By Lisbeth Wiley Chapman
Your firm's budget for marketing has likely taken a hit along with your assets under management. Good marketing has always taken more time than money, and now, during this market downturn, you may have much more of the former than the latter. Here are a few ways you can ramp up your marketing using zero dollars.
Study Your Best Clients and Find More of the Same
Clearly, you want more clients like your best clients, and you know exactly who they are. Here's an exercise:
1) Make a list of your top 10 clients (if there are fewer on the list, so be it).
2) Create a grid on a piece of paper. On the x axis, list the names of top clients. On the y axis, list the following categories:
- industry or profession that helped them accumulate the assets you are managing
- retired or still active in their fields
- what they read every day, or what trade publications or professional journals they deem important
You may have to ask them directly, but hey, it gives you a reason to call, and that is never a bad thing, particularly if you ask for referrals (see below). Be frank, tell them that you are looking for more clients like them in their industry or profession and you are developing a marketing plan to reach them.
3) Take the grid and look at the industries or professions. Are they all different or are some the same? Advisers often find that they have developed clients through referrals who reflect the professional or industry groups of the first client in the referral string. But this is something easily forgotten in the drive to develop and implement plans, manage assets and maintain contact with existing clients.
4) Determine where you have developed expertise relevant to a certain profession or industry. Perhaps you are really experienced in helping multiple physician practices with retirement planning, or perhaps your knowledge of exercising stock options for high-tech clients is transferable to new clients.
The goal of this exercise is to turn your expertise into a marketing advantage and to give you the confidence to turn the conversation about what your best clients read or watch into a message that reminds clients of your expertise.
Contribute to the Media Outlets Important to Your Target Market
Asking what your best clients read is not busy work; you're looking for media outlets you know reach your target market. Then your job is to reach your target market through those publications. Here's another exercise:
1) Look up the publications online. Every publication that has a Web site has valuable information to offer. For sites that have a search mechanism, search for "money management" or "retirement" or "stock options" or any other key word that is relevant to what you do for your clients. If no stories appear within your search, you could be wasting your time contacting the publication. It's a rare occurrence when a publication that does not cover the financial lives of its readers will deviate from that, but it does not hurt to call the editor.
2) Research the publication. In some cases, you can click on "advertising" for the publication and find an editorial calendar. This will give you dates for coverage of different topics. The publication may have an annual section on finances, retirement policies, 401(k) information or stock options. You want to be a source for that specific section. You now have something valuable to offer the editor.
3) Contact the editor. Find a contact number and ask to speak with the editor. Nothing happens without asking. Members of the press are under siege just like the rest of us. They have impossible deadlines and their ranks are thinning as ad revenue falls. Your job is to make their jobs easier. Call them, pitch your ideas and if they fall on deaf ears, ask what they need today. Often, when you carefully listen to their needs for specific sources, you can either answer their questions yourself or you know an expert you could contact. Either way, you have just risen to the top of the editor's or reporter's address book as a helpful, expert source with smart friends.
Develop Article Ideas
A great way to build a successful relationship with a media outlet is to develop relevant article ideas. Capturing information from your incoming client phone calls is the easiest way to do this.
For one week, keep track of the topics of phone calls you have with clients. See if they are all the same or very different. Knowing these subjects of discussion allows you to tell reporters, with confidence, the issues that concern your clients. It doesn't matter whether it's portfolio losses and the need for reassurance that the bear market will end, or if it's about setting up QPRTs to gift homes now that appraisals are lower. This is your opportunity to tell the editor or reporter what you are saying to clients to respond to their concerns and issues.
Leverage Media Success
Success with the media should be shared. If you get a good hit in a print publication, direct your clients (via e-mail) to the URL where the article appears. If you want to reprint the article or post an image on your Web site, ask permission and know you may have to pay a reprint fee.
If you obtain a reprint, send it to your clients, prospects and centers of influence, as well as to other reporters and editors; they need to know that others find you to be an expert source.
If you've got the time, ramping up your marketing with zero dollars can be done, and you may learn a lot about your best clients in the process.
Lisbeth Wiley Chapman heads Ink&AIR, a public relations and consulting firm for independent financial advisers. She is the author of Get Media Smart! Build Your Reputation, Referrals & Revenues With Media Marketing. Contact her at Beth_Chapman@inkair.com.