A pro tip for your next accounting newsletter

Dear Accountants,

Let me ask you a question. What are you doing to keep in touch with your clients?

I’ve certainly seen some great examples throughout the pandemic. Accounting firms that I have communicated with in the past (who for some ingenious marketing purpose must have saved away my email address somewhere) have reached out with helpful news about government benefits and loan programs, which was certainly valuable information.

Yet in the ordinary course of business, what do your newsletters look like? How do you keep your clients engaged with your practice during times when they may not be thinking about your services? Do you struggle to come up with interesting ideas for content that will, with the greatest of respect, make tax less boring?

I have an idea…

Let’s Tell Some Stories

Your newsletter doesn’t have to be anything too off-the-wall if you don’t want it to be, although I will always vote in favour of opening with a corny joke. What it does have to do, though, is resonate with your reader, and nothing does that better than telling a story.

You have far more stories from your practice than you realize. Through the years you have probably helped hundreds, if not thousands of clients out of sticky situations, or have saved some significant amounts of money that allowed their finances to grow in ways they may not have imagined. You may lose sight of it day-to-day, but in your career you have done some amazing work to help a whole lot of people.

So let’s use your newsletter to talk about that! Let’s tell some of their stories. You can obviously protect their privacy by not sharing names or confidential details, but it is simple to keep things broad enough that no one client is identifiable.

It’s these broad examples that your reader will relate to most. They’re going to hear about the young woman who came to you for advice when her small business was struggling and she needed help, or the older gentleman looking to sell his business and seeking financial advice. If you handle personal taxes as well then your client stories are truly endless, and you could probably speak for hours about the money you have saved hardworking individuals through the years.

These stories don’t have to be too long or convoluted, but they do need to be engaging. Your goal with every line should be to make a reader walk away saying “wow, if they helped them like that, then maybe they can help me.”

I’m here to help you tell those stories so that instead of struggling to put together your newsletter each time, you can use that time helping others. Contact me today to set up a writing plan that makes sense for your business.