Posts Tagged ‘financial services marketing’

Financial Services Marketing vs Sales Pitches

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

The financial services industry is unfortunately addicted to a product-focused orientation such that sales are
minimized.  It may seem at first that the firm that does a hard push on their product through brokers and agents may be wisely marketing their financial product or service. But in fact, the product focus leaves the financial services firm at the following disadvantage:

–their product is commoditized with every other similar financial product (e.g there’s nothing different about one mutual fund vs the other)
–as a result of commoditization, they are constantly fighting for shelf space vs their competitors
–they are continuously pushing on the weakest link in their distribution–the broker’s inability to market himself. So the typical financial services marketing activities conducted by product firms look like:

1. taking brokers to lunch and shmoozing them because they know their product is the same as others.  Thus, they compete on a beauty queen basis, hoping to look better than their competitors
2. coming up with all types of sales tools–scripts,storyboards and illustration software (the more colors, the
better)
3. offering trips and incentives when regulations allow, again attempting to look better than their competitors

But what if the financial product firms, say the mutual fund company or the insurance company, decided that
focusing on the sale of their product was not the best way to maximize sales.  What if they actually employed financial services MARKETING and did not confuse marketing with sales?  Their tactics would then look different.

The first questions would be “what is most important to the brokers who distribute our product?”  And the quickly realized answer is that brokers certainly do not need another me-too product.  What the broker needs is more clients.

So smart financial services marketing is helping the brokers, the distribution channel, to fill their pipeline.
Notice, for example, that Intel sells more chips not by attempting to sell you, the end user, their chips, but by
having you request their product from their distributors (is it Intel inside?).  The Zen paradox of so many
goals is that the best results (in this case, maximizing financial product sales) are often achieved when you
do not focus on the end result you desire.  In this case, focusing on the distributors, the activities that help
brokers would be:

1. teaching them how to get more referrals, use direct mail more effectively, write better copy for ads, give more effective seminars.  Teaching brokers how to get clients must be devoid of the product pitch. As hard as it may be for the insurance company NOT to hand out slides to the seminar “Why Annuities are the Best Source for Retirement Income,” the insurance company will fair better if it teaches the broker how to get better attendance at his seminar.
2. this product-less education on how to be more successful can be delivered via webinars, maybe a weekly
e-newsletter “referral tips” or  in-person classes by given their wholesalers.

Financial services marketing can result in a lot more product sales when it is actually about marketing rather than products or sales pitches.  The brokers and agents will bring more of their business to those firms which most effectively help them with financial services marketing and gaining new clients.

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Financial Services Marketing Doesn’t Work Anymore

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

“I’m dong the same seminar I’ve been doing for years and the attendance is really off,” complained the rep.  Implicit in his compliant was the expectation that if you keep doing the same things it keeps working.  Allow me to offer this definition of insanity:

“When  you keep doing the same things over and over expecting the same results even when the environment has changed.”

The environment is constantly changing and your prospects’ desires are always shifting.  They react to the news, the economy and the markets and if you don’t keep adjusting to them, your business will suffer.  The greatest financial services marketing strategy that works today to bring in droves of clients could be worthless in months when public perceptions and desires change.

For years in the late 80s and well into the 90s a financial advisor did a seminar called “Six Ways to Maximize Retirement Income.”  His financial services marketing plan was built on that one seminar.  Attendance was good and he raised on average, $1 million per seminar.  The attendance started to drop and did not recover.  Some hard looking resulting in these two realizations:
1. Retirees (by 1997) had become more fascinated with returns in the stock market and were less income focused
2. Interest rates had been declining for 15 years and they had become accustomed to low rates. So the advisor changed the seminar title and bullet points to reflect the altered interest amongst his target market.  His attendance increased and business returned to normal.

Another example of a shift in investor interests occurred after the stock market crash in 1987.  No one wanted equities.  An advisor saw the business of other financial advisors just shrivel.  So he started talking about fixed income securities and focusing on that.  He became the largest fixed income producer at his firm and his business prospered.  That type of flexible financial services marketing is what creates a fresh and thriving practice. The lesson: provide what your prospects want.

Bear market or bull market, there is always opportunity to attract new clients if you don’t fixate on doing things the same old way.    That is, you must hear and see things as your target market sees them and adjust your financial services marketing accordingly.  You must see with their eyes and hear with their ears.  It doesn’t matter if you think that this is the greatest time to be investing in the stock market.  If your prospects don’t think so, you’ll go broke espousing your view of reality.  It’s their view of reality that counts.

How do you know what prospects want?  Start talking to your clients. Ask them things like
• How do you think the stock market will do?
• Do you think terrorism is a major issue or something that will always be with us in the background?
• How do you fee compared to 5 or 10 years ago—more or less optimistic?
• How would you tell your children to live life differently than you did?  What opportunities or risks do they have that you did not?
• When you and your friends talk about money, what are the issues that come up again and again
• Have lower interest rates hurt or helped you?  How?

