An employer hired forty people last week. Nobody checked if one of them qualifies for a credit.
CPA referrals only bring you employers who already trust their accountant's opinion. Every other employer with high-volume hiring is searching for WOTC screening the moment they hire. Reach that moment and your screening volume stops depending on what your CPA contacts remember to mention.
WOTC lives in one narrow window: the day someone gets hired. A firm that waits on a CPA introduction misses that window by definition, because the CPA only calls about the employer they already have on file, usually at tax time, long after the hire happened. Payroll consultants have the same blind spot.
The employer running a hiring wave right now, the one with a new onboarding system or a staffing surge nobody has screened yet, never gets that call. This is a current-year hire credit, not remaining pandemic-wage work. That distinction matters once, stated plainly, and then the page should stop repeating it.
The CPA Only Sends the Employer They Already Have
Retail, hospitality, and staffing firms already screen new hires for background checks, I-9 verification, and drug tests. WOTC eligibility screening should ride along with all of that at onboarding. It usually does not, because the room that could catch it is split three ways: the employer, an HR or onboarding owner, and a CPA or WOTC vendor who only sees the return once a year.
Payroll consultants see the hiring flow but rarely own the form. A CPA sees the tax return but rarely sees the new hire in real time. Nobody in that room automatically wires screening into the first day of work, and the credit expires the moment that window closes.
Correspondence Reaches the Employer Mid-Hiring-Wave, Before Year-End Wastes the Credit
An employer running a hiring wave does not need a lecture on what WOTC is. They need to hear, while the wave is still happening, that a firm exists which screens at hire instead of reconstructing eligibility from stale records in December.
Direct mail and email correspondence, addressed to the HR director or the owner running the hiring push, name the specific moment: a new location opening, a seasonal surge, a payroll system migration that just exposed the gap. That correspondence reaches the employer before year end turns the credit into an archaeology project, which is exactly when most of it gets missed.
For the Employer Already Asking the Question, the Visibility Program Runs Alongside It
Some employers are already asking. A CPA mentions WOTC at a planning meeting and the controller goes looking that afternoon. A new hire's paperwork triggers a question nobody can answer, and someone types work opportunity tax credit or WOTC screening into Google that same day.
For that slice, a Google ad tuned to the specific query reaches them faster than a letter ever could. The Visibility Program runs paid search for that moment, alongside the correspondence program, while LinkedIn ads reach the CPAs and payroll consultants who refer this work, with paid placements and real thought leadership rather than a connection-request script.
What a Buyer Actually Searches
The exact phrasing varies by industry: WOTC for staffing, WOTC for restaurants, WOTC screening software, work opportunity tax credit consultant. The trigger behind the search is almost always one of three things: a hiring wave that just started, a new payroll or onboarding system that surfaced the gap, or a CPA who asked the question out loud in a meeting the employer cannot stop thinking about. Correspondence and paid search should both speak to whichever of the three actually applies, not a single generic tax-credit pitch.
Volume Is the Filter
The per-hire credit amount only matters at volume. A staffing firm, a restaurant group, or a multi-location retailer hiring every week can turn WOTC into a real line item. A professional services firm hiring two people a year almost never can, and a campaign that pretends otherwise wastes the spend on a lead that was never going to close. Target group categories are set by statute; naming them here is not a promise that every hire qualifies, and the campaign should never imply otherwise.
The employers worth reaching are the ones with an onboarding machine already running, because that is the only place hire-time screening can actually live. A restaurant group hiring forty people a month across a dozen locations can turn WOTC into a five- or six-figure annual line item once screening actually happens at hire; the same math never works for a boutique consultancy adding two employees a year, no matter how well the campaign is written.
Objections We Hear
Payroll already does this. Some payroll platforms offer WOTC as a checkbox and still do not reliably catch the hire. The employer searching "payroll says they do WOTC and we are not seeing it" already knows this.
We do not hire target groups. Then WOTC may not be the right file, and the campaign should not pretend every hire is a credit.
We will catch it at year end. Year end is exactly how the screening window gets missed. The employer who has already lived through that is the one who searches.
Is this the same thing as ERC? No. ERC is remaining pandemic-wage work; WOTC is a current-year hire credit, and the two run as separate practices for a reason. Confusing them in one pitch is how a firm starts sounding like a leftover COVID mill.
Who This Is Actually For
Firms that actually screen and file WOTC at volume, for staffing firms, restaurant groups, and multi-location retailers hiring on a weekly cadence. The file worth the spend is an employer already hiring at a scale where the per-hire credit adds up to something real. A firm that positions itself as a specialist overlay on an existing payroll or onboarding stack, rather than a rip-and-replace, is the stronger pitch to that buyer.
This is a poor fit for a firm chasing occasional hirers, or one that wants to reconstruct eligibility at year end instead of screening at hire.
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How This Is Billed
Most of this practice runs as retainer or revenue share, the two outbound models: correspondence to employers mid-hiring-wave, billed either as a fixed monthly fee or as a share of the credits the program originates. Where a meaningful share of your buyers are already searching after a CPA raised the question, the Visibility Program runs alongside either model: ad spend paid directly to the platforms, with ROI Wire billed on a retainer that scales with that spend.
Full mechanics are on revenue share, retainer, and the Visibility Program.
What Is Not Included
ROI Wire does not perform the screening or file the credit forms. We put the firm in front of the employer during the hiring wave that already created the opportunity. The firm does the work.
Why We Are Not Generalists
A generalist marketing agency will not take the time to learn that WOTC dies at year end and lives at onboarding. The practice is specialized, the file count per employer is small until volume kicks in, and understanding that distinction bores an agency chasing broad traffic.
We run a tighter campaign built around the employers where volume makes the math work. Correspondence and ads can be live inside a week once approved; the website and directory presence that make a click or a letter convert take longer, because that is the trust layer a hiring manager needs before handing a specialist their onboarding process.
Program pages
Visibility Program
The full model: what you pay, what we bill, and who this actually fits.
Paid search
The mechanics behind the click: keywords, spend, and a retainer that scales with it.
Online profile development
What a buyer checks after the click and before the call: directories, bios, and reputation.
How the Program Runs
- Discovery
One call, 45–60 minutes. We learn the practice economics, the buyer profile, what triggers an engagement, and whether your buyer needs to be reached directly or is already searching.
- List Build and Keyword Research
For correspondence: built from SIC classifications, D&B company records, state business registrations, and professional directories, filtered by revenue band, employee count, and industry code, then cross-checked against current operating status. For the Visibility Program: keyword and audience research built around the specific trigger your buyers search on. You review a sample list or the keyword set before anything sends or launches.
- Copy Development
Correspondence copy and ad or landing page copy, both written after the research, specific to your buyer, your state, and your fee structure. One review round each. Nothing sends or goes live until you approve it.
- Launch
Direct mail and email for the correspondence track, batched over one to two weeks to protect deliverability. Google and LinkedIn ads for the Visibility Program track, live within a week of approval. Whichever combination fits your practice runs on its own clock.
- Monthly Coordination Call
What responded on each track, what it means, what changes next cycle. Every recommended adjustment explained before it happens.
A new hire is not a CPA introduction.
Correspondence reaches the employer mid-hiring-wave. Where a CPA already raised the question and the employer went looking, the Visibility Program runs alongside it.
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