AWARENESS, EDUCATION, ACTION – The keys to Marketing Success for Financial Advisors
Awareness, Education and Action are the three areas you should focus on in your marketing. It doesn’t matter if you are a financial advisor, real estate professional or sell widgets, these three elements are critical to your marketing.
Awareness – Your potential customers need to know you exist. If they don’t know you exist you won’t get their business, plain and simple. The first step of this process is to become aware of who your target audience is. I know this sounds like Marketing 101 and it is, but you would be surprised as to how few people or businesses actually take the time to study who their market really is, not just who you think it is. The two may be very different. Spend the next month taking detailed notes about who each customer is. Find out as much information as possible. You may know that your market is men between the ages of 30 and 55, but you may find out that your primary market is actually Hispanic men between the ages of 30 and 58 who have two kids and an income of over $100,000. The more detail you have the better targeted your marketing will be. Once you know exactly who your target is, you can craft a message more directly related to them, then broadcast that message using the most effective mediums to create AWARENESS.
Education – Once your potentials become aware that you exist, it is now time to educate them on who you are, what you do and why it is useful to them. If they don’t understand why or how they can benefit, you will lose them as a ‘suspect’. Don’t make them work hard to understand what you do. I have seen way too many poor marketing campaigns that left me wondering what exactly the company did, but not curious enough to take the time to figure it out. I might be too busy or just too lazy to take the time to research it myself. Make it easy for me, or more importantly, your target market. Spell it out for them and EDUCATE them.
Action – Okay, so you may be clear on what action you would like your ‘suspects’ to take (if you are not, then you need to become clear), but are they clear on it? For example, the one action we want our ‘suspects’ to take is to complete our Personal Assessment online at our website at www.GettingResultsCoaching.com by clicking on the ‘Get Started’ button. We leave nothing to chance, we tell them exactly where to go and what to do. You need to be sure you know what that action item is you want them to take in order to transition them from the marketing process to the sales process. What ACTION step do they need to take to go from being a ‘suspect’ to a ‘prospect’?
This seems so simple. I realize that. But I took the time to write a column dedicated to it because I know just how rare it is for businesses to actually follow through on this. Clarifying these three simple steps will make a world of difference for your business.
Lauren Eichner’s firm, Getting Results Coaching helps the best get better in the financial services industry. The integration of psychology with business systems allows them to get the most from each individual. For a complimentary assessment with a coach, click on the Personal Assessment link
