You Know You Want to Market, You Know You Should Market:
Sound Advice From a Pro On How to Start Marketing
By Peter Haines
So my editor tells me, “Our readers all know how important marketing is. They go to conferences. They get lectured. They get it. They just need some tips on how to do it, from a pro. Can you give them some tips?” “Sure,” I say, “I can tell them how. But will it matter? I mean everybody thinks their situation is unique, their market is different and their target audience is like no other. Will they listen?” He answers, “Absolutely. Remember, you’ve forgotten more about marketing than many people will ever know. It’ll be great.”
Okay, not quite the blazingly clear vote of confidence I was looking for (who wants their success to be based on forgetting stuff?) but he was marketing the column to me and I bought it. Go figure. I’m a sucker for a great ad campaign. This segues to the first thought I want to deposit on your digital doorstep—treat your marketing and branding efforts as a campaign. It is a process not an event. The impact of your efforts is much more effective as a drip, drip, drip rather than a fire hose.
Let me give you an analogy. At the firm where I work, we have a financial literacy program for our clients and their children. Very comprehensive; very impactful; very effective. (I’ll be talking about it in more detail in a future column.) We are convinced financial literacy comes from practice, like learning a musical instrument. Children won’t grasp all the nuances unless they practice, make mistakes and eventually succeed.
It’s the same with a marketing campaign. You need to introduce yourself, position yourself and differentiate yourself. Drip, drip, drip. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. Changing your identity—your brand—over and over never allows anyone to understand who you are, and why you are different. Face it, we are in a commoditized category; everybody selling or advising on the same things. One mutual fund looks just like any other. Global powerhouse financial institutions so “botoxed” across the world their “wrinkle-free” capabilities all blend together.
How do you get to a differentiating place where you can stay long term? Lots of folks will say, “Let’s do an event.” “Let’s do an ad.” “Let’s buy a banner on AOL.” Wrong. Let’s start from scratch. You need answers, not tactics. Answers to:
• “Who are you?”
• “What do you do best?”
• “What don’t you do well?”
• “What’s your brand personality?”
How to get those answers?
Step one: You have to do an audit. And not unlike those dreaded IRS versions, you have to dig deep into due diligence—both externally and internally. Develop a questionnaire and talk to your clients, both good and bad. (And not just a few. Make it a quantifiable sample of at least 100.). Give them anonymity and actionable questions—ones that pull out information. They will give you the perceptions of your firm.
Step two: Develop a similar questionnaire and talk to decision makers, and again, not just a few of them, all of them. This may be uncomfortable but, ask hard questions such as:
• What’s working?
• What’s not?
• What would you like to be when you’re grown up? (Paraphrased, of course)
They will give you your firm’s vision.
Step three: Marry the perceptions and the visions and you’ll find a positioning for the firm. A place no one else should be able to play, or at least play like you can. It should be your own sandbox. Sometimes it will be perfectly evident what the positioning should be but you know you can’t achieve it. Don’t go there—you have to be able to keep your promises to clients and prospects. Sometimes it will not be clear and you’ll have to sift through more evidence to find it. But you will. You have to. It is what makes you different, and better.
Step four: If the positioning is the “what” you want to achieve, the communications strategy is the “how” you’re going to achieve it. Articulate a strategy to be followed long term. Like the positioning, your strategy has to be achievable by the firm as a whole, not just a specific division or practice area.
Step five: tactics. This is the drip, drip, drip. On what tactical platforms do you express your strategy? Public Relations? Digital advertising? Events? A combination? Whatever you choose, be there for the long run, say what you want to say consistently, and understand it will take time to make an impact.
Okay, proselytizing is a spectator sport and you’ve seen enough by now.
Thanks for listening. Stay tuned.
By Peter Haines
Peter Haines is the Director of Marketing for Lenox Advisors. Prior to Lenox, he worked for advertising agencies Young & Rubicam, Ogilvy & Mather (where he won the David Ogilvy Award with Team Jaguar) and McCann-Erickson. He also has entrepreneurial spirit, having run his own marketing communications firm. Peter’s experience includes leading marketing efforts for such blue-chip financial services clients as American Express, Salomon Smith Barney, First Union Securities, CIBC World Markets, Barclays Capital and Freddie Mac. He began his marketing career as a copywriter, later transitioning to account management and new business development. He is an Ambassador for the Advertising Education Foundation, offering branding, marketing and strategic communications presentations to college students.
(Editors Note: Truly great advice from a guy who should know. For those of you who want to conduct your own client audit (which, by the way, I have been a huge fan of for years), you can do as Peter suggests and create your own questionnaire or you can go to Moss Adams. Moss Adams will do it for you via an alliance with Advisor Impact, a group that conducts interviews with clients on behalf of financial advisors and firms. The cost is very affordable, so affordable in fact, that if you get one extra piece of business out of it, the program has most likely paid for itself. As head of two Broker/Dealer Marketing departments at two major independent broker/dealers I told my reps repeatedly that the first thing I would do regarding marketing is survey/audit my clients, and I’d do it at least every twenty four months. It still amazes me that more advisors and planners don’t jump on this right away. Whether you do it yourself or go with Moss Adams, get at it, and good luck! JPM)