I recently spoke to a roomful of financial advisers who focus on active investment management. Almost everyone present had beaten the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index during the previous 12 months, some by a large measure.
Their performance couldn't have presented a better marketing opportunity, especially during a time when many wealthy investors are shopping for new advisers. Yet when I asked how many advisers had a marketing plan to capitalize on their results, not a hand went up.
It isn't that these advisers thought that a marketing plan was unnecessary or a bad idea. On the contrary, I think that advisers believe marketing is great — they just don't like doing it or planning to do it.
But if your goal is adding clients — to replace those who leave and to expand your business — you need a plan.
So here it is: a six-point marketing plan in less than 600 words. Your job is to fill in the specifics.
1. Select an audience. Your marketing efforts will be most effective if you go after a carefully defined niche. Review your book and identify the clients with whom you enjoy working. Look for commonalities — their professions, background, social affiliations, etc., until you can identify your target market.
2. Write a positioning statement. A positioning statement consists of a few sentences that describe what you do for whom and how it helps them. For example: “Mitchell Financial Management provides doctors with comprehensive financial planning. We help them invest for the future and reduce their taxes so they can concentrate on their careers.” Or: “Rich Advisers focuses on retirement plans at small and midsize companies. We help firms minimize fees and maximize performance so they can get the most from their plans.”
3. Set goals. Your goals can be quantitative, such as bringing in at least one new client a month for the next 12 months with assets of at least $500,000 and at least two new clients this year with $1 million or more. Goals can also be qualitative: “I want to deepen my relationship with clients so that I have an opportunity to increase my share of wallet from them, ensure the accounts stay with me as the clients age, and expand my base by working with their relatives.”
4. Establish strategies. A strategy is simply a plan to achieve a goal. It is usually long-term. In a typical marketing plan, each goal may have a few corresponding strategies. If your goal is to bring in one client a month, for instance, your strategies may be to ask more of your clients for referrals, to add more estate attorneys to your professional network and to increase your networking efforts.
5. Develop tactics. Tactics, in a marketing plan, are the tools or means you use to accomplish your strategies. For each strategy, there typically are several short-term tactics. If increasing your networking efforts is a chosen strategy, one tactic would be to focus your networking on your target audience. Almost any target group — jewelers, Indian physicians, ready-mixed-concrete contractors — has an association that holds regular meetings. Attend them, get known, write an article for their newsletter on a financial topic of interest and then offer to speak at a meeting.
Another tactic is to cast a wider net and network in your day-to-day activities at your children's school, the gym and at the doctor or dentist. You will find many opportunities to let people know what you do through your positioning statement. It may turn out that your eye doctor needs help with his 401(k) plan or knows of a colleague or patient who does.
6. Create a calendar. Scheduling tactical activities greatly increases the likelihood that they will happen. Find out when your target audience will be meeting and put it on the calendar. Perhaps your goal of deepening client relationships includes taking your top 25 clients to lunch or dinner with a spouse or relative. Set aside a specific time each week on your calendar to call a client and make a date.
If you can find five hours over the next few weeks, you can complete your marketing plan. If you run into roadblocks or have questions, let me know.
Libby Dubick is president of Dubick & Associates Ltd., a New York firm that helps advisers and financial services firms develop marketing opportunities. She can be reached at libby@dubickconsulting.com.
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