If you’re like most financial advisors you spend a great deal of time assisting your clients. Your role as an advisor has required a lot of trust, as you handle your client’s most sensitive information. This includes overseeing and managing portfolios, recommending investment vehicles and educating clients on changes being made in the marketplace. However, despite all of your efforts, you’re likely not spending nearly as much time developing marketing strategies to acquire not only new customers but strategies to retain existing customers as well. According to statistics, a large portion of sales could come from repeat business. In fact, it cost 500% more to obtain new customers, than it does to maintain current customers. Yet very little is done to ensure that sales funnels are filled with repeat customers who could eventually make their way back down the sales pipeline.
With all of the marketing opportunities available, it’s important for financial advisors to implement effective marketing strategies that are a slam dunk with respect to capturing both new and repeat businesses. Consequently, some of the top performers in the financial planning sector maintain top positions by heavily relying on direct mail as a sure-fire method for running successful marketing campaigns. Well-seasoned, top performing financial advisors keep their sales funnel filled with sales leads that include a mixture of current and new prospective clients as a result of direct mail marketing. Below are some benefits of using long-term, consistent direct mail marketing strategies for financial advisors and planners.
Key Benefits of Using On-going Direct Mail Campaigns
One of the key benefits of using long-term, direct mail marketing campaigns is that it’s considered a classic, traditional marketing strategy known for producing effective results. Direct mail has worked for years, and when automated, it could be relied upon for keeping pipelines filled with new, highly converting sales leads. Direct mail marketing will also allow you to constantly keep in touch with customers that you’ve already assisted in the past. That way, when they’re in need of financial services, you’ll be the first person they will think of.
By maintaining the customers you already have, you can pretty much estimate how much business they will bring you on an annual basis. For example, for the next 3 to 5 years, so many of your customers will be retiring and looking for new ways to financially plan for their future. You can capitalize on this as direct-mail has a way of keeping clients tied to your company long enough for them to pay you a visit the next time they are in need of financial planning services.
How Long-Term Marketing Builds Trust and Increases the Appearance of Stability
Because you already deal with your client’s sensitive information, you’ve already established a relationship and built trust. However, the use of on-going direct mail marketing further solidifies your relationship, ensuring that it won’t grow stale. In fact, the more you know about your customers, the more you can position yourself as a stable company who’s always there to assist with their foreseeable financial planning needs.
Using Direct Mail to Personalize Marketing Messages While Increasing ROI
Let’s piggyback on the example used above about knowing how many customers will be retiring soon. Your marketing messages could be customized towards this specific area of interest. Additionally, as your clients go through life and all of the changes that life brings, you can go through life’s changes with them by staying plugged in through direct mail marketing. Once you have built an adequate amount of trust, it’s highly probable that clients will continue to use your services for many years to come. This not only decreases onboarding cost, but it also increases ROI.
Benefits of Using the Correct Direct Mail Marketing Campaign
The most effective direct mail marketing campaigns are comprised of three primary areas. They include:
- Specific targeted marketing
- Relationship marketing, and
- Reputation and branding marketing
Specific targeted marketing: When implementing specifically targeted direct mail marketing campaigns, you are aiming for a designated, targeted audience, such as those used in the “retiring soon market segment” in the example above. Your marketing messages indicate that you have put some time and thought into speaking directly to their situation. Another example would be marketing to those capable of making a $25,000 investment. They would have different investment interests than those who have $100,000 to invest. The marketing messages will be well received and taken more seriously by the recipient who actually qualifies for the specific financial product or service being offered.
Targeted marketing requires more research efforts for analyzing your current database to determine which customers best benefit from certain financial services than others. You can then customize your marketing messages accordingly.
Relationship Marketing: When you implement relationship marketing strategies, you are constantly reminding your current and prospective customers who their financial advisor is or could be if they utilized your services. By using such tactics, your frequent communication will keep your name in front of these perspective customers.
Reputation and Branding Marketing: Building your reputation and implementing branding strategies should be designed to further emphasize your qualities, expertise, and reputation in the marketplace. The messages should relate to your performance and your track record.
To conclude, your goal as a financial advisor is to position yourself as the only financial advisor that your client will ever need for a lifetime by keeping key direct mail messages before highly targeted audiences on a regular basis.