Rather than casting a broad net, marketing should help firms attract appropriate prospects, or prospects with financial planning needs that match the services that advisors offer. That way, advisors can spend less time weeding out unqualified prospects. Yet, marketing can also be a minefield, with plenty of opportunities for making embarrassing mistakes.
Many advisors, furthermore, have worked hard to develop financial planning knowledge rather than marketing skills, so finding employees who can craft compelling sales messages while understanding financial topics can be challenging.
For advisors, being aware of common marketing mistakes can play big role in helping firms avoid blunders when crafting their sales tools. With that in mind, advisors would be well served to avoid the following mistakes:
Overly General Marketing Messages
Some firms may promote that they provide comprehensive financial planning services without specifying the type of services that they provide. For example, marketing materials should specify if a firm has a target niche and the types of financial planning services offered.
More specifically, some firms may focus on helping seniors generate income from retirement portfolios while other firms may focus on helping younger clients accumulate retirement nest eggs. By failing to describe that in marketing materials, firms may attract clients with needs that don’t match services that are being offered.
Overly Technical Terms
Firms also need to use plain English when crafting their messages. Rather than saying 'estate planning' or 'legacy planning', for example, they should explain that they help individuals prepare their finances so that surviving relatives, friends, or organizations will receive inheritance payments as intended by the client.
Rather than talk about retirement savings drawdown rates, they should explain that they help clients determine how much of their retirement savings can be spent each year. In a similar manner, using certain technical terms, such as Monte Carlo Simulation, may be appropriate if simple definitions, such as computer simulation, can be provided.
Dull Writing
A variety of factors can cause firms to produce dull documents or web messages. In some cases, firms may lack skilled writers who can crank out documents with compelling content. In other instances, documents that were originally written with compelling style may be watered down during the compliance process. In such instances, writers shouldn’t simply accept text changes from compliance departments. Rather, they should seek to work out wording with compliance departments that is lively but also acceptable to legal reviewers.
Lack of a Call to Action
Compelling marketing messages should convince prospects to take action. Some firms, unfortunately, fail to include such messages in their marketing content. Examples of possible actions for prospects to undertake include establishing budgets, increasing savings rates, maximizing 401(k) contributions, and requesting a financial checkup from an advisor. Marketing messages should make it clear that advisors can help prospects take appropriate actions. In other words, marketing messages should be crafted to encourage prospects to reach out to the financial advisor.
Excessive Focus on the Advisor
Marketing messages should focus on how an advisory firm can help prospects reach their financial goals. Unfortunately, some firms instead focus on their capabilities and fail to explain how those capabilities can help clients meet their goals.
Firms may want to include case studies in their marketing materials that focus on how a firm has used its expertise or other resources to help a specific client make changes in their financial plans. Ideally, the case study should show how those changes increased the client’s chances of reaching a financial goal, such as accumulating sufficient wealth for retirement.
More specifically, the marketing message could explain how the advisory firm had the prospect increase his or her savings rate or use a more appropriate asset allocation.