Client Attraction Action

What Works And What Doesn’t Work For Financial Services Marketing?

We just received these two important questions from a Client-Attraction reader. We’d like to answer them here because many other financial advisors asked similar marketing questions.

>>> First Question: “What works and what does not in marketing for financial services professionals (seminars, direct mail, calling friends/family, etc.)?”

A: There is no one-size-fits-all answer.

Any of these marketing techniques can work and dozens of others such as your website with efficient web marketing (and/or offline marketing) behind it, articles, teleseminars, networking, and many more.

So the questions we ask to home in on the various techniques that can work for you include:
To read more . . .

* What are your strengths? What are you good at?
Your strengths lead you to the techniques that will actually get done.

* What are your resources: Time, Money, and People?
Your resources let you know what’s possible.

* Which techniques will cost-effectively reach your target market and are likely to attract highly qualified prospects?
This assumes that you have have pinpointed your target market. (Most financial services professionals have not.)

Now, that may seem like a non-answer. So the answer to your second question answers your first one, too.

>>> Second Question: “To someone new to the business, what one suggestion would you make to help them build a successful financial services practice?”

A: Here’s where I recommend you start: With a strategic marketing plan. And, not surprisingly, that plan’s foundation is your target market. Your services are not going to appeal to everyone. Your approach to providing financial services is not going to be what everyone wants.

So why sell to everyone?

What if you carefully considered the people you really want to work with and then did what it takes to be able to describe them in great detail?

What if you discovered from people just like them the places where you can reach them in a group?

For example, a financial advisor who specializes in working with women business owners or executives found an active, thriving group of over 2000 members in his region (90 percent women) that helped women business leaders. He chose to become a committed participant and a corporate sponsor in that group.

Another example is the financial advisor who is an independent 401(k) plan specialist. He identified his target prospects as the Human Resource people, CFOs, CEOs, or COOs in his region who administer $5 million to $500 million in assets in the plan along with 100 or more employees. For them, administering the plans is a hassle.

Also, he knows through public information where he can find a list of 401(k) administrators, and he’ll generate a sequence of contacts to them with a hard-to-refuse offer.

Two more ideas:

First, I want to make it clear that we wouldn’t recommend one tool, and one tool only. No, we’d look for complementary tools that reach your ideal prospects and as soon as possible add those strategies and tactics to your marketing plan.

Second, we’d take very seriously keeping in touch with your prospects at least once a month. Develop your “Keeping-In-Touch” system. We’d start even with a handful of prospects (who haven’t yet become clients), and set up a process that becomes almost automatic.

And one last thing . . .

Please ask YOUR questions. What two questions would you like to ask me? What would make your lead generating easier? Where do you need help?

We promise we’ll answer . . . either individually or in an article. (And we always keep our questioners anonymous.)

What are your nagging questions?

Add comment July 26th, 2007

Why Some Financial Advisors’ Mail Gets Opened

Only a handful of the email newsletters that I receive fall into the can’t-wait-to-open category. Where does that open-at-once power come from? What makes the difference?

For me, they plug a gap. Stretch my thinking. Arm me with solutions. Simply, they give me what I want and need.

Experience tells me that there is a greater than 95 percent chance that I’ll be able to grab something that I can use right away. Or, equally rewarding, something that I’ll be able to turn to later as motivation for clients or food for an article.

“America’s Greatest Copywriter”

One such colossus is Gary Bencivenga and his ezine Bencivenga Bullets.

If you haven’t “met” Gary Bencivenga, let me introduce you. He’s been called “America’s greatest copywriter.” He’s a master salesman in print, applied to direct response marketing. His writing is unpretentious and down-to-earth, yet he calls on just the right words for his story. And he’s so good it’s difficult to imagine telling the story any other way.

His ezine articles make me larger as a consultant, and as a person, so that I can give more to my clients.

Continue reading for Bencivenga’s specific techniques to give you that open-at-once power . . .

Power Headlines

Exhibit A is Bencivenga’s newsletter - Bullet #23 - with the headline “The One Word That Teaches Almost Everything.”

We might as well stop here for a lesson in a headline that has magnetic power. He follows his winning formula:

Interest = Benefit + Curiosity

That formula says to drum up Interest you need a Benefit mixed with Curiosity. He reminds you to hold something back to prompt readers to jump into your ad, sales letter, or email or to read your ezine.

So what is that One Word That Teaches Almost Everything? I’m definitely curious. And I love the benefit – teaching me almost everything with that word. Notice how the word “almost” gives it believability; it erases the suspicion that I’ll find just another wild claim.

So there’s your recipe for a power headline. Start with a big Benefit and add Curiosity and you’ll attract interest. Use it wherever you want to compel readers to plunge into the story you have to tell and buy the product or service you have to sell.

Gary Bencivenga is not selling anything but brilliant copywriting (He’s retired). His free ezine is at www.bencivengabullets.com.

The Power Word

And here’s another morsel from that Bencivenga’s Bullet #23. I probably shouldn’t, but I’ll go ahead and reveal that one word. It’s “Why?”

And why “why?” Because, he wrote, “it is the world’s best teacher, a one-word university more valuable than a king’s library. As far as learning is concerned, a day without raising a good “why?” is a wasted day.”

How about you? Are you wasting today without a good “why?” What’s YOUR answer to the question, “Why would someone open my mail immediately or click open an email straight away? For you, where is the open-at-once power? Could Gary Bencivenga’s headline be your answer?

Add comment July 10th, 2007