Not-So-Busy Season

By Rachael Higginbotham

Accounting firms are famous for “busy season.” Although workloads have begun to even out year-round in some practice areas, late January through the end of April is still the most demanding period of time for accounting firms. Because of the high focus on audit and tax deadlines, it’s oftentimes also the slowest period for accounting marketers.

With less access to client service professionals, how can marketers use their “not-so-busy” season most productively? In a word: prepare.

Researching, budgeting, and planning…oh my!

Every marketer has an “idea file.” If you don’t, it’s time to get one. We all have enough on our plates to keep us busy today, but being strategic means constantly thinking ahead. What’s next on the horizon for the industry? What are our clients’ biggest challenges? How can we help our professionals continue to help clients? Every innovation begins with a question, and busy season is the perfect time for marketers to ask themselves hard questions.

One idea to make sure you are asking the right questions is to seek feedback from your professionals, who are spending a significant amount of time with clients during this period. You might consider scheduling one lunch a week with a different manager or senior manager to pick their brains on client challenges. What are clients struggling with? Are there any trends? How is the new tax bill impacting them? What are the disruptors our clients are dealing with?

Common themes require further researching, and more questions. Essentially, ask how your firm can help:

Do you need a new service?
Do you need to educate clients?
Do you need make sure clients know you have resources who are able to help them?

The answers to these questions helps form the plan and the budget, which you will have ready to execute at the end of busy season.

Staged and Ready to Go

In addition to generating ideas for new ways to service clients, it’s important for marketers to continue to look inward, focusing on solutions for their firm operations. The expectation for doing things better, faster, and cheaper only increases as technology continues to evolve, and marketers have the key role in managing the efficiency and effectiveness of firm growth efforts.

Every year, hundreds of accounting marketers attend the AAM Summit, walking away with fresh ideas, new connections, and a bit more energy than they had before. Oftentimes, after having been away from the office for a week, marketers are challenged to find time to digest and prioritize ideas generated at AAM. Instead of simply looking forward to the next event, busy season can be a great time to explore and implement initiatives which have been on the backburner.

It can also be a great time to reach out to marketers at other firms to reconnect. Did you find particular inspiration from a presentation? Reach out to the presenter. Did you connect with a colleague in a session? Send an email inquiring as to whether they’ve made progress in the area you discussed. Did you hear about an amazing new technology which is highly cost effective and can make your team produce marketing materials and resumes better, faster, cheaper (ahem…POUNCE)? Schedule a demo! (Really. Schedule a demo.)

Whatever your highest priority is, do everything you can do to prepare during busy season.

If your firm is like ours, come May 1, planning is over and it’s go time. If your team can be staged and ready to go with things like training, events, materials, and any initiatives which require the participation of your people, then you are better positioned to maximize the effectiveness of your own busy season (aka everything except late January through April).

If you have ideas on how to spend marketers not-so-busy season, we’d love to hear them!

Rachael Higginbotham is the Marketing Director for Postlethwaite & Netterville. With over 15 years of marketing and consulting experience—including a decade in the world of accounting marketing—her strengths include marketing strategy, business development coaching and support, ROI development, brand management and strategic corporate projects.