As financial planning firms increasingly incorporate the internet and their websites into their marketing, more and more practices are considering the use of a blog. Yet many are doing so without a clear understanding of why the blog is being done in the first place, beyond "everyone else seems to be doing it, so I guess I should, too!" In practice, it seems there are three primary reasons that most financial planning firms consider a blog: drip marketing for prospects, a communication tool for existing clients, or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) enhancement for your overall website. Fortunately, once you know which of these reasons matches the purpose for your blog, you can figure out what kind of content to create for it, to whom the blog updates should be distributed, and whether having a blog even makes sense for your firm in the first place! Read More...
One of the primary business virtues of comprehensive financial planning is the deeper relationship that is formed as a result of going through the financial planning process. The experience helps to engender trust between the advisor and the client, which in turn can aid in client retention, and make the client more comfortable referring the advisor to others. Yet at the same time, one of the primary challenges of being comprehensive and holistic is that when you do so much for the client, it's difficult for the client to explain what it is the advisor really does, in the process of making a referral.
In fact, a recent survey highlights this striking contrast - clients of holistic advisors were almost 20% more likely to provide referrals, and amongst those who didn't refer, clients still generally felt that holistic advisors were more likely to have earned the right to receive referrals. The survey results also paradoxically revealed that clients who didn't refer their holistic advisors were almost 30% more likely to state it was because they didn't know any referrals or were uncomfortable to make referrals!
In other words, holistic advisors were simultaneously more likely to earn the right to receive referrals, yet ended out making a significant portion of their clients less comfortable and less able to think of anyone to refer!Read More...
Over the years financial planners have had a love/hate relationship with marketing. In most of those years, though, it's more of a hate/hate relationship. The traditional methods of outbound marketing - from cold calling to traditional advertising - have had so little benefit for the overwhelming majority of planning firms, that most don't even have a budget for marketing in the first place. To the extent any business development occurs, it's strictly from referrals, and any "marketing" expenses don't extend much further than paying for social events with clients or centers of influence to cultivate more referrals.
But as the digital age reaches financial planning, an entirely new marketing opportunity emerges: inbound marketing. The basic principle: instead of blasting out solicitations hoping you happen to hit a prospective client like finding a needle in a haystack, create content that is useful, relevant, and interesting for your target clients, and let them find you.
Read More...
The common refrain from practice management consultants for years is that to survive and succeed, planning firms need to clearly define their target market. After all, if you don't know who you're trying to serve, you can't create unique value for them, and you can't focus your limited resources. The good news is that after years of this messages, a recent trend suggests that financial planners are finally getting it... sort of. Planners are saying that they've defined a target market in increasing numbers; the problem is, their target market is often defined as no more than "people who can afford my services" - and that is NOT a target market!Read More...
One of the strategies that many financial planners use to differentiate themselves is to communicate that they are fiduciaries: legally bound to put their clients' interests before their own. In fact, as the debate about the fiduciary vs suitability standards has increased in recent years, more and more advisors who are subject to fiduciary regulation are promoting it as a differentiator in the marketplace. Yet in reality, most people generally assume that anyone they're doing business with will treat them fairly - at least until proven otherwise. Which means that claiming you're a fiduciary isn't necessarily a differentiator - unless you actually go so far as to bash your competition and accuse them, implicitly or explicitly, of being liars and cheaters. Could this be part of why the fiduciary message doesn't really connect in the marketplace? Because it's turning into a giant negative advertising campaign where you bash the competition instead focusing on the value you actually deliver?
There is a perception in the financial planning world that the process of acquiring a new client begins at the first meeting - the so-called "approach talk" - and therefore any firm that does a good job at converting prospects into new clients in those early meetings must have an effective business development process. Firms that want to grow more/better/faster are encouraged to refine their process, materials, and techniques used in the approach talk to improve the rate at which prospects convert into clients.
Yet the reality is that from the client's perspective, the process actually starts much earlier; and because the "pre-meeting" parts of the process are so ignored by most planners, the reality is that many (or even most!?) potential clients may be lost before you ever have a chance to meet them!Read More...
The Financial Planning Coalition is fighting the advocacy fight for a fiduciary standard for financial planning. While this certainly is a consumer-centric direction for financial planning, the firms today that practice financial planning may need to be careful about what they wish for. After all, for many firms, the fact that they operate as fiduciaries has become a central message of their marketing to prospective clients.
So what happens if the Coalition wins the fiduciary fight? If everyone who practices financial planning must operate as a fiduciary, do a number of currently successful firms lose their key marketing differentiator and have to rewrite a new marketing plan?
The practice management advice is almost ubiquitous - if you run a financial planning practice, you should eventually carve out a specialized niche for yourself. If you don't already have one, look through your book of clients for similarities, and use that common thread to expand on a niche you might have unwittingly already started. The ultimate goal: to have carved out some unique space for yourself, whether that's financial planning for fly-fisherman, working with public school teachers, or having a specialized skillset for doctors running a medical practice. Yet in reality, many (most?) planners seem to resist this advice; "if I specialize, don't I leave a whole lot of other business on the table?" is the most common objection. But focusing on the clients you won't get by specializing completely misses the point - which is significant increase in referrals you can generate by clearly defining a niche and conveying it to the clients and affiliated professionals who might refer you.
It seems that the common wisdom in the financial planning world to improve client referrals is either "ask more often for referrals" or "do a better job when you ask for referrals." However, it may be that the single greatest reason why most planners don't get very many referrals is simply because... well, they're not actually that referrable.
- « Previous
- 1
- …
- 8
- 9
- 10
