December 1st, 2009 · Marketing
I’ve been reminded over the past couple of weeks of the power of storytelling.
Last week I watched a presentation from Ben Self at the Australian Financial Planning Association’s national conference. Ben was the man behind Obama’s marketing and social media strategy during the election period. In his presentation he mentioned a number of ideas for marketing, but the comment that stuck out the most was “people like to hear great stories”.
He used a few examples from the Obama campaign where they focussed on an everyday person and told their story. He challenged the financial planners to consider using stories more in their marketing.
I’ve also been reading a few articles online about marketing services, and they suggest the same thing. Use examples of people to build ’social proof’.
This made me think about how I could do it in my financial planning business in Adelaide. I’ve now made plans to use more case studies on our web site and blog. In the past where I may have written about a strategy, I’m now trying to write about it using an example of a client.
I’ve also decided to ask some clients for some testimonials. I haven’t done this much in the past, but I’m making a bigger effort now to make sure my clients can see the value of the advice I’m providing. Last week I reminded one lady that we’d saved her around $4,000 in tax in the last financial year. She’d forgotten that if she didn’t seek advice, she would have had a larger than expected tax bill. She’s a great example of the type of work we do for people. I need to blow my own trumpet a bit more.
I’m also looking to introduce some podcasts next year for the financial planning business where we can focus on one or two strategies and speak about some case studies.
I’m interested in other ideas. How do you tell stories to your clients? How can a financial planner tell stories that inspire their clients?
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October 28th, 2009 · Marketing
I attended a conference for financial planners last week and heard from a wide range of speakers. In the space of two sessions I was reminded of how there are different ways to prospect for clients, and the importance of finding out what works for you.
Session 1 – It’s all about postcards
The adviser who spoke at this session has had a lot of success by using postcards to communicate with his client base.
He’s designed a couple of postcards with simple images on them and a quick message that may say something like “We haven’t seen you for a while. It’s time for a review”. He posts these out to his clients at regular intervals.
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I enjoyed this post on bear shavingby Seth Godin today.
He talks about how business is good at dealing with the symptoms of a problem rather than the cause of the problem.
I’m sure we all have examples of where this has occurred in our business experience.
This was reinforced to me today when one of Australia’s life insurance companies introduced their version of an electronic life insurance application. Rather than completing a paper-based version, I can now sit with clients, ask them questions and the program will add or remove questions based on their answers. At the end of the process the program can actually make an underwriting decision and approve the policy.
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I’ve been preparing some marketing material for work and as part of it I did a competitor analysis.
I had a think about who my competitors are in the financial planning industry in Adelaide, and listed out the differences between their businesses and mine. I looked at things like pricing, service offers, how personal the service is, the investment philosophies etc.
I did a similar exercise a few years ago before I started this business. In my old job, I managed a group of different financial planners, all of whom ran their own businesses. I also met with a number of planners all over my city who ran different businesses that were not part of the group I worked for.
The thing that struck me this time was how difficult the task of producing a competitor analysis actually was.
For almost two years I’ve been running my own business, and have been pretty detached from other planning groups. I don’t meet with a lot of other planners so I’ve discovered I’m a little isolated from some of the things they’re doing.
I realised I don’t know how a lot of my competitors actually charge for their services and I don’t know what they offer.
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I’ve mentioned before how I work in the financial planning industry. I own a financial planning business, and also do some business coaching with financial planning businesses and other service businesses.
I’ve been a fan of Don Connelly for a while. I’ve read a lot of his articles and he’s always got some great ideas about how to communicate with clients. He’s not into pushy sales tactics (neither am I) – he’s very good at using analogies and stories to help clients understand what they’re doing.
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Tags: Advisor·Connelly·Diversification·Don·financial·Idea·Planner·Planning·Sales
