YORKTOWN, Va. – An ESPN radio sports show may not be the place listeners expect to hear advice on tax filings, but that's what they heard if they tuned in recently to a popular radio daily show. Victor Puliafico, president of Langley Financial Services, LLC represented the wholly-owned CUSO of Langley FCU last month in their first ever, live radio remote promoting the CUSO's tax preparation services. The three-hour event broadcasted on Tony Mercurio's ESPN Radio 1310 daily sports show featured six interviews – two per hour – and was live from Langley FCU's Yorktown branch . LFS, LLC has been offering tax preparation services since September 2001, but for the past two years, the CUSO promoted the service by advertising in credit union branches. As a CUSO though, Langley Financial Services can offer services to members and non-members, so the CUSO needed to get the word out to non-members also. To heighten awareness of the tax service, the marketing departments of the CUSO and Langley FUC put together a marketing campaign that included running extensive ads in the local newspaper and on the radio including 30 and 60-second commercials running Monday-Saturday over the past four weeks. Puliafico's participation in Mercurio's live broadcast was part of the campaign. Puliafico said the CUSO wants to get more extensive use out of its tax preparation service. In 2002, its first year of service, it did less than 1,000 tax returns for the 2001 tax season. Last year the CUSO completed 1,100 returns, and Puliafico said he expects the CUSO will do 1,300-1,500 tax returns this year. The radio broadcast also allowed the CUSO to reach a specific targeted audience who Puliafico said need the CUSO's tax service – higher income residents in the Hampton Road area of Virginia, as well as Newport News and Norfolk. The CUSO is providing a 10% discount to members who use the CUSO's tax preparation services, and offered a $25 gift certificate to anyone who called into the CUSO during the show to set up an appointment and specified they learned about the service through the radio broadcast. Puliafico explained that the staff at Langley Financial Services is "very experienced" and includes three tax preparers who each has 15 to 20 years of experience. "Our members and others who aren't using our tax services are going to their own accountants or H&R Block for their tax returns. These are the people we're trying to appeal to. We want them to realize that a lot of the people working at companies like H&R Block just went to tax school the previous winter. With us, we give them experience," he said. In addition to the tax preparers' experience, LFS also promotes 24-hour turnaround – regardless of the complexity of the filing – on tax filings from when the CUSO has all the required paperwork to complete the process. -

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