Client Attraction Action

Financial Advisor Marketing: Deadly Brochures, Deadbeat Websites

Just got a call for help from an advisor in Oregon who took a look at a new brochure for his firm, and it left him cold.

“It looks like every other financial advisor’s brochure,” he complained. So Andy (not his real name) went surfing on the web and found us.

Deadly Brochures

What’s wrong with the typical brochure? Three big myths are perpetuated in producing the usual advisor brochure.

Myth #1 - An Eye-Catching Brochure Makes Things Happen

You need more than a drop-dead gorgeous design to get the pay-off you are looking for from your brochure. Or to say it another way, design alone cannot rocket your brochure to the results you want.

Myth #2 - The Ultimate Goal Of My Brochure Is To Showcase My Professional Status.

Two costly mistakes here:

1 - It’s all about me, the advisor.

2 - It becomes a boring recitation of name, credentials, and experience.

Yes, you do need to present your best case. Yes, you do need to counter the suspicions and mistrust (some of it justified) about financial services that are epidemic. Yes, you do need to demonstrate how you put your clients’ interests first.

But you don’t need to bore them. With precision, select your desired audience(s) for your brochure. They won’t be bored if you can talk directly to them with concern about their stresses and anxieties. They will listen if you show them exactly how you can make their lives easier.

Myth #3 - My Readers Are Smart: They Will Figure Out What To Do Next After They See My Brochure

We call it relying on “Wishful Thinking.” What’s the answer?

Face the fact that your readers will not bother to figure out what action you want them to take next. You need to decide what that is ahead of time and spell it out in your brochure.

Then, you must do what it takes to prompt them to take that action.

Warning: These myths are failures that are most common in template brochures, brochures left to your printer to produce, or brochures created by a graphic designer who is not a savvy marketer.

So when we work with Andy, we will steer him away from these fatal flaws.

How To Avoid A Deadbeat Website

And Andy’s brief message introduces a failure we find in most advisor websites. It’s rampant not only in template websites but also in those produced by many web designers and developers.

How did Andy find us on the web? He’s in Oregon, we’re in Philadelphia. He’s never heard of us, we never contacted him.

So he did a search for financial advisor brochures. Out of “about 1,300,000 results (0.17 seconds),” according to Google, we came up first in a natural search (not paid advertising).

Wow! Was that lucky?

Well, no. We’ve been intense students of Search Engine Optimization since we put up our first website in 1996. We knew exactly what to do to attract financial advisors to the page on our site that talks about brochures that can pay off for you.

Again, this is not on the same planet with a template site that puts only your company name in the title tag on every single page and calls it Search Engine Optimization. We can’t tell you how many websites we’ve seen that fit that description. There is much more to SEO than that.

While surfing the web, Andy found us in first place and checked us out. Our website met his expectations (that takes more than Search Engine Optimization), and he made the call immediately!

For a brochure and website that pay off, contact us at 215.753.2620 or Shirley@marketingplanfinancialadvisor.com.

Add comment January 31st, 2012

Financial Advisor Marketing: But Will This Work In 2012?

This article is by Bob Hanson
Partner, Client-Attraction System for Financial Advisors

Let’s look ahead in 2012 for marketing tactics that will continue to help advisors attract new prospects, clients, and assets. These tools and strategies worked in 2011. Can they be marketing powerhouses for your marketing this year?

1. Try Change Versus More of the Same

Just like the Clinton campaign election slogan in 1992, which came on the heels of 12 years of Republican leadership, new prospects are likely to respond to your approach if you are offering an alternative to the way they have been planning or investing in recent years.

Your theme could be, for example, Taking Control of Your Finances, Sheltering Wealth from Market Volatility, or Making Money in Sideways Markets. The bottom line is: If you offer the same planning or investing strategy your prospects are getting now from their current advisors, why would they go through the trouble of switching?

2. Call On Your Own Web Page or Website

Many advisors are trying newer media and technologies such as email marketing, website registration forms, social media marketing, and web meetings and webinars.

Guess what is right at the center of all of these? Your own web page or website. Why would you spend time, effort or money on creating interest if you never get leads or clients from a tactic?

That’s why we recommend upgrading your website FIRST for a means to convert all this new activity to clients and see an ROI from your marketing investments.

3. Embrace Newer Technologies like CRM, Email Marketing, and Web Meetings/Webinars
Note: these ideas are relatively proven versus social media, so proceed with caution with social media.

Advisors, though, you will want to update your LinkedIn profile as this is likely to be one of the top Google Search Results. Be sure that it links back to your website.

4. Offer 2nd Opinion or No-Obligation Meeting Campaigns

These are still working, especially as a MARKETING strategy or campaign back to your suspects, prospects, and referrals, and through Centers of Influence (COIs).

5. Consider Non-Traditional COIs

As you likely have discovered, Estate Attorneys and CPAs are over-solicited by advisors and very reluctant to go with one source for their referrals and co-marketing programs.

But leveraging this type of “transfer of trust” for joint events and referrals remains a winning strategy today.

Consider non-traditional Influencers like insurance agencies, organizations marketing and selling to your niche, local educational forums and organizations, corporate alumni meetings, mortgage brokers, and more. A list of 10 of these relationships now should mean at least 10 new clients in 2012.

For more articles and information for financial advisor marketing see

www.marketingplanfinancialadvisor.com

Add comment January 5th, 2012