5 Marketing Ideas for Financial Advisors to Ignite Their Business
There are hundreds of thousands of advisors out there but only a small percentage ever hit the $1 million turnover mark. So what gets these advisors into pole position? The answer is ‘marketing’. The amount of time you spend marketing yourself this year will dictate how much you grow next year. If you want your business to grow by 50% you need to spend half of every day marketing yourself, getting yourself in front of people, spreading the gospel. Read up on these five marketing ideas for financial advisors and ignite your business.
► Visit Don Connelly 24/7 if you need help igniting your business.
#1 Create a marketing plan
Top selling advisors have a well-defined business and marketing plan, they never just ‘shoot from the hip’. A marketing plan allows you to identify your target market so you’re not just aiming your marketing efforts into the void. When you’re writing your plan ask yourself:
- Which markets do you have an affinity with?
- Where can you fit in?
Keep in mind your core business and define why a certain group of prospects should do business with you. Think about your competitors too –
- What have they got that you don’t?
- What do you have that your competition doesn’t?
Once you’ve decided on your target markets think about how you are going to approach them:
- By running seminars, networking, getting referrals, etc.?
- What are the specific financial needs of your markets?
- When are you going to prospect them e.g. next week? And for how long?
Put all of these things into your marketing plan and let the prospecting begin.
#2 Make a marketing resume
Business cards simply don’t cut it when it comes to selling your business; you need to go on the offensive and create a marketing resume. This powerful tool will help you to distance yourself from the crowd so you can position yourself in your prospects’ minds. An effective one page marketing resume will tell people who you are and why they need to do business with you.
To get started writing a resume try to come up with words that define you. Focus on things that excite you, make you angry or on things you would like to teach others. Find four or five key meaningful words and use them to formulate your value, mission and positioning statements – and relate them to both your work and personal life.
In fact it’s essential to focus on the personal stuff in order to make connections. Talk about your family, the work you do for charity, civic roles, what you have in common with others. Make yourself real. Your prospects don’t want corporate spiel – give them a memorable experience so they will want to open up an account with you. Then use your resume every opportunity you can and attach to every email you send out.
#3 Get to know your target market
Once you’ve defined your target market or markets – whether they’re women, men, retired, young, old, working or not, start marketing to their attributes.
- Do they have money, either inherited, or from savings?
- Are they loyal or sociable?
And look at their behaviors, for example:
- What do they like to do and where do you find them?
- Do they play bridge?
- Spend lots of time in the garden?
Then identify their number one concern – maybe its wealth preservation? And position yourself as being able to solve this particular pain point.
Top performing advisors know their clients like they know their best friends. They have a real relationship with them. True wealth managers take a comprehensive and holistic approach that involves many aspects of their clients’ wealth. They think in terms of years rather than days and weeks as they prospect and build their practice with a consistent method in process to generate referrals.
#4 ‘”So what do you do?”
This is the number one question we all get asked on a regular basis, maybe hundreds of times a year. But these aren’t just questions – they’re ‘buying opportunities’. And no marketing campaign on earth can get you this huge amount of buying opportunities in so short a space of time.
So when the question arises be prepared – your answer is critically important to your business. For starters don’t simply reply “I’m a financial advisor”. That’s just ‘what you are’ not ‘what you do’.
Find an answer that resonates with that particular person’s life. Read them and work out what are their top issues. Are they approaching retirement, or could college fees be a looming milestone? Reply with something that impacts on the questioner/prospect in a way that piques their curiosity.
Smart reps market by getting inside people’s heads and finding out what they need. Create a mental picture of what you do and provide a vivid example. Be creative, respond in such a way that they ask for more.
#5 Remember ‘it’s all about you’
No one buys from you because of your product. It’s your belief in your products and how you position yourself that will make you stand apart from the crowd.
What you are selling and what your clients are buying are not the same thing. Your client wants to buy something that will make their life ‘better’. They want to buy ‘you’ rather than what you are selling.
Your potential clients maybe want to retire, save up for college fees, or simply build wealth for the sake of it. They’re not looking for products – they’re looking for solutions to problems. You can make yourself instantly valuable by helping your target client have more of what they want, whatever that is. If a prospect hires you they get personal service, so hit that hard.
The bottom line is-whatever you do, don’t wait for clients to turn up on the doorstep, that’s never going to happen.
You need to make it happen by inviting people in and showing them what you are offering. Market to them then get them to buy it.
Start by getting Don’s CD – Distinctly Different: Ya gotta stand out!
