Any agent that’s not focused on the smartphone needs to tweak or ‘vastly’ improve his or her marketing strategy.
Mike Byrnes, who’s worked in the financial service marketing space since 1992, has seen his fair share of marketing mistakes among financial advisors.
“[Advisors] didn’t grow up in the marketing and sometimes sales world,” he said.
“There’s definitely a lot of mistakes in the marketing world,” he said. “[Advisors] need to be very strategic about what they’re doing and be focused. And then just have the right tactics — even if they’re a mistake, learn from it. If they’re the right tactics, they’re going to be really happy and they’re going to increase their business size or whatever goal they’re trying to accomplish.”
Byrnes founded his own marketing consulting firm, Byrnes Consulting LLC, in April 2008. His services include business planning, marketing strategy, business development, client service and management effectiveness. He spoke with ThinkAdvisor about these five specific mistakes he sees in advisors’ marketing strategies:
1. Not defining their target market
If advisors narrow their focus and define a target market, they’re going to be more successful, according to Byrnes.
“It really is obvious the firms that struggle with marketing if they just say ‘we want a client to come in that has $500,000 or more, or a million or more.’ To me, that’s too broad,” Byrnes told ThinkAdvisor. “They need to get more specific.”
If advisors can visualize the type of client they want to walk in the door — the prospective client — then they’re more likely to be successful with their marketing to get that client.
Byrnes used the example of widows versus corporate executives as prospective target markets. And how with target markets, advisors can be strategic and develop alliances.
For example, with widows, advisors could market to a grief counselor to build out a strategic alliance. Meanwhile, with corporate execs, advisors may want to partner with a business coach or headhunter.
If advisors know their target market, they can also hold targeted events to attract the prospective clients they want.
“For widows, you could have a widow’s group, a travel club — because they’re really sad because they lost their significant other so they stop traveling — or a Valentine’s Day party — because they’re pretty sad on Valentine’s Day,” Byrnes explained.
Meanwhile, an advisor could hold an “How to Deal with Corporate Stock Plans” event if he or she is trying to attract corporate execs.
“If you did the Valentine’s Day for corporate executives, that would seem a little creepy maybe,” Byrnes said.
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Article originally published on ThinkAdvisor
