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Marketing
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Writing Consultant Says That Being Savvy Is Not Enough To Make You Successful |
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Monday, September 24, 2012 13:11
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Tags: client communications | marketing | Social Media In a recent AdvisorOne interview, writing consultant Susan Weiner notes that just being a savvy advisor in today’s world is not enough to guarantee success. It’s increasingly important to build community through online communications but many advisors face writing challenges that keep them from garnering attention from investors.
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Wiener specializes in helping advisors with their communications hurdles. She also holds a CFA charter and has worked as an industry professional so she has first-hand knowledge of the challenges advisors face.
It’s essential to know the needs of your market audience well enough to be able to address their top concerns spot on. This is the way you can command attention from those who need your help.
Wiener outlines a four-step process for writing more effectively, with knowing your audience as Step #1.
The second step is to learn how to write compelling subject lines for your emails and blog posts. The subject line should also be carried through the body of the email or post.
Step Three is to get to the heart of the issue right away. Readers have limited time and will pass over an item that does not grab their attention.
Lastly, use simple language that provides clarity. Many financial concepts are more complex than readers want. Making it simple for them saves time and shows you really understand their issues.
Avoid industry jargon completely. An email or blog post filled with jargon is a turnoff for readers.
Taking a few minutes to think about your communications with your clients and the responses they have given will clue you in about your communications effectiveness.
Measuring marketing results also provides an objective window into client receptivity and your success in getting the attention your expertise should command.
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Advisors Market, But Don’t Measure Marketing |
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Friday, September 21, 2012 21:56
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Tags: marketing The subject line of the email was eye-catching. “If you're not measuring marketing, you're not marketing.” And in the body of the email, the folks at the Harvard Business Review posed this question: “Can you explain the impact of your marketing to your board of directors?”
Naturally, that got me wondering whether financial advisors could answer that question, whether financial advisors measure their marketing. And what I found is this: Small firms are marketing, but not measuring the way Harvard might recommend. And, larger firms are marketing and measuring.
“It would certainly BE worthwhile to measure marketing however, in our type and size of business it is not very easy,” says Stephen Csenge, CFP, AIF, a partner with Csenge Advisory Group.
Unlike many larger companies where you can do traditional marketing, such as a direct mail or email campaign, and measure the responses, ours, says Csenge, is not so straight forward.
Csenge says he conducts several “marketing” efforts (client events, newsletter, website/Facebook, networking, and the like). But there’s typically a lag time between generating
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a lead and acquiring a client. It could be weeks, months or years in between meeting a prospect and converting that prospect to an actual client, he says.
“So, it is not a direct action/response system,” says Csenge. “What we do, do is on an annual basis track our overall marketing costs vs. our new revenue (excluding market ups and downs). As long as that is around 1:3 ($1 marketing expense to $3 new revenue) or better we are happy.”
Meanwhile, Roy Ames, a senior investment advisor with The Mutual Fund Store, reports that most of the marketing analysis is done at the corporate level. "They do track cost per lead, cost per client and ROI," says Ames . "I am not sure of other metrics, but I use a CRM to track each lead to either becoming a client, or added to a list for additional marketing in the future."
As for Harvard, well, it’s hawking something called Measuring Marketing Performance, “an in-depth, interactive CD-ROM presentation that will show you how to create a marketing dashboard that will reveal the true performance of your company's marketing activities.”
According to the pitch letter, Professors John Quelch and Gail J. McGovern, both of the Harvard Business School faculty, explain and illustrate each step along the way toward keeping senior management informed of how your marketing strategies are attracting, cultivating, and retaining customers. In addition, Harvard says buyers of the system will learn the fundamental principles of marketing excellence; determine what to measure and learn how to interpret the results; align marketing activities with corporate strategy; and ensure that marketing is driving growth.
What’s more, the system, which costs only $69, has been used – at least according to the pitch letter – by such firms as mutual fund giant Vanguard.
Wonder if the system can do for advisers what it’s done for Vanguard.
We wonder too whether you measure your firm’s marketing efforts or not. Share your tales with your peers in the comment field below.
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A Niche Is A Need – Avoiding The Biggest Mistake Of Marketing |
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Wednesday, September 19, 2012 16:32
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Tags: marketing | niche
Most advisors make the biggest mistake in marketing before they ever begin. This Website Is For Financial Professionals Only
Maybe you've heard that successful marketing starts with defining your niche; know who you will market to before you start. But the people they target are not a niche at all.
Here is the challenge: a niche is not actually a demographic or a profession or an affiliation. A niche is a need. A successful niche identifies a tribe of people who share a common need that is not shared by the general population. It is what separates one group from the rest of us in terms a financial advisor can address.
