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The Financial Broker Guide to Marketing ExcellenceFinancial Broker

Creating your success through Financial Planning

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Financial Planning & Guidance

The Financial Broker Guide to Marketing Excellence


One – Unified Voice



Page 2Page 01Creating your success through Financial Planning


The Financial Broker Guideto Marketing Excellence

How to develop and deliver a structured and creative marketing plan to boost the income levels of your business

January 2018



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Contents

About the Author 2

Introduction 3

Your Marketing Foundations 4

-Your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System 4

-The Importance of Data 7

-Getting your House in Order 8

-A structured Approach to Content 9

Marketing in a Compliant Way 11

-Compliance with the Consumer Protection Code and Data Protection Requirements 11

-General Data Protection Regulation 14

Developing your Marketing Plan 15

-Introduction 15

-The Planning Process 16

-The Research Phase 17

-Market Positioning and Business Changes 20

-Clarifying your Marketing Objectives (and Activities) 21

The Marketing Toolbox 23

-The Marketing Activities Overview 23

-The Benefits and Pitfalls of each Offline Marketing Activity 24

-Online / Digital Marketing 29

-The Benefits and Pitfalls of each Online Marketing Activity 32

-Finalising the Plan 35

Case Studies 37

-Introduction 37

-Case Study 1 - To turn more prospects into clients by developing a brilliant

first meeting 37

-Case Study 2 - To build an effective communication programme for existing and

prospective clients to drive long-term relationships 40

-Case Study 3 - To develop a robust introducers proposition 43

Summary 45



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Eamonn Twomey established StepChange, a marketing and strategy solutions business for Financial Brokers, in 2011. Previously, Eamonn worked in a variety of senior sales and marketing roles in the Broker channel both in the UK and in Ireland, with Irish Life and Friends First.

StepChange works with Financial Brokers and product providers in Ireland and around the world, addressing a broad range of commercial challenges in the areas of strategy and planning, and marketing and business transformation. StepChange offers a unique combination of knowledge of the Financial Broker environment, overlaid with strategy, sales and marketing

expertise.

www.stepchange.ie

This guide is for information purposes only. Neither Brokers Ireland nor the author accept any responsibility for advice

provided by a Financial Broker, or other use of this booklet, to another person in respect of any matter referred to in this

booklet.

About the Author



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This guide has been produced by Brokers Ireland for Broker to help you to implement effective marketing activities that will maximise the return for time and money spent, help get more and higher value sales, and assist in the retention of your clients. The guide condenses the content of three previously produced guides into a single document. The three guides previously produced are,

• A Guide to Marketing your Business for Financial Brokers • A Guide to Digital Marketing and Social Media Planning • Compliance Marketing Guide.

The purpose of the guide is to give Financial Brokers all of the guidance and marketing tools that they need to approach their marketing activities with confidence. It commences by setting out some important foundation blocks that should be considered before you even start on your marketing planning. Getting these foundations in place will help to ensure a much more robust marketing plan.

The guide then covers the all-important compliance considerations that are so important to ensuring that your marketing activities are carried out responsibly and in line with your legal obligations. This section covers your existing data protection responsibilities, and also introduces the General Data Protection Regulation that will be effective from May 2018.

To market your business effectively, you must avoid just diving in and doing marketing activities. Instead you must have a robust plan that is appropriate for your business in the current market environment. This guide takes you through a marketing planning methodology that will enable you to develop a structured marketing plan for your business.

The planning process includes an initial research phase. This encompasses understanding the medium-term objectives of your business, analysing the external impacts on your business over which you have no control, understanding what makes your business different to the rest, and clarifying who your target audiences are. Once this research is complete, you then need to articulate how you want your Financial Brokerage to be perceived by the external world – your market positioning. After this, it is time to identify the actual objectives of your marketing.

The cornerstone of a robust marketing plan is crystal clarity of your marketing objectives. Once you are clear on what your marketing goals are, you are then guided to identify the right set of activities to achieve each of these goals. The different activities are then considered in terms of their appropriateness for your plan, examining the benefits and pitfalls of each. To further assist you, this section covers in turn both the more traditional offline activities, and the digital marketing activities that are now commonplace and available to all Financial Brokers today to reach and retain customers.

