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Financial Advisor Marketing: Marketing Innovation of the Decade

January 8th, 2010

This blog is by Bob Hanson
copyright 2010

The end of a year, or decade, is a great time to look back and reflect on the progress we have made.

Almost exactly 10 years ago today, I was spending 6 months helping install a new CRM system at a major mid-west financial services firm (one of the first to offer mutual funds).

When I think back on the features this firm paid 7 figures for, and compare that to what is offered today to an individual advisor or small firm (better technology at less than 1% of the price), this amazing leap is one reason CRM, or Customer Management Systems as they are known (even though they do a lot more than help manage customers) is my choice for Marketing Innovation of the Decade for Financial Professionals.

To explain, let me outline the capabilities available today for people like you and me:

Contact and Marketing Database Management —

Your basic ability to keep all your contacts in one spot. You can also organize them into groups like “A Clients” and “Seminar Attendees.”

Sales Opportunity Management —

You can manage and track individual sales opportunities along with the current sales pipeline and report on how sales conversions have gone historically.

Email Communications —

The ability to send individual emails to prospects or clients and batch marketing emails to groups such as All Clients, All Prospects, or, for example, all prospects who are business owners.

Marketing Campaign Management —

A marketing campaign could be a seminar program, direct mail piece, or Marketing effort over a period of time focused on different audiences or objectives.

Automated Marketing Follow-Up —

A sequence of contacts to a group within a Campaign. White Paper downloaders, for example, may get a series of 5 emails over 10 days to prompt their requesting an individual meeting at your office.

A Full System Delivered Over the Web —

There is no reason to have to install and manage a program locally anymore. You won’t have to worry about making sure you back-up to prepare for inevitable disasters.

And web delivery means access from anywhere including your local Starbucks and, also, cheaper prices. The technical whizzes at your chosen system will manage and improve the system while you sleep.

Once you have a robust Marketing System up and running, you probably will not want to manage multiple CRM systems or even a marketing database plus an email program. You’ll save time by not having to keep the systems up-to-date with the latest data.

This type of all-in-one system is available for generally well under $50 a month and a high of, say, $299 a month for a system which does it all.

The Marketing Innovation of the Next Decade awaits you . . .

So that’s my choice and those are my reasons. What’s your choice?

Bob Hanson

bhanson@marketingplanfinancialadvisor.com

www.marketingplanfinancialadvisor.com
+1-617-901-6886

Entry Filed under: Financial Lead Generation, Marketing Maestros, Direct Marketing, Financial Advisor Marketing Plan