Tax Consultant Burkhard Küpper
Undertakings
Project description
How an ordinary tax advisor was able to become a thought leader in an entire industry and achieved millions in sales with a revolutionary approach
Our services
- Logo concept & development
- Brandbook
- marketing
- Employer Branding
- Taxes No thanks Seminar Branding
- Web design & web development
What do you think of when you use the word”tax advisor“Hear?
To a multi-entrepreneur who has built up a large law firm with a total of 29 companies, more than ten locations and over 160 employees out of thin air?
To a speaker who seems to easily get more than 300 tickets for seminars on taxes (!) sold?
To a book author who has the first 10,000 copies of his first work literally snatched out of his hands?
Hardly...
And yet tax advisor Burkhard Küpper combines all of the above attributes in one person.
In short:
Burkhard Küpper is the first and only real tax influencer in Germany who is fully committed to his mission of helping entrepreneurs, self-employed and freelancers effectively save taxes.
The secret to his success?
Perhaps it is his passion for taxes (the man is passionate about the topic!). But perhaps his success is also based on his entrepreneurial mindset. But it could also be due to his outstanding work ethic...
But let's be honest — there are many tax advisors out there who are passionate about their topic and work hard every day.
So what did Burkhard Küpper do differently than other tax advisors?
Very easy: He has recognized the potential of digital marketing and automated sales processes and how he can use them for his company and to achieve his vision.
Because fact is: Without establishing and expanding a digital reach and implementing automated processes, the successes described above would not have been possible in this form.
Of course, none of this just happened overnight. Because turning big visions and ideas into reality requires determination, perseverance and courage as well as time.
When we met Mr. Küpper in December 2017, he was managing partner of the tax consulting firm Albers & Küpper mbH based in Hilden near Düsseldorf. A small law firm with 30 employees specializing in the printing industry, shoe retail, insurance and interior designers.
Even at this stage, Mr. Küpper attaches great importance to active advice when advising his clients, which does not only focus on passively preparing annual financial statements and handling bookkeeping.
The focus is on comprehensive business advice, which, among other things, also focuses on structural and tax optimization.
When it comes to digitization, the law firm had two faces at the time:
Internally, they are already in an excellent position: For client support, they use specially developed software that automatically digitally records and archives documents. The system also enables consultants and clients to access all documents anytime and anywhere.
The firm's digital public image, on the other hand, is simply no longer up to date. The website appears old-fashioned and backward — two attributes that do not necessarily contribute to linking the topic of taxes with positive associations in the eyes of potential clients.
The design and in particular the page navigation also stood in stark contrast to the unwritten laws of web design. This is fatal because users quickly leave a website if they don't immediately find what they're looking for.
And every user who leaves the site early means potentially a lost client for the law firm and, as a result, lost revenue! The outdated website therefore costs Mr. Küpper cash...
A time-consuming and low-income client acquisition that is characterized by chance
In addition to the digital public image, however, there was also and above all”under the hood“Some catching up to do.
Specifically, it involves acquiring new clients, which did not follow a clear system at the time and was heavily influenced by coincidences. However, for a company that wants to grow, a certain amount of predictability in acquiring new customers is essential for survival.
Particularly due to the low level of automation, the acquisition of new clients is often associated with significant time (and therefore financial) investments for Mr. Küpper. Unfortunately, the quantity and quality of these were also far from the hoped-for goals.
Overall, the cost-benefit ratio in acquiring clients was significantly in trouble.
Before we worked together, Mr. Küpper had already made initial attempts to automate manual client acquisition to a certain extent via Internet portals, among other things. The resounding success, more specifically the”Aha experience“However, it did not happen.
At the beginning of our cooperation, the focus was initially on systematizing and automating client acquisition. However, we agreed from the outset that we should not simply generate as many clients as possible, but above all high-quality clients that fit the firm's profile.
In order to acquire new “desired mandates” in a predictable manner, a new website with conversion-optimized landing pages had to be created, to which traffic, which would later be generated via paid ads, could be directed.
We developed the website from scratch: a new domain, a modern content management system (CMS), a fresh design. We have also completely redesigned the menu and page structure to make it as easy as possible for potential clients to achieve their individual “goal” (e.g. making contact or arranging a non-binding consultation).
With appealing images and expressive texts, we also convey the dynamic spirit and hands-on mentality of “Küpper & Kollegen” to the outside world. The aim is to focus on comprehensive active advice and to position the law firm as a tax (savings) advisor.