Three case studies have been included to demonstrate the practical application of the earlier sections. These demonstrate the practical use of much of the earlier content in the guide.

Finally, throughout the document there are a series of ‘Top Tips’, which give some practical and simple guidance to help you successfully use the key marketing activities identified in the guide.

Introduction



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Before you start enthusiastically rolling out your marketing activities, it is worthwhile to pause and consider a few areas that are fundamental to their success. Without these areas being considered, the execution of your marketing activities will be undermined and your chances of success somewhat diminished.

Your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System If we go back a decade or so, very few Financial Broker businesses used CRM systems. Those that did were mainly using them for access to the clients’ policy values that were provided by life companies. Information about prospects, sales activities and marketing campaigns was typically captured on a spreadsheet, or sometimes in far less structured ways!

While some Financial Brokers continue to rely on spreadsheets for their sales and marketing activities, many others now leverage the benefits of some of the excellent Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems that are available in the marketplace. While these systems require an initial investment of time and energy, the long term benefits usually far outweigh this short term price as the systems enable the business to run their sales and marketing activities in a far more effective and efficient way.

The decision criteria in choosing a CRM systemDifferent businesses will have a broad range of requirements from a CRM system, that spans both their sales and marketing activities and also their ongoing customer management activities. Some of the typical questions that should be considered by a Financial Broker business in choosing a system include,

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Your requirements: This is the most important question. What do you specifically want the

system to help you with? Where are the gaps in your current processes?

Type of system: You have a choice between standard CRM systems that are used across

different industries, or CRM systems that are designed specifically for Financial Brokers. While

standard systems may have a broad range of very rich features, you need to consider which

of these you will actually use. Industry specific systems provide many important features

specifically for Financial Broker businesses.

Ease of use: It is strongly recommended that you get a full demonstration of the system in

use, and potentially a trial period too. If the system is too difficult to use it is unlikely to be

adopted successfully by you and your team.

Ability to import existing data: Most Financial Brokers will want to import data from a

spreadsheet, from an email / contact system (such as Outlook), or from another CRM system.

How easy is it to do this?

Features: Most systems will have a broad range of features available. These will be the vendor’s

key selling points. How important are each of these features to you?

Your Marketing Foundations



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Integrations: Financial Broker businesses have become more complex, with a range of

different systems used (cashflow planning, email, scanning, storage, quotation, accounting

etc.) How easily does the CRM integrate with these systems or, alternatively, does it provide a

better alternative solution?

Customisation: If you have specific requirements from a system that are not provided as a

standard, how easily / cost effectively can these customisations be provided?

Accessibility & Security: How is the CRM accessible? Is it available on any device used

by you and your staff? Do you need to be online to access the system? Is it available

anytime / anywhere? What are the security features of the system to ensure the safety and

confidentiality of your data?

Talk to peers: Each vendor will provide many testimonials for you. However your own research

will be invaluable too. Talk to other Financial Brokers about the vendors and systems that they

use and their experience with them.

Cost: How much does the system cost? What form of a contract are you tied into?

The features of an industry CRM systemIndustry CRM systems offer the advantage of being designed specifically for Financial Brokers. Often the vendors have previously been Financial Brokers themselves, or indeed have worked very closely with them over many years. As a result, a number of very useful and timesaving features are usually available to you.

When choosing a system, it is important to consider all of the features that are offered by each system, and then to determine which are the most important features for you, as part of your decision criteria.

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Does the system offer easy sales campaign tracking, enabling you to easily capture all of the

relevant information about prospects, and then you to track the progress with each as they

progress through your ‘sales funnel’?

Does the system support you in running an effective marketing campaign?

Does the system track all your client communications, tasks, emails and SMS messages?

Can you view all the activities carried out with the client in one place?

Does the system make your advice process easier, in terms of completing a fact find, risk

profiling questionnaires and other financial planning supports?

