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Volatile markets hijack the attention and time of advisors and investors.
Right here, right now, is the time to activate five too-often overlooked opportunities to turn choppy or down markets into your marketing advantage.
A recent survey by my company revealed that the typical advisory firm has a limited marketing plan for volatile markets. Primarily, the firm dedicates its attention towards current clients. To reach them it calls on a few extra conversations, newsletters, blog articles and social posts with a “stay calm, stay invested” approach.
This appeal is marginally effective in keeping current clients and ineffective at finding new opportunities or prospects.
In contrast, I helped one advisor during the 2007-2009 meltdown unleash a full marketing offensive to both prospects and clients alike. The outcome: In 36 months he doubled his assets under management.
Another small firm has already added $10 million in assets in 2018, its best year for growth in a decade.
Here is my “5M” approach that:
- deepens client relationships;
- stimulates new referrals; and
- attracts new prospects during volatile markets.
The prime ingredients are market, message, multi-steps, multi-media and a proactive marketing plan.
1. Broaden your target market to encompass prospects, influencers, centers-of-influence (COIs) and clients for referrals
Do not limit the scope of your volatile markets communications to clients only. Look beyond those relatively few clients who may need extra hand holding during market plunges.
Activate communications targeted more broadly and designed specifically to convert market uncertainty into your marketing advantage.
With your greater reach you can engage current and potential prospects on your lists and also your social connections, and influencers along with your clients.
2. Sharpen your message to zoom in on the specific advantages of your investment and/or planning philosophy during volatile markets
Many advisors will rely solely on content curated by third parties. While this content may be cheap, readily available and compliance-approved, it has two serious disadvantages:
- It will fail to speak directly to your distinct target market; and
- It will not build up the specific advantages of your investment and financial planning philosophy during volatile markets.
One advisor, for example, recently wrote an ongoing series of articles and social posts on the dangers of bear markets for his specific pre-retiree market niche as they approached retirement. (Of course, he countered these pitfalls with the advantages of his solutions.) The result: He realized his best quarter in years in terms of adding new clients.
3. Leverage a multi-step approach in volatile markets and
4. Send your communications through multi-media
You have overwhelming competition. Various estimates point to our encountering every day some 4,000 ads, logos, products . . . perhaps many more.
Clearly one communication through one medium – even one as effective as email – will not break through the clutter.
Here’s a multi-sep path forward: Supplement your traditional content, which could be a newsletter, a blog article or a short video, with more customized, personal, and longer-format content.
The old saying is still valid, “The more you tell the more you sell.”
Address the current volatile conditions in a free report or white paper or in a 30- to 60-minute presentation such as a podcast, workshop or webinar. Offer a personal volatile markets stress test consultation for a client’s or prospect’s portfolio.
An advisor, for example, combined the first 4 Ms. At the start of the recent choppy markets he held a special-situation webinar. Specifically, it addressed why his investment philosophy was right for the current markets.
He unleashed his multi-media approach on five different media channels including renting an outside email list to new prospects. The outcome: 190 registrants, just under 100 attendees and then $3 million in identified prospect assets within seven days of the event.
5. Harvest the volatile markets opportunity with a proactive marketing plan
The omnipresent commentator Michael Kitces said:
I strongly suspect we’ll find a dramatic gap between the firms that proactively invested into a marketing plan . . . and those who continued to rely solely on passive referrals.
Yes, record-breaking plunges or the average bear market along with a proactive marketing plan truly can become your marketing opportunity.
But just as one investment choice does not make a financial plan, one single communication does not produce a volatile markets marketing plan – no matter how insightful it is, nor how customized to your practice and market or markets.
In your plan, outline the “who, what, when, where, why and how.” Your plan can be effective even in a one-page executive summary format.
Next, create your marketing calendar with your team and don’t hide it in a folder on your computer. Instead, post it where it is visible to everyone. To deploy your plan, set aside at least one day a week. Your results will generate marketing momentum and prompt you to increase the hours you invest in marketing.
Perhaps your firm could be the next to double assets under management in 36 months.
Who else is ready to take up the challenge?
Bob Hanson is a fractional marketer and author of Marketing Power for Financial Advisors. Get his checklist, Nine Questions Advisors Must Ask Before They Hire a Marketing Agency, Fractional or Full-Time Marketer, click here.
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