Your biggest challenge, as it is for many financial advisors,
may be to “find qualified leads”
and “attract people to what I do.”
What’s holding you back?
For some financial advisors it’s squeezing
time from your day, as you’re caught in a
juggling act between being a marketer and being a financial
advisor. For others, it’s not having a course
of action that’s well mapped out. That leads
to prospecting and lead generation that’s slapdash
and unpredictable.
This example of a marketing plan provides a solution.
It hands you a direct path to more appointments
and more clients. And that saves your precious time. You’ll
be able to zero in on proven marketing tools that will
be most effective for your unique financial advisory practice.
7 Simple Steps: Client-Attraction Sample
Marketing Plan
Financial Advisor’s Marketing Plan Step 1
- State Your Desired Outcome
It may be to add 8 new A clients in 6 months; it could
be to gain $10 million in assets under management in 10
months; it could be to become the premier financial advisor
for family-owned businesses in the Atlanta region within
the next year.
Just be sure you spell out your purpose in specific detail.
Financial Advisor’s Marketing Plan Step 2
– Understand Your Target Market
We start with the “Who” for
a strategic reason. The “Who” refers to your
Ideal Prospects. Draw a sharp portrait of your Ideal Target
Market with concrete details
How detailed?
You really want to grasp exactly what
they want from you.
To do that you must be able to fill in blanks such as:
Their suffocating, won’t-let-go fears are __________
The roaring volcano of a problem that keeps them up
at night is _____________
Their hopes, desires, and dreams are ______________
They live here __________________
The associations they belong to are __________________
There are additional vital questions that will fortify
your marketing plan, but the point is NOT to build your
plan on a shaky, wavering foundation.
Financial Advisor’s Marketing Plan Step 3
– Differentiate Your Practice To Leave The Pack Behind
We call differentiation your Unique Strategic Positioning.
It starts with vital questions like these:
- What are my strengths as an individual?
- How do I stand out as a financial advisor?
- Where is my passion?
Then, you are ready to answer this one overriding question:
How can I gain dramatic differentiation
over everyone else in my field?
Financial Advisor’s Marketing Plan Step 4
– Pack Your Plan With Proof
Proof is paramount.
You’ll need a superabundance of Credibility
Builders and Believability Boosters to win over
your skeptical prospects. People are more suspicious than
ever. And this step is one that’s missing from
most financial advisor’s marketing plans.
It’s a fact that financial Advisors cannot call on
the one profitable tool other marketers rely on . . . and
that is testimonials. You are always under the nervous eye
of Compliance.
We had the chance to run all our best proof-building ideas
by Compliance, and we came away with 14 approved ones that
most financial advisors are not taking advantage of.
Financial Advisor’s Marketing Plan Step 5
– Choose Your Marketing Tools
Now you’re ready to select the tactics that will
be effective in accomplishing your purpose.
Create a list of possible marketing methods that seem to
have potential for you. The more you know about yourself,
your clients, and your ideal prospects the easier this step
will be.
From a long list select your priorities . . . your marketing
tools.
Warning: We said marketing tools. That's "tools"
in the plural. Relying on one, and only one, marketing method
is reckless and foolhardy.
The best marketing plan sets you up to engage
in a sequence of contacts with various media over time.
One marketing tool reinforces the other for extra marketing
oomph.
A Word About Your Budget: It’s vital to
invest time, money, and people into marketing. But how much?
Two numbers are important in this decision: the cost to
bring in a client and the lifetime value of your clients.
Know those figures and you’ll know how much you can
afford to invest in marketing.
Financial Advisor’s Marketing Plan Step 6
– Generate A Marketing Action Guide
In the Action Guide you fill in the who, what,
when, where, and how of your marketing plan.
One contact is never enough in the real world of distractions,
clutter, and overload. Here’s where you set out
your marketing sequence in full detail.
Don’t let your action guide disappear in the clamor
of day-to-day business. Instead, put it where you can go
face to face with it daily.
Financial Advisor’s Marketing Plan Step 7
– Assess Your Results
Keep a record of where each prospect and every client came
from. Then, you’ll know with certainty how well each
marketing tool is performing.
Lily Tomlin, the actress, said,
“The road to success is always under construction.”
At the end of your 6 month or 8 month plan, start over
again. Pursue with all your might what is working. Drop
the duds, and add a new twist or a new marketing tool to
your mix.
For more information about developing
your marketing plan . . .