Does the system support you in managing your pipeline of customers, from proposal through

to the issuing of business?

Does the system integrate with all of the quotation and other product information systems

that you use?

Does the system integrate with other financial planning, future cashflow planning, and other

industry specific systems that you use?

Can the system help you in recording your time spent on client accounts and assist you in

billing fees?

Are policy details and values available to you at the press of a button?



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Are important client documents available to you easily and quickly?

What is the data storage capability and method used, and how is this proven to meet the

requirements of Financial Brokers?

What client segmentation potential does the system offer?

What reports are available in relation to sales, pipeline, commission, fees etc.?

How can the system support you in meeting your compliance requirements?

The Importance of DataYour data is one of the most important and valuable assets of your business today. It provides you with all of the relevant information about your clients and prospects, it enables you to manage your relationships and communicate effectively with all these contacts, and it offers you intelligence that potentially will lead to further business opportunities with your clients down the road.

However with this asset comes a very important and strict responsibility. You have clearly defined legal and regulatory duties to manage this data securely and responsibly. There are considerable penalties for breach of these responsibilities, with these responsibilities and penalties set to increase significantly under new General Data Protection Regulations that are being implemented from May 2018. This whole area of marketing and data compliance is covered in more detail in the ‘Marketing in a Compliant Way’ section of this guide.

From a marketing perspective, the more data that you gather about your clients, the greater the insights you can build. As a result, it becomes easier to target your clients (and prospects) with relevant and timely marketing messages. Your CRM system should help you significantly in mining this data for effective use.

At a minimum, you should consider the following questions in relation to your customer data:

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Do you have phone numbers and email addresses for all of your clients to support your

marketing efforts?

Do you have permission to use this data for marketing purposes and can you prove this

permission if challenged?

What data / results do you have from previous marketing campaigns?

Do you know the source of every lead, as this should help to choose and guide future

marketing activities?

What processes are in place to keep your data up to date?

How do you capture your clients’ changing preferences?

It is strongly recommended that you have appropriate systems and processes to maintain your client records and their changing preferences. For example, if a client requests no further contact, how do you ensure that they are removed from all mailing lists?



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Getting your House in OrderBefore you engage in thinking about creative marketing activities, it’s worth pausing for a moment. Have you considered that every customer interaction effectively plays a part in your marketing efforts, as it will help or hinder the positioning of your business in your customers’ minds? As a result, it is worth quickly considering each of the following and deciding if you need to do some work on them, as they potentially could undermine some of your efforts as you work on the more exciting activities.

What first impressions will a prospective client have?

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Will a visit to your office have a positive or negative effect on visitors? Is it a professional, tidy

and clean environment?

Is your signage good?

How welcoming is the first person a visitor meets at your office?

Are you proud handing over one of your business cards? Are they fully up to date and made

with good quality paper?

Are your brand name and logo still relevant to your business and are they consistently used

across all platforms?

Are you happy with your headed paper?

How professionally is the phone answered at your office?

How happy are you with your website?

How complete is your LinkedIn profile?

What lasting impression do you leave?

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How good are your financial advice reports, both in terms of the quality of the content and also

their look and feel?

How professional are your client review reports?

What product brochures do you use? There is a full range of professionally produced product

brochures developed under the Financial Broker brand.

How will your documents arrive in the post to your client? In a dog-eared envelope or in a

professional corporate folder?

When presenting to a client, how professional are your PowerPoint presentations?

As mentioned above, these are worth addressing. It won’t make sense to hold off on all other marketing activities until all of these are remedied, but they certainly should be dealt with as early as possible.

A Guide to Marketing your Business for Financial BrokersFinancial Broker


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A structured Approach to ContentWith the growth of digital marketing in recent years, and in particular content marketing, (see the section entitled “The Marketing Toolbox” in this guide) a requirement for Financial Broker businesses to develop a consistent, steady stream of relevant and quality content has emerged.

When we talk about content, what do we mean? Content includes all of the following.

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Articles

Blogs

Social media posts

White papers

Videos

Commentaries

Podcasts

Educational pieces

Content marketing is a marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer relationships.

