All too often financial advisors collect a few brochures
from others in the financial services business, grab some
ideas from each of them, and write a marketing brochure
that’s pretty much like everyone else's.
Then, they turn to their printer and graphic designer to
give it life.
And, too often, they fail to get the payoff
they hoped for. Boxes of brochures end up as dust catchers
on a shelf.
But you don’t need to be a Brochure Victim.
Avoid These Brochure Traps
And Marketing Illusions
Simply, you can gain out-of-the-ordinary results when you
write your brochure by NOT being taken in by these 5 traps
and illusions.
Write A Brochure Trap #1 - An Eye-Catching Brochure
Makes Things Happen
If design is your brochure’s prime ingredient, your
results will let you down.
Design alone CANNOT rocket your
brochure to its ideal outcome.
Of course, a trained graphic designer can produce an attractively
designed brochure. The truth is, though, that graphic effects
and photos alone cannot tell the unique story that’s
yours to reveal about your business.
If you don’t call on proven marketing basics
and principles to give life to your brochure,
then you will waste much of the time and money you invest
in your brochure.
Write A Brochure Trap #2 – I Can Tap Into
My Graphic Designer’s Or Printer’s Experience
For The Essentials That Will Make My Brochure Really Work
Your graphic designer and printer keep abreast of changes
in their field so that they can provide the best possible
service to their customers. They don’t have time,
though, to keep up with the marketing tools that light up
a successful outcome.
Too often, marketing know-how is the missing
ingredient in a financial advisor’s brochure.
If your marketing fails, then you’ve lost the chance
to demonstrate your quality, and your business suffers.
Write A Brochure Trap #3 – My Readers Are
Smart; They Will Figure Out What To Do Next After They Receive
My Brochure
Too many brochures leave what happens next to their readers’
imagination.
Perhaps, you haven’t thought out ahead of time exactly
what action you want your prospects to take. Or, possibly,
you aren’t aware that your brochure’s outcome
depends on creating an irresistible reason for your prospects
to contact you.
Listen, your offer is one of the two most critical
elements of your brochure. And for maximum results
you need an offer that’s so compelling that your
prospects will put their lives on hold to call you, fax
you, or respond by mail.
Write A Brochure Trap #4 – Once I Produce
My Brochure,
I’ll Find Multiple Uses For It
No one intentionally decides to produce a brochure that
doesn’t work. But if you don’t make this one
important decision BEFORE you create you brochure, you are
setting up your brochure for hit-or-miss results or worse,
no results.
So what is this decision?
Invest strategic time up front to aim your message and
multiply your results.
If you dilute your brochure to please all possible prospects
and to suit all conceivable situations, you’ll turn
out a wishy-washy all-things-to-all-people marketing message
that will fall on deaf ears.
Write A Brochure Trap #5 – The “Ultimate
Goal” Of My Brochure
Is To Showcase My Professional Status
Today advisors are so concerned with being “professional”
that they strip
every sign of life from their brochures. Their brochures
end up as a boring list of education and licenses …
about as exciting as Minute Rice.
And being boring is a fatal marketing
flaw.
Let me give you an example.
A client, a financial advisor, grew up in a tough New York
City neighborhood. Almost all of his peers are in jail or
dead. Yet when we met him, his brochure included something
like this: I was born and raised in New York City. I graduated
from high school and went on to Queens College of The City
University of New York. I am currently licensed and practice
in 18 states across the country. You get the idea.
To bring it to life we asked questions such as:
- Why did you rise above the odds?
- How did you become a financial advisor?
- What does all this mean for your clients?
That’s the story that only he can tell.
Above all, Be a person not only a financial professional.
Inject a one-of-a-kind character into your marketing:
And that character is YOU.
It comes down to this for financial advisors:
Avoid these 5 costly traps and adjust your thinking to
become a strategic marketer when you write a brochure. Be
sure your brochure takes a prominent role in your marketing
plan. And you’ll see a brochure that pays
off again and again for your financial advisory practice.
Shirley Hanson helps financial advisors write a brochure
that really works for you and gets results.
You can call Shirley at 215-753-2620 or contact
her by email to help you write a brochure . . .
