1. Multiply Your Referrals

Serve on a board in your industry association. You’ll gain instant credibility and enjoy a great deal of visibility. This is a long-term commitment and could take up to five years or more to really pay off. But once it does, the benefits are tremendous.

Each industry is different. You may need to attend national conventions or simply serve locally.

4. Affiliate Program Participation

Your clients have a wide variety of needs, and to serve them may require partnering with other companies. For example, you are probably already working with Intuit offering QuickBooks software. You may want to take the next step and join the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program. You might have a computer supplier to work with to help your clients when they have hardware needs. You might even have a particular bank that you work with.

The more you can partner with other non-competing businesses to serve client needs, the more chance you have of gaining referrals from that partner. You might even work out a “commission” when you send them a client. This type of revenue now makes up over ten percent of my income. There are thousands of examples of people who sell other people’s stuff on the Internet (think eBay). Out of the many products and services out there, what can you sell? Conversely, who can you find to help sell yours?

5. Online Marketing Tools

Your web site is an easy way to get new business. You should be getting inquiries on a weekly basis from your site. If not, then your site is not persuasive enough or it is not showing you in your best light. Make sure your site is benefits-oriented and prominently displays what’s special about your services vs. others. (Hint: To develop a quick statement of how your service is special and unique.) If your site is relatively new, you may also need to optimize your site for the search engines.

Take advantage of online accounting directories. I just hired someone yesterday from one of these listings.

It’s easy to see what your competitors are doing online. Enter some descriptions of your services in a search engine and see what comes up.

6. Articles and Ezines

There’s nothing more powerful than marketing to your own customer base. These people are already sold on how awesome you are and are likely ready to do more business with you if they just knew how. Send your clients a monthly newsletter full of tips and reminders.

Post an article to one of the many places on the Web that take articles. One example is www.Articlefactory.com. Try to post articles where your clients are; if you like to have real estate agents for clients, then find a real estate industry association and submit an article to their magazine.

7. Direct Mail

With email crowded by spam, filters, and viruses, direct mail now stands out. Sending a postcard with an eye-catching picture and a clever message (use few words) is an economical way to reach a targeted audience. But you might need to hurry; postcards and direct mail are starting to increase in popularity, which will deflate their effectiveness. For highest saturation, avoid sending a postcard at election time or other high marketing times when everyone else is.

8. Press and Radio Coverage

The third-party endorsement given by press when they feature your story on the news is an instant boost in credibility and reputation, which helps sales. How you benefit from press depends on what you have to offer the viewers. Having a $20 book in thousands of bookstores is different from trying to sell $50,000 accounting systems.

Gaining leverage from press coverage has to be planned well in advance. Sometimes a full-blown public relations campaign is necessary; other times, it might be that you have a friend with her own radio show who invites you on as a guest. Start by mastering press releases and building your press contact database.

9. Networking

Almost every professional I know has tried a networking event, where you are sitting in a big circle, everyone introduces themselves to the group one at a time, and business cards are flying around the table. I feel that these groups are good in some cases, such as when you are new to town. But the days of handing people your cards and expecting a call tomorrow are long gone.

The goal for most people is to develop long term relationships that are mutually beneficial. Look for deeper events these days, such as mastermind groups, where like-minded but non-competing people share business advice.  Become known in your community for your social or religious participation.

Use the Internet to network as well. Maintain a presence on sites such as LinkedIn.com and MySpace.com, and build an online community network. Post messages on forums.

10. Ads

If all else fails, you can always buy an ad in a magazine or newspaper that lists your services and benefits. An ad does not have the third-party validation that a lot of the other methods do, but it will give you visibility and get your message across. Make sure it’s as clever, likable, and attention-getting as possible.

Which idea do you like best? Start there and start bringing in more business.

Sandi Smith, CPA, is a freelance writer and professional speaker located in Dallas, TX. Her web site is http://www.sandismith.com.