It is not a description. You can describe a lot of groups that share a lot in common but do not have a unique need. If they don't have a need, what you can do to appeal to them is limited. My favorite is advisors who tell me that their niche market is women. Women is not a niche (I spoke with Mark Tibergien of Pershing Advisor Solutions last weekend, and will write more about that soon.) Women make up 52% of the population – that's not a niche, it's the Grand Canyon. There is nothing I can think of that could meaningfully tie together the needs of my 18-year-old daughter, a 45-year-old corporate executive, and an 87-year-old widow. And unless there is a common need, it is difficult to design an advisory solution for them. It is pointless to define your target market based on the restroom they go into.
A niche is certainly not a bank balance. I hear some advisors say they specialize in high net worth individuals with over $1 million to invest. That is not a need but a resource. People don't define themselves by what they have in the bank. There is nothing in particular that I need simply because I have $1 million. I think of myself a lot of ways – husband, father, someone with kids of a prior marriage, a small-business owner, a cook, a dancer. I don't think of myself as someone who has $1 million.
Another common "niche" is retirees. But, like women, that is just too big a segment with too many varied needs. There is a big difference between a 42-year-old who no longer has to work because he just sold his Internet company and a 67-year-old former plumber. They are likely looking for very different things from an advisor. "Retirees" is not a niche. People who retire from a specific company, or from a certain profession, or who still have teenage kids after they retire could all potentially be niches. I work with one practice who has made significant strategic decisions to highlight their expertise in the benefits plan of a major local employer. When that employer declared bankruptcy, this practice sent out a single e-mail saying they would have a seminar on the implications of that filing on the company’s 401(k) and retiree health benefits and put 600 people in a room. Retirees that share a common challenge is a niche. But just being retired is not.
All marketing begins with the niche. When you choose yours, make sure that what you have selected describes a group that will respond to the special solution you have to offer them. What do you describe as your niche? I would love to hear some of your ideas in the comments.
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No, Angie, Client Advisory Boards Are a Great Idea! |
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Friday, September 07, 2012 15:08
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Tags: Angie Herbers | Client advisory board | marketing | Norm Boone
She's wrong. This Website Is For Financial Professionals Only
A client advisory board is the most powerful tool available to you to gather structured client feedback and tailor your practice to your best clients’ needs and wants.
Of course, there are risks. Practically all of which can be managed by competent guidance. And that is the point I want to emphasize.
I have interviewed financial advisors all over the country about their experience with advisory boards. Most agree that they have been a tremendous benefit to their practice. When they don't feel that way, I can almost always trace it back to a faulty process. A good example is someone I have written about before, Norm Boone. I have enormous respect for Norm. He may be one of the best advisors in the country and he is certainly one of the most prominent. And when I interviewed him about his experience putting together an advisory board, he described it as a real dud. He followed up that observation with the opinion that the outcome was probably a reflection of poorly formulated goals. He suggested that had he given his objectives more thought, he might have had a much better outcome. My article about that conversation is here.
It is just like financial advice. Without competent guidance, clients can make big mistakes and experience poor outcomes. What would you say to a client who tried investing in stocks on his own, had a bad outcome, and informs you that he never wants to get involved in those instruments again? I am always surprised when a practitioner who espouses the value of professional guidance undertakes a project outside their skill set without help. If you want the best outcome, you get the best counsel. Wouldn't you agree, Angie?
Getting your best clients together for a conversation about what you do and how you can do it better is a high-stakes undertaking. Make sure when you do it you have competent guidance. That will help you realize the tremendous rewards that are possible with a client advisory board.
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When Prospective Clients Walk Into Your Office, They're There To Find Out Two Things: Do You Care About Their Individual Situation More Than You Care About Your Firm, Your Credentials, And Your Products, And...Can They Trust You |
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Thursday, September 06, 2012 12:32
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Tags: Advisor businesses | client acquisition | client communications
What happens during the first meeting you have with a prospective client will either make the prospect want to hear more or—in as few as two to three minutes—decide that you don’t really care about them. This Website Is For Financial Professionals Only
Even the most seasoned advisors can get caught up in touting their credentials, investment products and services, and the merits of their firms. But prospective investors want more than that. Much more.
Prospective clients really want to know if they can trust you. They want to know if you care more about their particular situation than you care about your firm, your credentials, and your products and services.
And even though you really do care about them above all those other things, that may not be enough. You have to articulate that care in a way that meets their definition of care and their view of what’s required to trust your advice...and you.
Prospective clients don’t give you much time to prove this to them. They’re so accustomed to hearing about firm capabilities, products, and advisor expertise, that hope of hearing about anything else is a pipe dream.
Here’s what you can do. You can ask them questions about their definition of success and what, in their eyes, they want you to do to help them achieve it. You can take plenty of time to hear all of their concerns. This means making them feel that you have all the time they need to listen to every single concern.
You can also be as transparent as possible. Disclosing how you get paid, how you, your team, and your staff work to provide the best service possible. Through all of this, your knowledge, skill, and expertise can easily come through.
You can also discover how financially literate the prospect is and begin the process of educating them to be the best client you’ve ever had. Education is the best marketing tool you could ask for. Done well, the prospect will ask you where to sign. You won’t even have to suggest it to them.
And the next time you meet with them, they might even tell you about a friend you can help, too.
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