If you’re firm is adding or expanding food stores to its industry clients, here are five marketing munchies you can use to attract them.
Munchie #1: Research SIC Code 5411
This code is used for supermarkets and grocery stores; however, if you’re looking to connect with organic stores, there may be a sub-SIC code. Once you’ve identified the SIC code(s) you most want to target, request a Hoovers, Lexis Nexis, or Dun and Bradstreet report on the stores, with contact information, annual revenue, store locations, and more.
Then use a multi-pronged marketing approach to reach out to them, including a print (e.g., postcard, promotional item, or media kit) and an email campaign that focuses on one of their pain points and how you can solve it. Then, touch base with the contacts about those communications and to schedule a free consultation or to encourage a registration for a free webinar or local business event you’re hosting.
Munchie #2: Shake hands
Word of mouth is a great way to reach new clients. Consider hosting an event with a buy-one-bring-one promotion, where one paid attendee may bring another for free. Feature one or more of your other clients that could also offer services food stores might need, such as lawyers, bankers, and event planners. Make the presentation fun by featuring pain points using bullet points, charts, and graphics featuring foods and beverages. Consider a call to action at the end of the event to schedule a meeting or to get more information.
Munchie #3: Lead Generation Content
Reaching your target market organically can be hard, especially if you don’t have engaging content and landing pages to capture their information. What’s a CPA to do? Develop content that will draw food store clients toward your brand, with topics such as cash flow management, inventory control, employee classification, product theft, payroll fraud, embezzlement, multi-state employees, and more. Once you have the content created in several media formats (graphics, photos, video, and/or text), share it with them using a landing page that has a simple form to capture more information, such as first name, last name, company, email address, and/or phone number. Once captured, follow up with relevant leads within a few days with a call or an email.
Munchie #4: Bragging Rights
Testimonials can be a powerful way to draw in new clients. Ask existing clients for testimonials about a way in which you helped them with a specific pain point. Share that information in social media and place it prominently on your website. If you’re using WordPress, there are several testimonial plugins you could use to display a series of testimonials on your site. Another way to create visual testimonials is a video creation tool—there are many free ones. Imbed photos, overlay some music and text, and bam—you have a video that may be uploaded to Facebook, shared on YouTube, or included in a referral campaign to existing clients.
Munchie #5: Search Engines and Voice Search
Listing your firm’s information on Google and Bing’s business listing service is a great place to start to increase your organic search ranking. Those listings appear in search results on the first page before organic listings. In your listing add keyword phrases, such as “grocery store accounting firm since [enter year],” “specializing in organic food markets for more than [enter number of years],” “your local food store accounting firm,” or include “food stores” or “grocery stores” in a list of industries you serve.
When it comes to voice search, on your website’s About Us, Services, or Contact Us page, include one or more of these keyword phrases in keyword meta tag (located within the site’s code), “local food store accounting firm,” “grocery store accountant,” “grocery store accounting firm,” “local food market CPA,” and “organic food store accountant.”
According to Google’s Ad keyword planner tool, the phrases “grocery store,” “organic food store,” and “food store,” each respectively has between 1 – 10 million, and 10,000 – 100,000 searches within the U.S. monthly. Plus, there is low competition for those terms organically or via paid ads over the past 12 months. (Search results for those terms was conducted on April 14, 2019.)
Now that you have these five marketing munchies, which will you begin implementing today to reach the food store clients you desire?
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Tags: Firm Management