Developing a content scheduleProbably the biggest challenge with content marketing is the consistent distribution of content to your audience. In a Financial Broker’s case, this usually includes all contacts, prospective clients and actual clients. For this marketing approach to be successful, it must happen month after month (or week after week!) – without fail.

One of the best ways of helping yourself to ensure this happens is to spend some time at the outset identifying content ideas for the next year. In the table below is an example of a Financial Broker’s content schedule of monthly articles for one year.

Sample Financial Broker Content Schedule

Month Author Topic Key points

January General Advice Five New Year resolutions to manage your money better

February Pensions The challenges of our State pension system

March Protection Why income protection should be part of everyone’s financial portfolio

April Investments The importance of a risk related portfolio

May General Advice Why independent advice is critical to your financial success

June Pensions Why delaying your pensions could cost you a fortune

July Protection Business protection for SME owners

August Investments Are you losing money by keeping it in the bank?

September General Advice What can you teach your kids about money?

October Pensions Pensions is one of the last great sources of marginal rate tax relief

November Protection Why life assurance is not just for older people

December Investments Five principles of wise investing

• Start with the 2/3 pointsyou want clients to take away.

Build from there.

• Have a number of speakers,both industry and non-industry.

• Develop a high quality, visualpresentation the fewer slides, the better.

• Practice beforehand.

• Finish on time.

5 TIPS FORBETTER

SEMINARS



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The benefits of developing such a content schedule are numerous:

1. As your deadline to write an article looms during a month, you are not faced with dreaming up an idea of what to write about – you simply consult the schedule.

2. As new ideas emerge (from articles you read, conferences you attend, points made at meetings that are worth writing about etc.) you simply add these to the schedule. Now those good article ideas never get lost!

3. As you add new ideas to your schedule, you tend to write about the better topics, pushing the weaker ones to a later stage. As a result, you are always increasing the quality of your content schedule, and ultimately your content too.

Making content marketing happenOnce you get your schedule in place, you are then prepared and ready to go. Now it’s a case of making it happen. Here are a few guiding points to help you to get the most from your content marketing approach.

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Commit to it: It will require commitment for this to happen every time. This commitment

starts with the business owner.

Recognise the importance of it: Content marketing may become one of your main

marketing activities and deserves your time and energy. After all, it’s not costing you money!

Spread the load: Get everyone in the business involved and playing a role. Your best writer

should be responsible for editing everyone’s work, rather than being expected to do it all!

Maximise reach: Once you go to the trouble of developing content, maximise its reach. Post

the content to your website, send it by email, share it via social media etc.

Get everyone sharing: Everyone in the business with a social media presence should share

the content. This is particularly important with LinkedIn and Twitter.

Strive for quality: Quality content will create the right impression of your business. It is also

more likely to be widely shared, increasing the viral benefits that can accrue.

Recognise the reach of it: Good quality content will get you in front of people and audiences

you might otherwise never reach.

Outsource if necessary: If content marketing is just not going to happen in your business,

look to outsource to someone who can do the legwork for you.



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Compliance with the Consumer Protection Code and Data Protection RequirementsWhen marketing to clients or potential clients it is important to abide by the restrictions imposed by both the Consumer Protection Code and data protection legislation. Below is a summary of the key regulatory requirements. Although not exhaustive it outlines the main factors you should bear in mind in relation to marketing.

The Consumer Protection Code 2012 introduced new restrictions in relation to making personal visits and telephone contact to both existing and potential clients.

Personal VisitsBrokers may only make a personal visit to a consumer who is an individual if that consumer has given informed consent to being contacted by means of a personal visit. You must obtain informed consent separately for each personal visit, and you must maintain a record of this consent.

Telephone Contact - Existing ConsumersBrokers may make telephone contact with a consumer who is an existing customer, only if:

a) you have, within the previous twelve months, provided that consumer with a product or service similar to the purpose of the telephone contact;

b) the consumer holds a product that requires you to maintain contact with the consumer in relation to that product, and the contact is in relation to that product;

c) the purpose of the telephone contact is limited to offering protection policies only; ord) the consumer has given his or her consent to being contacted in this way.

