Day: September 7, 2023

14 Marketing Ideas Breweries Can Tap Into

According to a recent article in Beverage Daily, “In a maturing market, US craft brewers are up against rising costs and supply chain disruptions. But the Brewers Association says its midyear survey indicates optimism for the second half of the year.” (Arthur, Rachel. “Optimism and challenges for US craft beer market.” August 14, 2023.)

To help craft beer businesses and restaurants make the most of what’s left of the year, we researched and identified 14 ideas to strengthen your marketing efforts or incorporate into your 2024 marketing plans:

Email newsletter/text messages Stay in touch with customers by creating a regular, ongoing email with updates, specials, and more. (com has information on how to build a customer email list.)
Loyalty program Show customers their patronage is valued by offering discounts on drinks or free swag.
Community engagement Is there a big local annual event taking place? Show your business is part of the community by becoming an event sponsor. Check in with your local Chamber of Commerce to learn about upcoming events.
Give back Support local charities by donating a portion of proceeds during a defined period of time; hosting a pet adoption event; collecting food around the holidays for food banks; setting up a collection box for toys to donate to children, etc.
Swag Consider selling hats, shirts, and other items featuring your mascot, brewery name, tagline, and more. With the holidays coming, branded ornaments may be a big hit among your regulars.
Social media and online presence Engage with your customers even when they’re not at your brewery by establishing a presence via the more popular social media channels, a website, and more. Use it for announcements and promotions, but also to invite customers to name a new brew, recommend the best day of the week to visit, etc.
Be a good neighbor Promote other local shops and their wares via a shop local campaign. Sell local stores’ products onsite or host a “holiday shopping pop up” event right at your brewery. Invite other small businesses to join you in creating and distributing a holiday shop local map with special coupons and discounts.
Create a brand experience From décor and furniture to lighting, background music, the personality and dress of servers and more, everything comes together to create a unique experience for your customers. Make it one they want to be part of time and time again.
Design & print a calendar Make it available to your regulars. Highlight brew release dates, special events, and dates that may be meaningful to your customers (for example, if you cater to a lot of people from the local firehouse, include International Firefighters’ Day – May 4, 2024).
Host events Game night, trivia, watching sports, having a themed party (i.e., empty nesters), holding a blind tasting competition, hosting dart leagues, and more – there are numerous ways to add to the experience you create and help build your returning customer numbers.
Celebrate Celebrate holidays, special events (i.e., Mardi Gras), your business’ anniversary, local heroes (i.e., teachers, veterans, police, etc.), and more to build good will and entice people to visit.
Plan for Dry January Let customers know you have their backs whether they want alcohol or not.
Go back to school Certain university’s offer degree and certificate programs on the craft beer business (i.e., SUNY Schenectady or the University of Vermont) – including marketing. Either take a course or talk to the school about offering internships to students who can put their marketing skills to work for you.
Create a marketing plan Don’t let your marketing ideas get lost. Instead, make them part of a plan that you can update and execute throughout the year. You can find a free downloadable marketing template at com and a free small business marketing guide at Hubspot.com.

While pulling your marketing plans together, you can count on RBT CPAs for all of your accounting, tax, audit, and advisory needs. To learn more, give us a call today.

RBT CPAs do not outsource work to any other country. All of our work is prepared in the U.S.A.

Five Ideas to Strengthen Recruiting and Retention Results

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing I don’t need to tell you about the many challenges municipalities face when it comes to attracting and retaining employees. So, let’s get right to it – what can you do to enhance efforts to compete for and win talent today?

While there are no silver bullets, following are ideas you may want to consider incorporating into your recruiting and retention strategies (if you haven’t already done so).

Conduct focus groups and exit interviews. There’s no better way to understand what attracts and keeps people working for your organization than to ask. Focus groups show existing employees their input matters and can make a difference, while allowing you to identify key value propositions to market to prospective employees. At the same time, exit interviews can garner important insights into what you can do or change to create a work environment that people want to be part of.
Build an employment brand. While you may be hard-pressed to justify hiring a branding agency, there’s a good likelihood you already have content to build on – namely, your municipality’s mission, values, and strategic plans. These were created to reveal why your municipality exists, what it strives to achieve and how, and where it’s going next. When you bring these to life with compelling examples and stories you can easily share on social media and your website, you not only educate community members about what you’re accomplishing, but also establish a sense of pride among existing employees while giving prospective employees insights into what it’s like to be part of the municipality’s team.
Update and streamline recruiting processes. Your recruiting process gives prospects insights into what they can expect on the job. Nothing screams “bureaucracy” and “outdated” like convoluted job descriptions; paper intensive processes; and a lengthy timeline for hiring decisions. Maybe now is a good time to process map all the steps in your recruiting and hiring processes to identify what’s no longer needed and what can be updated with technology. Even better, invite existing employees to partake in a special learning/professional development opportunity by creating a taskforce where they can have input on shaping the future of recruiting and retention.
Market your total rewards. Maybe your municipality doesn’t offer the highest pay, but perhaps it does provide health care and wellness benefits, along with valuable opportunities to build retirement income; paid time off; longevity pay; flexibility to work from home or work part-time hours; job security; being part of a positive team environment; getting hands-on experience; making a difference; and more. Let prospects know about your entire rewards package and take time to remind existing employees how to make the most of their rewards.
Establish and nurture win-win relationships to support recruiting. Many high schools and/or clubs have community service requirements. Are there roles in your municipality that can help meet those requirements while educating students about careers in public service? What about reaching out to your local high school/college alumni looking for jobs upon graduation? College career development offices often look to help pair up graduating students with local employers – make sure they know you’re interested in attending upcoming job fairs. Also, more unions are helping to promote job opportunities that can benefit their members or attract new ones. Finally, employees looking for career development opportunities may step up to serve as mentors to new workforce entrants looking to get ahead.