To implement the website, we used the flexible CMS Webflow, which enables us to react flexibly to all developments in the future and to expand or adapt the website at any time.
The refurbished website went online in spring 2018.
The courage to break new ground
After the successful launch of the new website, it was now a matter of automating the acquisition of leads (client inquiries) using performance marketing.
At the beginning, Mr. Küpper is skeptical about digital client acquisition. His concerns initially relate primarily to Quality of leads. Specifically, it concerns the question of whether potential clients are actually interested in tax advice if no personal discussion or personal acquaintance has taken place in advance (as is often the case with traditional acquisitions).
This initial skepticism is not unknown to us: Many entrepreneurs and marketing managers initially have a certain aversion to digital customer acquisition. This is usually due to the fact that the digital approach is in stark contrast to previous procedures and requires a lot of courage to leave well-trodden paths and try out new methods (especially when it comes to the existential issue of acquiring new customers).
Despite the initial doubts, Burkhard Küpper demonstrates exactly this courage and asks us to plan and set up the first advertising campaign in order to attract new clients via the Internet.
We opt for classic Google Ads ads, which are displayed in Google search results when the user enters a relevant search term in the search field (e.g. “Steuerberater Düsseldorf”).
A paradigm shift
Once campaign planning is complete, we will launch the ads live in June 2018. As the campaign starts slowly, we make minor adjustments again and again to optimize the results.
Even in summer 2018, we are generating [several/10,20,30] (!) every day high-quality inquiries from entrepreneurs and self-employed people who would like to become clients with “Küpper & Kollegen”.
The results that we can achieve within a few weeks amount to a paradigm shift.
For Mr. Küpper, who has viewed the digital acquisition strategy with a certain skepticism until recently, a worldview is collapsing...
- For the first time in his career as a tax advisor, new clients come to him of their own accord to make use of the services of his law firm.
- For the first time, he has a sense of predictability and predictability that he had never known before when acquiring new clients.
- For the first time, the question of client acquisition in everyday working life fades into the background, freeing up new capacities to support active mandates.
Separate the wheat from the chaff
By talking about the Google Ads campaign Generating new inquiries every day, we give Mr. Küpper the freedom to be selective and to focus on absolute desired mandates, where the chemistry is right both on a professional and interpersonal level.
And we're going one step further:
Since client acquisition is no longer based on chance, the law firm is able to part with “problem mandates” whose support over the years has been a lot of work and only a little pleasure. An absolute luxury that most tax advisors cannot afford.
In short: Through automated (and therefore predictable) client acquisition, we give Mr. Küpper back full control over the development of his law firm. He realizes that the growth of his law firm does not necessarily involve the acceptance of mandates that do not 100% match the firm's profile... A mental liberation!
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Let's set off the turbo together
Over the next few weeks and months, we are constantly developing the Google Ads campaign for client acquisition in order to optimize all important key figures and KPIs (including increasing click rates, reducing [CPC/ CPA], increasing conversion rate).
Over [a year], we step on the gas pedal together and finally achieve an incredible level of scaling, with more than 100 (!) Generate inquiries from entrepreneurs who want to become clients with “Küpper & Kollegen”.
This enormous demand far exceeded the firm's capacities at the time, so that Mr. Küpper had to order a suspension of admission for new clients without further ado.
A tax advisor with growing pains? Unthinkable...
Efficiency and predictability in recruiting employees
In order to meet growing demand, new employees must necessarily be hired. In view of the overwhelming results in digital client acquisition, Mr. Küpper decides to use the same strategies and techniques to acquire new employees.
No sooner said than done: We are developing another Google Ads campaign that focuses on attracting highly qualified candidates who, in addition to professional expertise, also have the right mindset for working for “Küpper & Kollegen.” The campaign starts in September 2019.
Mr. Küpper's impulse to translate his experience in client acquisition into the search for new employees proves to be extremely effective: both the quantity and quality of the incoming applications are convincing.
Thanks to the digital approach, the team from “Küpper & Kollegen” not only saves time but also and above all cash when looking for new employees:
From now on, there is no need to pay expensive headhunters whose selection processes often take several weeks. The precise targeting and targeting of ads also means that fewer job interviews need to be conducted to find a suitable candidate.
In addition, there is also the predictability factor, which should not be underestimated in the HR sector, especially for a growing company.