You could even use these questions in a focus group format.  Get a private room at a restaurant.  Invite five clients and they must each bring a friend.  After dinner, launch the questions.   Make sure you audio record the session and latter have it transcribed so you can read it.  Also have someone there just observing and ask later what they learned.

To learn what issues concerns your potential prospects, read what they read.  if your clients are seniors, read the AARP bulletin and Modern Maturity Magazine and listen to the radio station that they do.  Crawl inside their head so that you see through their eyes and hear through their ears.

If you want your business to stay vibrant and your financial services marketing to sizzle, you will need to make shifts over time as your prospects’ interests shift.  You must keenly listen to these shifts and avoid the insanity of thinking that the same tactics will keep working with an audience that keeps changing.

Post provided by Brokerville

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You’ve Got 2 Seconds To Gain Credibility—Here’s How

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

In selling yourself and your financial services, it’s critical to realize that we live in a culture where prejudging is epidemic. Investors love to form opinions with almost none of the facts. Just listen to any economic prognosticator on television or your clients’ opinions about the stock market to see what I mean.

This prejudging virus forces you to alter your financial services marketing to make your best impression in the first 2 seconds of contact because you won,t get a second chance. The prospect will form a positive or negative judgment almost immediately. Let me give you some specific examples.

When sending direct mail, do all of your envelopes get opened? I doubt it because you allow the recipient to prejudge the contents without opening the envelope. You have a return name of your company on the envelope and you may also have a printed message on the outside of the envelope. You have a meter stamp and maybe a bar code or carrier route sort indicator. All of these scream “JUNK MAIL.” You will never get to communicate your message because the envelope gets tossed in the trash, unopened. You have allowed people to prejudge you and assume the contents of the envelope. Tip: mail items to strangers in a plain business envelope with a first class stamp, no messages, no bar codes, no return company name (use your own name) and with the recipient’s address laser printed on the envelope or through a window envelope. It’s impossible to prejudge the contents of a blank envelope and the recipient must open it. This will be financial services marketing that gets results.

The item in the envelope must have a super-compelling headline and it must be the first thing the recipient sees when they pull the information from the envelope. If the first item the recipient sees does not grab their interest in 2 seconds, you’re finished. TIP: include a big compelling headline and fold the page so that the headline is the first item seen when opening the envelope flap.

When sending information requested by a prospect or to a referral, include a picture and biography. (Have your picture at the bottom of every letter you send to the right of your signature). Remember that you are a stranger to the prospect. People are scared of strangers. By including your picture and biography, they get to know you. When you call, they feel like they know you because they know how you look form your picture. Tip: find the best commercial photographer in town as a good picture can open the door to win new clients.

Brian Tracy, well known motivational educator says, “the reason image is so important is because people are primarily visual and they form their first impression of you by the way you look on the outside. If they do not like what they see on the outside, they very seldom take the time to probe any deeper. In any field of sales and marketing where the impression you make on others is important to your success, it is absolutely essential that you look the part that is consistent with the financial product or service you wish to sell.” Clearly, Mr. Tracy understands financial services marketing.

As to your biography, DO NOT write a “me” biography. A “me” biography is where you talk about yourself “I graduated from Stanford…”, “I am a Certified Fund Specialist,” etc. Write it in the third person and before mentioning your position or credentials, have three to four sentences about what you can do for the prospect:

“John Doe has assisted over 2000 Ohio families increase their income up to 30% and reduce taxes up to 50%. In some cases, investors have used John’s advise to eliminate taxes on social security income and eliminate estate taxes. You may have seen his informative articles on ways to reduce stock market risks in the Akron Journal.”

Only after you have established why you are valuable, do you mention where you went to school and your credentials. Investors are interested in “what can you do for me?” before they want to hear anything about you. And when you do talk about yourself, keep all sales language out of the biography. That means you do not say “John is a registered rep with ABC securities” (unless your broker dealer requires it). Not only do 90% of investors not know what a registered rep is, the other 10% of the people know that you just want to sell something. Sure, everyone knows you’re in business to make a living, but never push any sales language in their face in a biography.

And obey some common courtesies so that people do not prejudge you negatively:

1. On your first telephone contact, do not interrupt prospects. It’s a problem that some of my hard-driving East Coast friends have.
2. Do not close to an appointment without identifying their motivation so that you can offer a potential benefit. When you try to close for a meeting and the prospect’s desires have not been isolated, you will appear pushy.
3. When mailing, do not take a 4-panel letter-sized brochure and stuff it into a business envelope. Use a 9 x 12 envelope so that the brochure can lay flat and the mailing looks professional.

Focus your financial services marketing on those first 2 seconds to gain your opportunity to present who you are and what you can do.

Annuity Leads for Financial Advisor Marketing
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