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A successful RIA hired a designer and spent $200,000 on a new logo as part of a project to create a new digital presence.
The firm spent most of its budget on design and had little left over for marketers, media, promotion, and lead generation.
What are some of the common advisor marketing traps?
How can your firm avoid a major marketing disaster?
Turning a one-legged marketing tactic into a three-legged marketing stool
An advisor in a one-company town in Ohio loved to talk about retirement planning, so he created an educational seminar program for the employees.
He hosted quarterly seminars with between 20 and 30 participants in each one and signed-up an average of two great clients from each program.
This went on for years, and these seminars were so successful he never followed-up with attendees who requested appointments but did not show to the first appointment.
The advisor did little client marketing and had no referral system.
One day he got a call from the head of HR at the sponsoring company. There was a new CEO, and he did not want outside advisors coming onsite for seminars.
The advisor’s marketing was dead.
After a few months of sulking and seeing his cash flow suffer, the advisor realized he had roughly 65 happy clients and a large prospect list he had never tapped.
We worked together to develop a three-legged marketing plan that was geared to sustainable growth:
- Tap into new organizations and Influencers to host his retirement planning program;
- Nurture his prospect list to reactivate “dead” leads; and
- Create a referral program with existing clients to get to 100 clients.
I spoke with the advisor some years later and he said, “You know, without losing the company educational program my practice would have never reached its potential.”
“The practice is thriving, and we have added even more ways of getting in front of new prospects and engaging our clients and referrals.”
“I’ve brought in a junior planner and an operations assistant and we are now looking to add in a partner who will eventually be my succession plan.”
How to avoid a marketing disaster: A one-legged marketing plan will eventually get tripped up. Every firm can benefit from three or more ways of growing the business.
For more ways to grow a practice see my recent article, What is a Practice Growth Multiplier.
I goofed…
A firm partner was convinced his new fee-based model was going to be a big hit with his existing clients and that it would gain universal adoption.
Without consulting his staff or polling his client advisory board, the partner fired off a letter outlining the changes and sent it to all the firm’s clients.
The response was swift and nearly unanimous.
The day after the letters arrived in the mail clients flooded the phone lines with complaints and questions.
Clients misunderstood the changes and felt like they were being fired.
The problem was not so much the model itself, but in the way that it was presented.
The partner realized his mistake and ate a healthy serving of humble pie.
He created another letter with the headline, “I goofed.”
While the letter was in the mail all clients were called with an apology and told to expect another letter.
He offered a softer approach to the transition and went into more detail on the reasons behind the changes and the benefits of the new model.
This time clients welcomed the change and within twelve months the firm experienced all-time highs in client satisfaction, firm revenues, and the number of client referrals.
How to avoid a marketing disaster: Every firm and advisor makes mistakes. Don’t be afraid to own them and go above and beyond to correct them.
The webinar technology crashed
In the early days of webinars, I created a prospect webinar for my client that my team promoted to a target email list, and based on the registrations it was going to be well attended.
The technology vendor assured us that it could handle up to 250 attendees.
Halfway through the event, it crashed.
I thought my client was going to lose all these prospects forever. But almost immediately, we started getting emails that attendees thought the problem was on their end.
They were wondering if there was going to be a recording or repeat of the event.
We offered to repeat the event the following week (with a new technology).
Everyone who registered was emailed and called.
The success of this event launched a monthly webinar series that helped the firm grow at 40% CAGR per year over the next 36 months.
How to avoid a marketing disaster: Marketing and practice technologies are not bullet-proof. People understand that. Use repeat events, multiple contacts and multiple media to address any technology failures.
The $200,000 logo
Back to the $200,000 logo. The story has a happy ending.
To be fair, the $200,000 logo did look intricate and distinctive, and the design firm also created a new website.
After the branding work, the firm hired a fractional business development executive to drive new business, and he in turn hired me as a fractional marketer to add some content and test basic digital marketing.
We did not have the budget for SEO or any digital advertising, so we were limited to low-cost, no-cost strategies like converting existing website traffic to leads.
We created a few free reports including one on retirement planning and one on financial planning and rotated different promotions and landing pages.
We found the report on retirement planning, which was available for download on the homepage, generated an average of one new lead a day with existing website traffic.
This jump-started the firm’s growth, and with a few other low-cost marketing strategies it eventually got its money back from the logo and digital designs and took the company to new heights in the following years before selling to a national RIA for a premium.
If possible, avoid a major marketing disaster altogether.
As my early marketing mentor Jay Abraham used to say, “Test before you invest.”
If you find yourself in the middle of a marketing disaster, like a $200,000 logo, try making the best of your remaining resources. You may end up better off in the end.
Bob Hanson is a fractional marketer and author of Marketing Power for Financial Advisors. To get his checklist, Seven Secrets of Winning Financial Advisor Marketing, click here.
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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.