For years, Burkhard Küpper had to visit exhibition stands, hand out business cards, shake countless hands and passively wait for recommendations in order to attract new clients to his tax firm.
Now he has completely different problems:
Every day, more than 100 entrepreneurs, self-employed people and freelancers hope that their application for a client with “Küpper & Kollegen” will be accepted.
For Mr. Küpper, one thing is certain: Despite the imposed ban on admission for new clients, he definitely wants to meet the high demand in order to continue to help as many people as possible save taxes. The only question is: How?
The solution seems obvious...
He must help entrepreneurs, self-employed people and freelancers to take tax savings into their own hands. Especially when you consider that most tax advisors simply don't have the time in their day-to-day business to develop a tailor-made tax saving strategy for each client.
The idea is quickly created to create a seminar that provides participants with the necessary knowledge to reduce their tax burden independently. They can then put this knowledge into practice themselves — possibly in collaboration with their tax advisor. Whether seminar participants would like to be accompanied by their previous tax advisor or by the law firm “Küpper & Kollegen” is of course up to them.
The final decision to offer a seminar is based on three fundamental findings:
- Insight 1: Classic tax consulting tasks, such as preparing annual financial statements, can in principle be carried out by any tax advisor. By far the greatest value for clients lies in active advice, which shows strategies and methods to reduce their own tax burden.
- Insight 2: Despite more locations, more employees and improved structures, Mr. Küpper will still not be able to personally serve every single entrepreneur who wants to save taxes as a client in his law firm.
- Insight 3: You don't have to be a tax advisor to put tax optimizations into practice. It is generally not necessary to study tax literature in detail. All necessary documents as well as sample contracts and templates will be made available to participants as part of the seminar.
The establishment of the continuing education brand “Steuern Nein Danke”, under which the seminar will initially be launched, opens up completely new opportunities for Mr. Küpper to realize his vision of helping as many entrepreneurs as possible to reduce their tax burden.
His expertise, from which only selected clients have benefited so far, is poured into a final product through “taxes no thanks”, which can be sold in much larger “quantities” - and decoupled from a real client base. In marketing jargon, this is also referred to as “productization of service.”
The seminar, which is to be marketed under the name “Steuern Nein Danke”, not only enables Mr. Küpper to reach more people, but also to raise the quality of his service to a new level at the same time.
As part of the seminar, all important information is conveyed in a compressed form so that the entrepreneur “only” has to work through the individual points, as with a checklist.
This form of (indirect) advice is ultimately much more effective than individual support within the framework of a traditional client base. Especially when you remember once again that reducing the tax burden for entrepreneurs represents by far the greatest value of tax advice.
Videos as the key to success
After the decision has been made to organize a seminar, we at marketer UX put our heads together to develop a tailor-made sales strategy. It quickly becomes clear that there are worlds between acquiring new clients and selling seminar tickets...
Traditional tax advice is a tangible service that requires little explanation - the client usually knows exactly what to expect. It is therefore sufficient to be displayed with optimized text ads for the right keywords to attract qualified leads (e.g. via Google Ads).
The situation is completely different for a seminar for which participants have to spend a four-digit amount. Because a seminar is a rather “vague” product that is difficult for potential participants to grasp at first. Especially since this is a completely new concept that has not yet existed in this form in the area of tax advice.
There is also the hurdle of finding the right mindset: For most entrepreneurs, taxes are an absolute painful issue that is often suppressed. It is seen as a necessary evil that should simply be done - but please by someone who has a clue about it. After all, as a managing director, you have significantly more important things to do...
And now the entrepreneur should suddenly take care of his tax matters himself in a seminar?
In order to resolve these and similar concerns and doubts, video ads in which Mr. Küpper himself talks about the seminar should form the heart of the campaign.
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It is important that Mr. Küpper appears in front of the camera himself authentically and unfalsified, as the potential participants can get a very good picture of Mr. Küpper as soon as they look at the ad: How does he speak? How does it occur? How does he package the content? Do I feel addressed by him? Is the chemistry right? Are we on the same wavelength?
All of these are very important aspects that potential participants (unconsciously) consider when making their purchase decision.
First, we play the videos via Facebook. However, what we had already suspected is happening: Due to the restrictive Facebook advertising guidelines, we have had to deal with blocking our advertising accounts time and again right from the start. Since these suspensions are disrupting the campaign, we react a short time later and shift our focus to the YouTube video platform.
