Attracting Very Small Business Clients

Posted by Sir Digby Chick... PM | on Sun, 20/11/2011 - 20:12 1618 9 comments | report

I'd be really grateful for some marketing advice from the great and the good of the accountingweb.

I have been doing some thinking about the kind of clients that I most enjoy working for and I have decided to target very small businesses with my marketing. That is sole traders and limited companies with a turnover under £100k. I know the fees I can expect for these types of clients will not be huge, but I love doing the work and I enjoy working for the people. Also, I feel a have sufficient expertise and experience with these types of business to provide an excellant service. I just wondered if there was anyone else out there, with a similar focus and/or can recommend any really effective marketing techniques for targeting this sector?

Without boring everyone to tears, here is some background. I am a sole practitioner operating through a limited company and working from home. My only "employee" is my Mum who is AAT qualified and does the bookkeeping work for me (for free!). I don't do any traditional newspaper or phone book advertising. I have a reasonably basic website that is designed by me and so I'm quite certain is fairly unique. I have used targeted mailshots in the past with reasonable success and distributed postcards with fairly poor success. I get some referrals but not enough to grow as quickly as I'd like. I have been running a twitter, facebook and linked in pages but I am starting to doubt whether twitter and linked in will get me to my target market. Facebook might be more successful as many of my old schoolmates are in trades.

Also, I am aiming for a turnover of £50k per annum working 20-30 hours per week. My overheads are minimal and my chargeout rate is £50 per hour on accountancy work. I know the figures work on paper to make an turnover of £50k achievable but I wondered if it was realistic? CPD, Marketing, Practice Admin and faffing about on Accountingweb seems to swallow up a disproportionate amount of time.

Any advice would be gratefully received. Many thanks in advance.