Financial advisers often struggle with marketing.
While most advisers are adept at sales and client relations and possess a thorough understanding of (and a passion) for investing — they find marketing confusing. In this whitepaper, we will address problems with adviser marketing and provide a multistep guide to developing a marketing plan.
First, let’s examine what marketing is and the mindset necessary to develop an effective marketing program.
The marketing mindset
One of the easiest ways to approach the marketing mindset is to think of the two parties to a purchase: On one side is the buyer, on the other the seller. By training, temperament and experience, most advisers approach a transaction from the seller’s perspective. Marketing approaches it from the buyer’s.
One of the mantras of the financial services business is that securities are sold not bought. That’s true to an extent but it ignores a basic behavioral insight: People like to buy; they generally don’t like to be sold. In the securities business, despite the selling‑versus-buying bias, we can find evidence of a preference for buying.
First step: Defining your message
In today’s financial services marketplace, where sellers abound, what makes you someone from whom an investor will want to buy? What message is the basis for how the market will perceive you?
Many advisers rush to formulate that message, selecting an all-encompassing description that they believe will appeal to the largest number of prospects. A few examples: “We serve the needs of affluent investors.” “We help investors who want a successful retirement.” “We provide better tomorrows by planning today.”
The problem with such descriptions is that they are glib and can apply to almost any adviser and they don’t help in establishing a marketing program to achieve your business goals.
If you’re an experienced adviser with a book of satisfied clients, you already have the answer to devising an accurate marketing message and building an effective marketing plan around it: your clients’ insights, observations and beliefs about the services you provide. By employing a marketing mindset and looking at your business through your clients’ eyes, you can develop a message and plan designed to draw more of the type of clients who make up your “A” list.
Analyzing clients and a survey
Start with an analysis of your best clients, followed by a survey to discover their attitudes about your firm. Those steps require that you first make a list of your best clients. “Best” probably will take into account several factors, such as assets under management, growth potential, the smoothness of the client relationship and, yes, the satisfaction you receive from each client.
After you determine your best clients, delve into the specifics to ascertain their characteristics. Do most rely on you for retirement or financial planning or for another purpose? Are they similar in any respect, such as having special-needs children or elderly parents? Are your best clients mostly entrepreneurs and small-business owners or corporate executives? Do your best clients like lots of hands-on contact or just an occasional check-in?
As you assess the data about best clients you already have, work on creating a survey to find out what your best clients think of you, your firm and your services.
These are some of the questions you might want to include:
- Why did the client choose your firm?
- How did they find you?
- Which problems is the firm particularly good at solving?
- How has the firm specifically helped the investor?
- If the client were talking about the firm to a friend, what would he or she say?
- How does the client describe himself or herself as an investor: conservative, risk averse, willing to take risks?
- If applicable, how is the adviser better than advisers the client has used in the past?
- What is it about the adviser’s personality or way he or she conducts business that clicks with the client? How often would the client like to be contacted by the firm?
- What does the client wish the firm could do better?
- What about your firm makes it trustworthy?
What the results will show
After assessing the survey results and your analysis of your best clients, a clearer picture is likely to emerge. Though there probably won’t be any “eureka” moments such as discovering that all your best clients are dentists or that clients clamor for your help with closed-end funds — you undoubtedly will discover patterns you hadn’t discerned or never thought were particularly important.
For example, you may learn that many of your best clients like you most because your office staff is friendly and always treats them well. In that case, excellent service is a characteristic of your firm that’s especially important to your best clients and one that would most likely be important to prospects just like them.
Creating a marketing plan
One or two themes typically emerge from the insights gleaned from an analysis. For instance, it may be that many of your best clients are small-business owners who rely on you as a business consultant as well as a personal financial consultant. Or perhaps a lot of your best clients came to you after receiving a large sum of money via an inheritance or insurance settlement and you helped them make the right choices at a stressful time.
Whatever you find, you’ll probably also see that many of your best clients don’t fit a single category or theme. At that point, you may be tempted to settle on a message (and, later, create a marketing plan) that encompasses everybody. Don’t. The major problem with adviser marketing is that it’s undifferentiated. Advisers are so afraid of omitting a single prospect that they refuse to narrow their message and marketing efforts and, therefore, spread themselves too thin.
Imagine a restaurant that gave no clue as to the type of cuisine it offered, only that it served hungry people. Who would select such a restaurant? Similarly, would a potential investor who views herself as a widow needing help or as a business owner who wants assistance setting up retirement plans for employees choose an adviser who makes herself known as an expert in those areas or one who claims to be a “full-service” adviser who can do anything? Knowing the characteristics and desires of your best clients, you can create a marketing program to attract more investors like them.
Let’s take an example.
A sample marketing program
Assume that your client assessment and survey found that a significant number of your best clients look to you for advice on bonds and other tax-advantaged investments. You can start positioning and marketing your firm as one that specializes in that (while still active in other areas, of course — just not emphasizing them in your messages). Your core message (and elevator speech) could be, “We are a financial advisory firm that helps people invest after-tax returns.”
Since your website is the first place a prospect will look to check you out, it should contain information that presents you as a knowledgeable, reliable advisory source — in this case, on bonds and tax‑advantaged investments. Provide links to topical pieces from vendors and other sources you use and respect, as well as to your own blog or newsletters. You should regularly write and post short items on your website that reflect your specialized knowledge, and include the information in your letters and other client-facing communication. If possible and you feel comfortable doing so, look into hosting a local radio or cable TV program on your area of expertise.
Remember, marketing is not selling and the purpose of these sessions is not to sell, but to “tell” — to educate and to demonstrate your expertise. Marketing is about creating a desire for potential clients to want to buy from you, not to try to sell them something. You will be perceived as a salesperson, not an expert, if you attempt — however subtly — to induce attendees to buy.
Prepared verbatim based on the whitepaper.
The whitepaper ‘Developing a Marketing Plan Around Your Best Customers’ was prepared by Cadaret in association with Investment News Research.