In addition to video ads - especially in remarketing - we also display classic paid (text) ads on other platforms (including Google Ads, Google Display Ads and Linkedin Ads)
My name is Küpper, Burkhard Küpper
When designing video ads, we focus on a healthy mix of content delivery, value-added communication and entertaining elements right from the start.
In particular, the entertaining elements, which are discreetly interspersed here and there, are important to us, as the topic of taxes is a pain issue for most people that is fundamentally negative. We also want to prevent users from switching off when they see that it's about taxes.
When developing the video scripts, however, we meticulously ensure that Mr. Küpper's entire appearance is not too casual overall in order to substantiate the seriousness of the topic... After all, for many entrepreneurs, this is about potential savings in the five or even six-figure range - per financial year!
We are more interested in showing potential seminar participants that the seminar is expressly not a dry event, in which Mr. Küpper cites legal texts dead seriously and with a raised index finger...
An important element that helps to take the weight out of the issue is, for example, the recurring greeting from Mr. Küpper, which is based on the well-known Bond quote: “My name is Küpper, Burkhard Küpper.”
When developing the videos, we also benefit from the professional experience that Mr. Küpper has gained in politics - especially when it comes to speaking openly in front of the camera.
Can a Rolex be deducted from tax?
In order to further increase our reach in a targeted manner and to generate attention even beyond the limits of our pre-defined target group, we are publishing a video ad with the title: “Can you deduct a Rolex from tax?”.
The title of the video is extremely tempting and also entices people to click away when it comes to taxes.
Shortly after publication, the video went viral and reached more than 2.1 million people within a few days. The video made such waves that even some tax officials felt compelled to revise the relevant legal texts in order to make the procedure mentioned in the video impossible.
3.3 million euros in turnover in 6 months
Successful online marketing meant that tickets for the first events were completely sold out. The seminar series has therefore proved to be a complete success!
As a result of the corona measures, on-site events already planned in spring 2020 had to be canceled. In order to still give participants the opportunity to attend the seminar, we quickly developed an online course that participants could complete from home.
The first event after the Covid lockdown took place in October 2021 in the sold-out event room of the Maritim Hotel in Düsseldorf. More than 300 participants came to find out how you can effectively reduce your tax burden in Germany.
The coming years have also already been planned with many more on-site seminars throughout Germany.
The systematization of client acquisition, the automation of employee recruitment and the extremely successful marketing of the seminar”Taxes No thanks“has enabled Burkhard Küpper to become a simple tax advisor in less than 4 years Germany's most sought-after expert on the topic of saving taxes.
In particular, the decision to turn his knowledge into an end product brought the realisation of his vision within reach for the first time. About the usual”Hope marketing“and traditional client support would not have been possible to scale this way.
But even with more than 300 participants per seminar, there are certain limits to its reach. When looking for a way to reach even more people, the idea of a Buchs ...
The missing book about saving taxes
Over the last three years, Mr. Küpper and his team have compiled more than 1,000 specific points with which entrepreneurs, self-employed people and freelancers can save taxes.
[At the beginning of 2021], we decide together to share some of this knowledge with the general public in the form of a book. Similar to the seminar, the book also appeals to entrepreneurs' personal responsibility to take the issue of taxes into their own hands. After all, taxes are by far the largest expenditure of any company.
On more than 300 pages, the most important principles and methods for saving taxes as an entrepreneur year after year are presented. In order to ensure that the strategies presented in the book can be implemented by anyone, any technical jargon has been dispensed with - it is a tax book that does not require paragraphs.
Become a bestseller within days
In order to achieve the common goal of reaching as many entrepreneurs as possible with the book who want to take the first step when it comes to saving taxes, we are doing everything we can in terms of marketing.
In view of the high demand for seminar tickets, we expect to receive numerous pre-orders as part of the first book launch in summer 2021. In order to be able to process pre-orders at this early stage, we are wisely developing our own online shop based on “Shopify”.
As part of the book announcement, we are launching the advertising campaign, which this time focuses not only on placing Google Ads but also and above all on addressing our own (organic) reach, which we have built up over the last three and a half years.
When advertising a new product on an existing one (”own“) Using reach has two significant advantages:
- For your own reach, you are not a”stranger“more (the person Burkhard Küpper no longer needs to be introduced).
- Your own reach is probably already convinced of the competence or the quality of the content.
