According to Sara Rotman, Founder and CEO of ModCo Creative, a US branding agency, “The goal is for a prospective client to know who you are and how you conduct business from the get-go, which will ultimately increase your new business hit ratio immeasurably”.
Your payroll business needs to be promoted and attract customers simultaneously. In general, promotions should extend the number of services in a payroll business and attract new customers that might bring additional bookkeeping, accounting or various service requirements to your business. Your existing customers might be interested in using your payroll services in addition to the current services they are using if they find a benefit in making a change from what they’re currently doing. Prospective customers might consider your payroll services through word of mouth or marketing sources if they have burning pain in managing payroll.
According to a small business payroll company in the United States called Sure Payroll, small businesses should follow three rules for successful payroll business promotions:
- Start and stop.
- Give a temporary incentive to motivate customers and prospects to become engaged or connected to your payroll business.
- Use existing resources and staff to manage payroll business promotions.
Selecting a promotion that suits your payroll business won’t always be achieved on the first try. It takes many trials and errors to see which type of promotion best suits your business. Here are some of the types of promotions that you can consider in attracting customers while promoting your payroll business:
- Add-on services discounts.
- Bundled services promotion.
- Free trial.
- Referral discounts for customers who bring more customers to you.
- Register to win the giveaway.
- Contests.
Apart from these promotion ideas, consider:
Reviewing existing marketing material
It would help if you considered reviewing your marketing materials, including your email signature line, business cards, service brochures, letterheads and website, to ensure that your payroll services are clear and specifically mentioned. In addition, make sure to promote your payroll services on social media such as LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. Remember, your audience should be specific and not general! It doesn’t matter from which type of industry your customers belong as the payroll benefits are common to all businesses, and these benefits should be highlighted in your marketing material, such as:
- Reduced time spent on payroll management.
- Increased accuracy of payroll compliance and labour laws.
- Accurate payslips.
- Calculate bonuses, expenses, and holiday pays with less effort.
When promoting your payroll services to prospective customers, you must carefully choose your words as they can change their minds and lose interest. Therefore, your marketing posts can include keywords that resonate across many industries. Such words include “timely and reliable, guaranteed calculations, accurate, affordable, convenient and professional”.
Networking, online advertising, boosting social media pages
Most small payroll businesses face the biggest challenge of networking with their prospects. You can try boosting your Facebook Ads, Instagram posts and LinkedIn posts where you have a good following and where your prospects constantly visit such sites. Certainly, boosting your social media posts and promoting your business on these social media sites comes with a fee, but it’s worth it.
Prioritizing employee wellness
We all know that handling payroll isn’t a piece of cake. It can be stressful, frustrating and annoying. This is why, if you want to improve your payroll business and attract customers, you should show them that you care about your employees’ wellness. You can consider providing yoga sessions, pilates and breathing exercises for all employees which will be an excellent way to reduce burnout in an intense business environment.
The 100 calls method
As a small business, selling and dealing with many customers can be overwhelming. However, you cannot stay silent without communicating with your customers and expecting customers to be magically attracted to your payroll business. Therefore, you must make a hundred sales calls as quickly as possible. The more you do this, you’ll be confident and understand the customer’s mindset.
According to an online magazine, CEO Today, some of the best practices to follow during a call are:
- First, note down the customer’s questions.
- Then, write answers to these questions.
- Start with a clear-cut introduction.
- Next, meet the major pain point of the customer.
Provide a unique customer experience
Indeed, people won’t forget how you made them feel. You can use this to your advantage to make your customers remember you and promote your payroll business. According to smallbizgenius, 75% of customers favour businesses that offer them rewards, and 56% of customers stay loyal to brands that “get them”.
To understand this clearer, an Accounting Software called Freshbooks sent a cake to one of their customers to purchase their product, which made the customer feel acknowledged and happy. Of course, you don’t have to send a cake to your customers necessarily, but you can come up with other unique ideas to celebrate your customers. A small token of gratitude will make them loyal to your payroll business. Eventually, other prospects hearing about this through your existing customers will want to do business with you.
Persuasion, not negotiation
What is the difference between persuasion and negotiation, folks? Negotiation is a compelling behaviour to make your customers buy your payroll product somehow, while persuasion is about understanding the customer’s behaviour and channelling a personalized approach to make them buy your payroll product. Unfortunately, most small payroll businesses don’t understand persuasion is more effective as you solve the customer’s problems through your payroll software rather than simply showing off its benefits.
These are some of the best ways to persuade your customers:
- Explore potential questions that your customers would ask.
- Leave the customers to decide instead of forcing them to.
- Show testimonials and other customer feedback.
- Build a personal connection with them.
The bottom line is….
We want you to try the strategies mentioned in this blog. These strategies will not only help you attract customers and promote your payroll business, but they will also make you one of the payroll businesses that are smart enough to achieve what they want by following such strategies.
Resources
https://www.accountingweb.com/practice/practice-excellence/how-to-attract-clients-and-promote-your-payroll-business
How To Attract The Right Clients - Accuchex Payroll (accuchex-payroll.com)
https://www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2021/03/five-sales-strategies-every-payroll-business-owner-should-know/
