The summer is over and fall is here. For a lot of B2B businesses, the holiday season is uneventfully slow. For tax professionals, the extension deadline is over and it’s time to look towards the opening of the next tax season. While it’s not tax season yet, and you may not have clients coming through the door, this is no time to lose focus.
This is the beginning of what we call tax marketing season. It’s a time to plan your marketing campaigns for the year ahead and run some holiday promotions that will get taxpayers and businesses to start thinking about you ahead of the filing season.
Holiday Marketing
Halloween has come and gone and the retail sector has gone full fledged Christmas. It may not be tax season, but now is the time to get people to start thinking about tax season – and of you – so that when the time comes (in just a few months), your business is the one that is top of mind. Here are some ideas to consider:
- Send Christmas cards and offer a discount for scheduling a 2020 tax appointment early or coming in before February.
- Host a charity event or a holiday open house at your office for clients and professional contacts.
- Partner with a charity for the holiday season.
- Take advantage of the many networking events that happen during the holidays. It’s a great way to meet people and hand out business cards.
- Sponsor events held by other local organizations like the chamber, BBB, or Retail Merchants Association.
- Sponsor a local holiday event.
- Hold a canned food drive around Thanksgiving.
Marketing Planning
Beyond the holiday marketing, you should also be planning for next year – and getting clients to come in before the end of the year for tax planning purposes. Here are some things you should consider doing before the end of the year.
- Conduct a year-end tax planning seminar.
- Write an article on year-end tax planning. You can post this on your blog and social media sites or offer it up to a local news site or publication.
- Put together a newsletter to clients as well as professional contacts to remind them to schedule their tax appointment.
- Sponsor events held by other local organizations like the chamber, BBB, or Retail Merchants Association.
- Line-up speaking gigs for the tax season.
- Plan your editorial calendar. What blogs will you write? What campaigns will you run? What offers will you try in 2020?
What’s on your marketing to do list for the fall/winter/holiday season?