In addition to addressing our own reach purely digitally, we are also actively promoting the book in October 2021 (just under a month before publication) at the on-site seminar at the Maritim Hotel Düsseldorf.
In order to offer the book the biggest possible stage - even beyond our own online shop - we have it listed on all major retail platforms as well as at traditional bookstores (including Amazon, Thalia and Hugendubel).
This is having an effect: Due to the numerous pre-orders that have been registered via Amazon, the book in the “Corporate Taxation & Consulting” category is already available before (!) Publication for the No. 1 bestseller.
1 day after publication, Amazon reports: “Out of Stock”
It is fair to say that the first edition of his book was literally snatched out of Mr. Küpper's hands.
One day after the start of sales, Amazon reports “Out of Stock!” Fortunately, inventory can be replenished quickly to continue to meet continued high demand.
Since its release on November 24, 2021, more than 10,000 copies have been sold so far.
Behind us is a fast-paced rollercoaster ride, which was extremely exciting and instructive both for Mr. Küpper and for ourselves and exceeded the expectations of everyone involved.
In just four years, Burkhard Küpper has developed from owner of a small tax consulting firm with 30 employees to managing director of a major law firm known throughout Germany with more than 10 locations and over 160 employees.
An overview of the milestones:
1. We create for”Küpper & colleagues“From scratch, a new website with a conversion-optimized system of landing pages, which allows interested parties to be converted into clients in a targeted manner. In addition, we are developing a digital acquisition system that automatically generates high-quality client inquiries (“leads”). To do this, we primarily use Google Ads. Through continuous optimizations and adjustments, we can scale the campaign to a dizzying level within a few months, at which pro Day 100 queries generated become. The firm's capacities are exhausted, Mr. Küpper is suspending the admission of new clients...
2nd In order to meet the consistently high demand, we are launching the continuing education brand “Steuern Nein Danke”. The first product to be launched under this brand is a seminar where entrepreneurs, self-employed people and freelancers learn how to effectively reduce their tax burden. With this seminar, we are creating a completely new type of tax advice that does not focus passively on providing standard services, but on actively transferring knowledge. With the help of innovative video ads in which Mr. Küpper himself speaks into the camera, we reach millions of people and can achieve such a turnover of 3.3 million euros achieve.
3rd Mr. Küpper has set himself the goal of helping as many entrepreneurs as possible to save taxes. In order to achieve this goal and further increase our reach, we decide to publish a book in spring 2021. On over 300 pages, it is explained step by step which basic methods and strategies entrepreneurs can use to save taxes. At the end of 2021, we will launch the book both via our own online shop and via Amazon, Thalia, Hugendubel & Co. In just a few weeks, the book was able to sell more than Sell 10,000 times and to Amazon bestsellers ascend.
We are proud to continue to support Mr. Küpper in realizing his vision in the future. Because what we've achieved so far was just the beginning... We still have a lot of plans together!
1. Logo concept & development
- Küpper & Kollegen tax advice
- Küpper & Kollegen Sales
- Taxes No thanks
2nd brand book
- Secondary logo versions & icons
- Unique color palette
- Brand typography system (fonts)
- Custom design elements/patterns/icons
- Brand style guide PDF
3. Employer Branding
- Advantage argument developed from an employee's perspective
- Optimizing the homepage for recruiting employees
- Targeted adjustments to job advertisements
- Landing pages for individual job offers
- Recruitee profile built and used as a marketing tool
4. “Taxes no thanks” seminar branding
- Messewand
- rollup banners
- Participant cards
- Lanyards
- DIN A4 information display
- PowerPoint presentation design
- Design of infographics
- Preparation of sales materials
- Image and sound recordings Declaration of consent
- PDF Design offer
- Design of warranty certificates
- Sales tools (upsell documents, internal templates)
- marketing materials
- sales presentations
5. Online marketing
- Google Ads
- YouTube Ads
- landing pages
- Funnels
- SEO
- email marketing
- Retargeting
- Video scripts
- Video production and post-production
6. Web design & webflow development
- www.kuepper-kollegen.de
- www.steuersparsystem.com
- www.steuern-nein-thanke.de
“I can say that the contact with Marketer UX was what completely changed our business. We still have a lot of plans together. I can only advise everyone to work with these people here.”
Burkhard Küpper
Küpper & Kollegen Steuerberatungsgesellschaft mbH, SND Steuerberatungssgesellschaft, KK Steuerfachverlag GmbH
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