sends based on custom tags for client tenure, business type, or other attributes relative to your gratitude message.
Small businesses will feel seen receiving a “Celebrating 5 years serving Main Street!” email. The ease of batching thoughtful messages outshines any format limitations.
10. Use Surveys for Feedback
Email surveying clients for feedback shows you value continuous improvement. The insights gained from even a few quick questions provide helpful guidance.
Keep surveys concise at 3-5 questions or less. Focus on key indicators related to the client experience, ease of working with your firm, and likelihood of referrals. For example, ask subscribers to rate communication, expertise, and overall satisfaction on a 1-10 scale. Leave room for open-ended comments too for qualitative data.
Surveys should deploy automatically via email on a set frequency whether monthly, quarterly, or annually.
This demonstrates consistently checking the pulse versus just when business is slow. Brief impersonalized measurement combined with individual outreach shows commitment to nurturing enduring client relationships. The findings then guide enhancing services, access, and processes so more referrals naturally happen.
11. Segment and Personalize Your Audience
Email’s strength is the ability to segment subscribers and then personalize messaging to their needs. As the image below shows, email segmentation offers a lot of benefits:
Avoid the generic spray-and-pray approach in favor of tailored content and offers.
Group contacts by attributes like client type, tax situation, age, and interests. Customize email frequency, educational tips, and promotions based on each group’s preferences.
For example, retirees receive retirement-focused content monthly while small business owners get quarterly emails with relevant deadlines, deductions, and tools to simplify financial management.
Personalization should extend beyond content to greetings and sign-offs too with merge tags adding first names.
This laser-targeted outreach makes every subscriber feel special, not just another nameless inbox to blast. When you demonstrate a true understanding of specific audiences in your database through relevance and context, email marketing pays exponential dividends.
Email marketing delivers results by nurturing connections with existing clients while efficiently attracting ideal new ones. Follow these 11 tips for list building, automation, segmentation, lead generation, and more tailored to the tax professional niche.
With some thoughtful effort applied consistently, you will keep your expertise top of mind year-round while revenue grows exponentially. Now is the time to leverage email and watch your business multiply.