As you consider how to strengthen your municipality’s recruiting and retention strategies, we want to make sure you know about the two ways RBT CPAs can support your efforts. RBT CPAs can free you up to focus on strategic imperatives like recruiting by supporting your municipality’s accounting, tax, audit, and advisory needs. In addition, our Vision Human Resources Services affiliate provides recruiting and other HR-related services. To learn more, give us a call today.

RBT CPAs is proud to say all of its work is prepared in the U.S.A. We never outsource outside the U.S.A. To learn more about the accounting, tax, audit, and business advisory services our local team members can provide for your business, give us a call.

New Resources Available to Build Up Immunity to Cyber Attacks

Recently, a number of new and updated tools and projects have been launched by a variety of sources to help protect healthcare environments from cybercrime, and they couldn’t have come at a better time. According to one source, the number of security breaches appear to be slowing but the number of records impacted are increasing, indicating cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated. (Vogel, Susanna. Scale of healthcare cyberattacks increase as criminals change tactics, report finds. August 22, 2023. Healthcaredive.com.)

Sharing learnings from cybersecurity firm Critical Insight’s 2023 Healthcare Data Cyber Breach Report, HealthCare Dive notes, “This year, 40 million people have been impacted by healthcare data breaches…Cyber attackers are now targeting vulnerable points in the supply chain, specifically the business associates or third-party companies that offer services to healthcare organizations.”

Just as criminals are getting smarter, so are the many organizations protecting health care practices, businesses and institutions and their patients. In recent weeks:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched DIGIHEALS to protect healthcare’s electronic infrastructure. Proposals are being sought for proven technologies that can apply to health systems, care facilities, and health devices.
An updated version of the Health Industry Cybersecurity Information Sharing Best Practices Guide (HIC-ISBP) – a compliment to the recently updated Matrix of Information Sharing Organizations – was released to help healthcare organizations create and maintain an information sharing program for cybersecurity threats. (McKeon, Jill. HSCC Releases Updated Guidance on Information Sharing Best Practices. August 24, 2023. com.)
Beckers’ Hospital Review provided a list of over 100 healthcare security companies helping to protect from data loss, promote smooth operations, and safeguard patient information. (Falvey, Anna and Talian, Brendan. 121 Healthcare Cybersecurity Companies to Know. August 3, 2023. com.)

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 405(d) Program released new tools to help bolster healthcare cybersecurity, including Knowledge on Demand (free training to improve cybersecurity awareness); Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices (HICP) 2023 Edition (a publication outlining risks, best practices, and suggested standards); and Hospital Cyber Resiliency Initiative Landscape Analysis (a report on cybersecurity preparedness and hospital benchmarking).

In addition, the American Medical Association has created a “toolkit” of sorts, providing numerous resources for addressing cybercrime all in one place.

As your organization/practice determines its next steps for cybersecurity, you can count on RBT CPAs to handle your accounting, audit, tax, and advisory needs. We believe we succeed when we help our clients succeed. To learn more, give us a call.

RBT CPAs is proud to say all of our work is prepared in the U.S.A. – we never offshore. As a result, you get peace of mind that your operation’s financial and confidential information is handled by full-time, local staff who have met our high standards for quality, ethics, and professionalism.

2024 Fair Market Rents Are Now Available

To address escalating rents, additional aid will be available for 2024 housing voucher programs, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced last week.

Last Thursday, August 31, HUD published fair market rents (FMRs) for fiscal year 2024, which begins October 1. On average, FMRs will increase about 12% nationwide (that follows a 10% increase on average for fiscal year 2023). As a result, housing voucher beneficiaries will likely see a higher maximum payment level and potentially expand their housing choices.

In recent years, the voucher program struggled to keep up with rent increases in the private market, resulting in a decline in use. According to a SmartAsset report issued in July, private rents increased an average of 5.45% year over year, although some areas saw increases of greater than 30% and others actually experienced decreases. New York saw an 8.8% increase statewide.

The 2024 FY FMRs are expected to help expand the number of affordable units for those using the Housing Choice Voucher program, which saw a 40,000 increase in use by families from October through May, according to HUD. (Lebowitz, Megan. HUD releases new aid for low-income families to keep up with rising rents. August 31, 2023. News.yahoo.com.)

In addition, this week, HUD will release $113 million in housing choice voucher funds for public housing agencies in 36 states, including New York, which is due to receive about $887,000. (View HUD’s press release to see voucher allocations by state.)

According to a press release, HUD expects the combined impact of the FMR increase and additional housing choice voucher funds “will enable more families to rent a healthy, stable home at an affordable cost.”

To view the FY24 FMRs by state and then county, visit the HUD Office of Policy Development and Research website. Scroll down and click the maroon button that says: “Click here for FY2024 FMRs.” Follow the prompts on the next screen to select a state and county or Metropolitan area. You’ll see how FMRs for efficiency, one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom apartments compare from FY2023 to FY2024.

For answers to questions about the FY24 FMRs, visit HUD’s Frequently Asked Questions.

While getting acquainted with the FY FMRs and potential new funds, you and your team can count on RBT CPAs for all of your accounting, tax, audit, and advisory needs. To learn more, give us a call today.

RBT CPAs do not outsource work to any other country. All of our work is prepared in the U.S.A.