This past week I attended Schwab’s IMPACT conference here in my hometown of San Diego. The three days offered a vast amount of information, but what most interested me was the marketing information. Here are my five favorite marketing lessons from IMPACT this year.Lesson #1: The more channels a client uses to interact with his or her advisor, the higher his or her satisfaction with that advisor.We all understand the importance of regularly communicating with clients throughout the year. But this doesn’t necessarily require picking up the phone each month to check in with your clients. According to Gabriel Garcia, Managing Director of Schwab Advisor Services, the more channels your clients interact with you through, the higher their satisfaction level. The different channels he mentioned include in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, newsletters, websites, direct mail, webinar, events, instant messages and social media. The Takeaway: Use multiple channels in your communication plan to more fully engage your clients.Read More

Of all the popular social networking sites out there, Facebook is probably the least business-oriented (with the exception of MySpace, which I don’t even acknowledge as an option for advisor marketing). Most people on Facebook are there to reconnect with friends and distant relatives. For the average user, sharing pictures and quiz results is the extent of their Facebook interaction.So the idea of using Facebook as a way to market a financial advisory firm may seem a bit farfetched. I have to admit, for a long time I was skeptical about using Facebook to market anything other than name brand consumer products. However, after hearing a couple of strong testimonials from advisors in favor of Facebook, I have changed my tune. I still don’t believe that Facebook is a good strategy for every advisor, but it may be appropriate for advisors with strong personal and community relationships.Read More

If you actively engage in social media marketing, you know that it can take a considerable amount of time each week. Whether you are writing a blog, recording a podcast, creating a vlog, updating your Facebook business page, contributing to LinkedIn groups, or sending tweets, social media marketing is time consuming.If you are spending this much time on social media, it’s important that you are getting the most out of your efforts. I find that even the advisors who are the most skilled at using social media are often not using it to its fullest potential. Sure they are great at using it to connect with other social media savvy individuals but often they neglect to share the information with people who may not be as technologically sophisticated. Usually the people who are not being reached by social media are existing clients. While not all of your clients will know what a blog is, almost all of them will have access to email. By creating an e-newsletter using your social media content you’ll be able to increase exposure to an audience who might not otherwise see it – your clients.Read More

In April 2009, The Nielsen Company conducted a study of the most trusted forms of advertising. Not surprisingly, the study found that most trusted source is recommendations from personal acquaintances. A whopping 90% of people surveyed said they “completely” or “somewhat” trusted recommendations from people they know.1 This study specifically surveyed internet consumers, but if consumers place such high importance on the recommendations of friends for some widget they buy online, you would have to assume the same must be true when choosing someone to manage their money.Read More

On July 31, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Twitter Doesn’t Yet Measure Up For Advisers.” It states that Twitter isn’t resulting in the clients the advisors had hoped to acquire from the micro-blogging site. Yet two of the advisors the article quotes, Cathy Curtis (@curtisfinancial) and Richard Krasney (@PhilanthropyCFP) are both fans of Twitter. This has led me to ask the question, “What are the expectations of advisors on Twitter?”Social networking is still networking. If you think about the advisors who have solid traditional networking strategies, how long does it take them to turn someone they meet at a networking event into a client? I don’t know the answer, but I’m guessing it is months if not years. Of course, there are the networking groups like BNI that are referral oriented, but I’m talking about more traditional networking avenues. I once spoke to an advisor about his process for developing referral relationships with CPAs. He told me had developed a two year plan for nurturing relationships with CPAs before he expects to see a referral. From other advisor experiences, this seems to be the norm. So why do we expect that social networking should produce results in a matter of a couple of months? It is still networking and should be handled in the same manner. Merely advertising your business may work if you are a restaurant or hotel, but it doesn’t work in a relationship oriented business like financial advising.Read More