Marketing “Parthenon” for Financial Advisors

A marketing “parthenon” ensures you have multiple channels in your marketing plan to generate the prospect flow your financial advisor practice needs to grow and thrive. Building a marketing parthenon takes intentional focus and effort. But over time, having multiple channels to keep qualified prospects finding your service will more than pay for itself.

Building your “Parthenon”: a starter guide.

1. Internal Promotional Activities.

This is anything from community service opportunities, open house at the office, webinars, dinners, etc. There are many reasons behind this. Each activity can be created to bring in more family members or friends who will then engage in additional services and products and help generate referrals. I’ve seen businesses master one or several mechanisms for referrals who can fill their business with only referral activities.

One friend has been fabulous at VIP offers for VIP clients, mostly generated by a membership or loyalty scheme for our customers. Making a big deal out of their loyalty will make them feel appreciated, so they are more likely to recommend their friends and family. Also, it makes for a fantastic layer to add to your social media marketing plan.

Another friend (Steve Doyon) has done a fabulous job hosting a huge number of community service events at his business and using that as a mechanism to convert attendees to immediate introductory clients and to add the rest to a fabulous follow-up sequence (mail, calls, email). This converts a huge number anywhere from week one to month 24 or beyond.

2. Community Outreach Activities.

This can range from business advice talks to programs with other businesses, the local community, etc. The marketing crowd calls this “host-parasite” relationships.

However, for our purposes, it’s all about finding a crowd of your prospective clients and finding the best way(s) to introduce your business to that group.

3. Advertising.

This is anywhere you pay for media. Advertising ranges from direct mail to targeted lists to newspaper advertising. I’ve set out to master every facet of advertising.  And I have driven huge volumes to my business through newspaper display ads and inserts, direct mail, marriage mail (Val-Pak, Money Mailer, etc.). I’ve also had success with television — short form (30-second spots) and long-form (infomercials). And let’s not forget internet marketing (search engine optimization, site development, and pay-per-click).

Many business owners during the past 10 years became convinced advertising doesn’t work or isn’t effective, so they cut it out of the budget. However, in that decision, they are wrong.

4. Publicity.

This is finding ways to have your business or your customers featured on local television, radio stations, and newspapers. At different times and in different markets each advertising mechanism can be effective. Over the years I’ve had from moderate to huge success with all of these. The trick is to look into every method, understand what it’s used for and who it reaches.

You should develop your marketing efforts by mastering community outreach and mastering internal promotional efforts (which become useful only at 100 to 150 active clients anyway).

5. Online Marketing.

Keep in mind you’ve got to think of the online marketing by its two targets: customers and prospects.

First, your website for your customers. It’s a resource that’s different than your ‘B2B’ or ‘Business to Business’ content. This website shows the customer who you are, the events you have on, what you sell, why it’s beneficial to them, where you can buy what you’re selling and the next steps to purchase said items. That section of your website is designed to help with the “Raving Fans” component.

Second, is the website for prospects. I’ve rarely seen this done well. The site for prospects has a very limited purpose. It is only to convince a high percentage of visitors to share contact information with you (name, email, phone, mailing address). The next step is to take a high percentage of those visitors and convince them to schedule an introductory meeting. Your purpose is the same as an info call. They need to know little or nothing about you, your business, services, and products unless it facilitates them giving you contact information and scheduling a meeting.

The best way to build out your marketing parthenon is to have an experienced guide who can show you the way. Get started today by scheduling a free, no obligation evaluation of your current marketing efforts.