Increase exposure to potential clients with partner email swapping
When you’re baking a cake, sometimes you need to borrow a cup of sugar. Partner email swapping is like swapping a cup of milk with your neighbor for a cup of sugar, resulting in you both baking a delicious cake.
Not many marketing tactics are as effective and resource-efficient as a partner email swap. It is a simple exchange that allows you to reach a new, receptive audience while providing your current clients with additional value.
Helping your neighbors and business community is a recipe for universal success. As an accounting firm, there are certain services you know your client needs, that you don’t offer—and that’s ok.
Better do a little well, than a great deal badly.
Email swapping gives you a chance to combine forces with another business to grow each other’s client base; it’s a wonderful way to get rewarded while supporting another business.
Ryan Lazanis from Future Firm has partnered with Karbon to deliver a private podcast series, The 7 Quick Win Marketing Tactics for Accounting Firms, providing quick and impactful tactics you can implement to grow your firm today. In the third episode, Ryan discusses the value of partner email swapping, and how it can make a difference to your accounting firm.
What is partner email swapping?
Partner email swapping is finding and contacting a complementary business, then working together to promote one another to your respective mailing lists.
It’s as easy as sending an email recommending your partner’s business to your contact list, while they do the same for you. You’re gifting each other quick, free, and high-quality marketing value.
Why engage in a partner email swap?
There are many benefits to a partner email swap:
It allows you to reach a new group of potential clients
You show your clients holistic value by thinking beyond your own accounting services
You form business connections that can be fruitful well into the future
It’s free marketing
The icing on the cake of a partner email swap is that your information isn’t just sent to prospective clients—it’s coming with a recommendation from someone they work with and trust.
How to organize an email swap
A partner email swap is straightforward to set up. Here’s what you need to do to facilitate a successful swap:
1. Find a suitable partner
Find the right person, organization, or business to be your email swap partner. Your services should be complementary but not overlap—you don’t want to take each other’s business.
Your partner’s business should be of a reasonable size, so their mailing list gives your firm good exposure. They should also be a similar size to your firm, otherwise they won’t see the value in the partnership. (However, there is nothing wrong with approaching businesses slightly larger than your own to make the most of this tactic.)
Tip: Consider how closely your partner’s audience aligns with yours—you want to be promoted to genuine leads.
Here are a few examples of potential email swap partners:
Lawyers
Insurance brokers
Accounting professionals that offer non-competing services
Bankers
2. Make contact
Send an email to your prospective partner outlining the strategy, really emphasizing how mutually beneficial it is. Lay out as many details, potential benefits, and information about your company as you can; the less back-and-forth necessary for them to see the benefit to their firm, the better.
Once they get back to you confirming they’d like to move forward, you can make a plan to send the emails by discussing a draft timeline and if either of you have a preferred way of being introduced.
3. Send the email
These don’t need to be complicated, but the emails should include:
An introduction of your partner
Why you think they’d be a good fit for your contacts
A little about how they work
Their contact details
Your partner will do the same with your information.
Tip: You might like to write your own introduction for your email swap partner to send off. This is a good option for two reasons:
You control how you’re presented to potential new clients
It saves time for your email swap partner
Once drafted, it’s a good idea to send the emails to each other to make sure you’re both happy. After any tweaks, send off the emails and you can both sit back and enjoy the benefits of this win-win marketing strategy.
Before drafting the emails, consider what outcomes you’d like to see. Do you want to book 15 discovery calls with new leads? Or do you want 100+ views of your introductory video on your homepage? Whatever your goal is, make sure it’s clear and has a deadline—after all, 15 discovery calls booked in the first 3 days of the email being sent might be considered more successful than 15 in the first 3 months.
Simple tactics that work
Partner email swapping is quick, free, and simple to understand. Two businesses helping each other to reach more people and grow their client base—another quick win marketing tactic to help grow your accounting firm.