Email marketing is a powerful tool that every tax business should use. A properly set up email marketing campaign can have an average ROI of 3600%. That’s an unheard of $36 earned for just $1 spent. Therefore, you're undoubtedly missing out on easy money if you’re not using email marketing strategies to build your business.
Email marketing is one of the most affordable marketing strategies you can have as a tax professional. Well-crafted, engaging emails will also show off your industry experience, authority, and personality which helps build your credibility and form lasting relationships with your clients.
Whether you’ve put off email marketing, thinking it’s too complex to learn, or you need some effective strategies to improve your current email marketing system, you’ve come to the right place. After reading this article, you’ll have 8 practical email marketing strategies you can easily use to skyrocket your tax business.
Why Email Marketing is important for Tax Professionals
Before diving into the nitty gritty of email marketing strategies, it’s essential to understand why email marketing is important in the first place.
Have you ever wondered:
You’ve likely thought of at least one of these questions. And, the truth is, most businesses should be using email marketing because it is a direct line of communication you can have with prospective or current clients.
At the end of the day, for a tax professional handling other’s personal and business financial information, trust and communication are two fundamental components to building lasting relationships with your customers. Taxes can be stressful, boring, and confusing to many people. That’s why your clients are hiring you to ease the burden of the time and effort it will take them to do their own personal or business taxes.
Email marketing gives you the perfect opportunity to build this sense of trust and relationship among clients and prospective clients, which can ultimately help increase your revenue.
Below you’ll find the top 8 email marketing strategies to skyrocket your tax business to the next level.
Set up and Automate Your Email Marketing Campaigns
Sending individual emails to each person on your contact list is time-consuming and inefficient. To have a successful, efficient email marketing system, you must have three parts:
You can’t write engaging, high-value email messages to your contacts if you don’t have an automated system setup or contacts to even send your emails to.
1. Find the right Email Marketing Service Provider
Start by finding an email marketing service provider that meets your tax business’s needs and expectations.
Some of the top email marketing service providers include:
2. Track your Email Data for Success
Often, these email service providers will have an assortment of user-friendly tools, including software that tracks important email data to better understand what types of emails your contact list best engages with, and what contact is rarely engaged with. You can’t build trust and sales for your tax business if your contact list isn’t opening your emails!
3. Organically Grow your Email List
Now that you have your email service provider squared away, you need a list of email contacts to send your emails to. There are a variety of ways to generate and build upon your email list, including:
Build Trust by providing Engaging, Valuable Email Content
For any business, building trust and deeper connections with your clients from the beginning will inevitably help create lasting business relationships down the line. What client would want to provide you with their sensitive financial information if they don’t trust you?
Therefore, it’s essential for your tax business that you provide engaging, high-value content that your contacts can use while keeping them as entertained as possible. Because let’s face it, many people, including your clients, likely find taxes stressful, overwhelming, and/or boring.
Writing captivating email messages with fun, quality images, and gifs, will spark your contact’s intrigue to continue reading your email messages for valuable tax advice and information about your services.
Three components to focus on when crafting your engaging emails are:
4. Write a Catchy but Professional Subject Lines
To get your contacts to read your email, you first have to get them to open your email. This can be especially daunting when you’re in the tax industry, as likely someone is more excited to open an email about receiving a discount from a store they love than reading a mundane email about taxes. But your emails don’t have to be boring and lackluster.
This is where the importance of how you craft your subject line and the email content itself with (1) value and (2) your unique personality in your messages will shine through and make people want to open and read your email.
Depending on the type of email you want to send (i.e. welcome email vs. educational email) will influence the exact subject line you send. That being said, some punchy subject line types/examples and stylistic elements you can use are:
Testing is key when it comes to subject lines! Have several variations of the same subject line, just worded differently. And, see what subject line gets the most people to open your email.
5. Create Valuable Content your Email List will want to Read
Once your contact has clicked on your email thanks to your punchy subject line, you must keep your reader engaged. Again, tax information isn’t the most thrilling topic. However, with a bit of personality and flare, you can certainly create your very own enticing email messages that will not just engage your readers, but build trust/ a connection to your business.
Ways to engage your readers in your tax email messages include:
6. Use Various Types of Email Content
As a tax professional, you want to make the most of your email marketing campaigns to provide a wide range of valuable content for your contact list. The top 6 types of email marketing messages you should consider sending to your contacts as a tax business include:
Welcome Emails
As soon as a new email contact/ prospective client signs up to join your mailing list, you should automate a welcome email campaign to trigger.
Your welcome email campaign should just be a couple of emails that (1) thank the contact for signing up and (2) justify their choice to sign up by briefly detailing all the value and help you can provide them with your emails and your tax services.
Newsletters
Newsletters are often consistently sent out either weekly, twice a month, or monthly depending upon your personal preference. These consistent, frequent newsletters ensure your tax business is front of mind and reliable by giving helpful tips in each newsletter. You can include valuable content in your newsletter, such as:
Tax Reminders to Schedule your Services
For your tax business to make money, you need prospective and current clients to sign up and book your services.
Therefore, send important tax reminders to your contact list telling them when and where to book your services in time for tax season and any important deadlines they should be aware of (both tax-related and business related).
Informational Emails Involving Taxes
To build trust and authority as a leading tax professional in your industry, informational emails help show your expertise within the tax space. Remember, your contact list likely isn’t educated in the tax space. You are the expert. Therefore, write simply and refrain from using complex tax terms. This will only disengage the reader to click off of your email.
Reviews from Past Clients
Few things build trust for a product or service more than reviews from past clients. Reviews provide social proof that you can show prospective clients that you know what you’re doing, and others have appreciated your help in the past.
Again, trust is especially important for a tax business as you are dealing with a client’s sensitive financial information.
Surveys for Contact Feedback
Consider sending a survey email every once in a while to your contact list. Include questions evaluating your list’s interest in your email topics, number of emails, and interest when it comes to your services. This feedback will significantly help you redirect your email marketing campaigns to effectively meet your contact list’s needs.
Segment your Emails to the Correct Group of Contacts
You must send the right email message to the right contact. Not all people on your contact list are the same. Therefore, you need to be segmenting your clients into different groups to tailor the right emails to do a specific action you want.
For instance, someone who is already a client of yours is completely different from a prospective client who is interested in learning more about the services you offer.
7. Craft Emails Tailored to Prospective Clients
With prospective clients, you want to build trust and showcase your expertise to get these contacts to book your services. Therefore, tailor emails showcasing your knowledge in the tax world, while also reiterating the value you can provide the contact with your tax services.
Target key pain points of why this prospective client would want to book your services, such as:
8. Craft Emails Tailored to Current Clients
For current clients, these contacts have already booked your services and have formed a level of trust and relationship with your tax business. Therefore, your emails should be less centered on showcasing the services you offer, and more focused on relevant tax updates and changes to your services.
For example, you must keep a constant line of communication with clients about any (1) important tax deadlines, (2) updates/changes to your tax business, and (3) tax reminders to submit certain information within a particular time frame.
Final Thoughts
Email marketing is an influential marketing tool that can take your tax business to the next level. It’s your mission to keep your contact list engaged with your emails and send emails consistently to keep your business front of mind.
Taxes to many people can be daunting, stressful, and boring. Therefore, you must build a level of trust, expertise, and personality within your email contact list to build those deeper connections with your contacts.
Email is a direct line of communication that can send your message to anyone on your list, even if you haven’t met them yet. As a result, email marketing is a powerful tool to convert prospective clients and maintain a reliable, trusting relationship with current clients. (Related: 12 Highly Effective Email Marketing Strategies for Real Estate Agents (With Examples)