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4 Effective Marketing Strategies to Scale Your Payroll Business

4 Effective Marketing Strategies to Scale Your Payroll Business-01

As a local payroll provider, you’re able to offer businesses in your community a personalized payroll experience that big names in the industry can’t quite replicate. You know your clients on a deeper level and are able to use that knowledge to meet their unique needs. Plus, as members of the same community, you’re able to offer the benefits of proximity and knowledge of any local tax or payroll laws. 

However, you also face unique challenges when it comes to scaling your client base. Despite offering outstanding customer service and a people-focused approach, it’s tough to stand out against the big names in the business. National providers like ADP have in-house marketing experts to align a marketing strategy with sales goals.  

To face these challenges and still scale your client base, it’s time to level up your digital marketing strategy. Here are four marketing tips you can start to implement.

Arm Sales Team with Valuable Resources to Promote

Nurturing leads is typically more effective than a fast and hard sales pitch. During this time, you’re developing and reinforcing relationships with potential clients, building trust and brand awareness. When a prospect is ready to outsource their payroll services, your company will be the first to come to mind.

There are several ways to nurture leads (emails, direct mail, retargeting ads, etc.). Our experience shows one of the most effective ways to do it is through sharing valuable and timely resources. 

Make sure your sales team is fully equipped with content and events to promote. Here are a few things to consider using:

  • Webinars. Hosting regular educational webinars is a great opportunity to generate leads. These are ways to build relationships with your ideal clients. Be sure to choose topics that are important to your target market and timely. For example, you might host a webinar about a new tax law or how to streamline the payroll process to improve efficiency.
  • E-books. Like webinars, e-books need to address a specific pain point of your audience, such as changes in compliance regulations. By providing value, you position your company as the experts in your field, which keeps you top-of-mind with your target market.
  • E-Newsletter. This is a great opportunity to establish ongoing communication with a prospect. Each addition of your e-newsletter should deliver quality and valuable information to your target audience. One might focus on mistakes to avoid in the hiring process while the next focuses on changing laws regarding minimum wage.
  • Video Series. Creating a company YouTube channel allows you the opportunity to provide informational videos (such as what the overall process of outsourcing payroll looks like) and it gives you the chance to showcase your company culture and personality.    

Regardless of the type of resources you create, your sales team should be promoting these across all channels, including email, mail, social media, etc.

Upsell Current Clients

This approach requires you to look at existing clients instead of working to bring in new ones. In terms of scaling your business, it might seem like signing new clients is the only way to go, but that isn’t the case. In fact, as HubSpot reports, it ranges from 5-25% more expensive to sign a new client than retain an existing one. This makes focusing on current clients a viable approach.

With upselling, your sales team approaches current clients to encourage them to purchase an additional or higher tier of your service. It lets clients know how your services can further benefit them beyond what they are already doing. 

Here are a few ways this can be done:

  • Email Blast. With the help of automation tools like HubSpot, payroll companies have the option of automating their emails as part of the upsell process. This might mean triggering emails to go out at certain points (such as six months after you start working with a business), or you can send an email to your entire email list with a reminder of your services or any specific service you want to highlight. 
  • Campaign. You can run a campaign across social media or use a landing page. These are links that can be pushed out onto your company’s page, but it is something employees can share as well. The campaign can offer a “bundle” or “discount” to existing customers. For example, if a business already uses your company’s payroll services, they might be able to get a discount when they outsource their Human Resources to you as well. 
  • Personal phone call. This is especially useful after your client has reached a significant milestone. Maybe you’ve been providing payroll services for a year, or maybe the business has added a certain number of new employees. Whatever the milestone is, you’re able to offer them the next tier of service to celebrate. 

When upselling your current client base, remember to keep your interactions honest and transparent. Be clear on what exactly you’re offering and how much the cost is. 

Leverage The Power of Linkedin

It's essential to establish your company’s presence on social media, but for B2B companies, LinkedIn is an especially lucrative platform. In fact, according to a study done by LinkedIn Internal, 45% of all social media traffic to a company’s site comes from LinkedIn.

With this in mind, make sure you and your sales team are using this channel to consistently share relevant content. While posting to your company’s LinkedIn page is valuable, employees posting on their individual profiles ranks higher and increases your chances for visibility.

Posts need to be personal in tone, but they need to direct people to a specific web page or piece of content. Have employees drive traffic to relevant blogs or testimonials.

Here some general guidelines to follow:

  • Quality over quantity. Don’t worry about posting five times a day, but make sure what you post is relevant to you and your target market. 
  • Automate when possible. Save time by using scheduling platforms such as HubSpot or Hootsuite. This way you’re able to schedule posts days, weeks, or even months in advance.
  • Participate in active engagement. On LinkedIn, be sure to engage with industry thought leaders and your target audience through liking, commenting, tagging, and sharing their posts.

For more tips on how to leverage this channel, check out our previous post on the topic. 

Leverage Your Company Culture and Customer Service

The unique quality many local payroll companies have to offer is a more personalized approach. While you may like the size and budget of the big names in the industry, the authenticity you have to offer is unparalleled. Working within your community, you are able to approach prospects on a humanizing level. Leveraging your people-first company culture should be at the heart of your marketing strategy. 

Give your target market insight into how you and your team operate. Here are some ways to do that:

  • Social media campaigns. Use your company’s social media platforms to share pictures and stories of your employees. These can be professional headshots, but don’t shy away from sharing “behind the scenes” photos, too. Employee celebrations or team-building activities highlight your warm company culture.
  • Blogs. The company blog is a great place to share valuable content, but it can also be leveraged to showcase what makes your payroll company unique. Consider a blog post about “What It’s Like Working With Us,” where you are able to tell your story and drive home your mission. Then, promote it across social media channels.
  • Testimonials. These are social proof of your company’s credibility. Sharing testimonials that highlight your stellar customer service is a great way to reach prospects without giving a sales pitch. These can be shared across social media or used in marketing collateral such as brochures and e-newsletters.

Remember, your power as a local payroll company lies in your ability to connect and build meaningful relationships with clients. This is a quality of customer service they cannot get elsewhere. Implementing these four tactics will help your message stand out against the competition and allow you to grow and scale.]

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