Telephone Contact - Potential ConsumersBrokers may make telephone contact with a consumer other than an existing customer, only if:

a) the consumer has signed a statement within the previous twelve months giving permission to make telephone calls to him or her for specified purposes; and the contact is in respect of such specified purposes;

b) the consumer has a listing in the business listing section of the current telephone directory, classified telephone directory or in trade/professional directories circulating in the State and contact is made via the business telephone number;

c) the consumer is a director of a company, or a partner in a firm with an entry in one of the directories listed in b) above and contact is made via the business telephone number of the company or firm in question and is in connection with their role as director of the company or partner in the firm;

d) the consumer is the subject of a referral for which the consumer has provided express consent, received from an entity authorised to provide financial services in Ireland, another entity within the same group, a solicitor or a certified person; or

e) the purpose of the contact is limited to offering protection policies.



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You must ensure that where you make telephone contact on foot of a referral, you retain a record of that referral. Telephone contact may be made only between 9.00 a.m. and 9.00 p.m. Monday to Saturday (excluding bank holidays and public holidays), unless otherwise agreed with the consumer.

Data protection legislation also imposes restrictions on direct marketing to individuals, which are outlined below.

The basic rule that applies to direct marketing is that you need the consent of the individual to use their personal data for direct marketing purposes. Individuals must be given a right to refuse such use of their personal data both at the time the data is collected (an ‘opt-out’) and, in the case of direct marketing by electronic means, on every subsequent marketing message. The ‘opt-out’ right must be free of charge.

Postal MarketingUnaddressed mail or mail addressed to “the occupant”, “the resident” or “the householder” does not normally involve the use of personal data and consequently data protection legislation does not apply.

However, where you identify “the occupant”, “the resident” or “the householder” from the address in conjunction with other data, data protection requirements do apply.

Note: the rules do not normally apply to postal marketing of corporate entities (companies) including marketing of office-holders within such an entity (provided that the marketing is related to the entity’s business needs and that the details of the named person in receipt were obtained fairly).

Before you can use personal data for postal marketing, you must tell customers (or potential customers) that you intend to use their data for this purpose and give them an opportunity to refuse such use. Where you yourself have collected the personal data, this should be done at the time of collection (for example, by providing a ‘tick box’ on the Terms of Business covering letter).

Electronic MarketingYou should be aware that different rules apply to phone, fax, text message and email marketing, which are all deemed to be electronic marketing. The rules are more restrictive in the case of marketing by electronic mail to individuals who are not your customers. Unlike in the case of postal marketing, certain restrictions also apply to electronic marketing to businesses and other corporate entities.

PhoneYou cannot make a marketing phone call to the phone number of an individual or business if they have opted out of receiving such calls and this is noted on the National Directory Database.

Additional restrictions apply to marketing calls to a mobile telephone number. You cannot make contact with a client on their mobile telephone unless you have been notified by the user that they consent to the receipt of such calls; or the user concerned has consented generally to marketing calls and such consent is recorded in the National Directory Database in respect of their mobile telephone number.

SummaryThe following table summarises the rules that currently* apply. “Opt-in” means that you can only market to an individual where you have their explicit consent to do so. “Opt-out” means that you can market to an individual provided you have given them the option not to receive such marketing and they have not availed of this option. For electronic communication to a business, an option to unsubscribe must be included.

Postal Marketing Text/Email Marketing Phone Marketing to Landlines

Fax Marketing Phone Marketing to Mobile Phones

Individual Customer

Opt-Out Opt-Out (provided similar product or service)

Opt-Out Opt-Out Opt-Out

Individual Non- Customer

Opt-Out Opt-In Opt-In if on NDD, Opt-Out otherwise

Opt-In Opt-In

Business Contacts (Customer and Non- Customer)

Opt-Out Opt-Out Opt-In if on NDD, Opt-Out otherwise

Opt-In if on NDD, Opt-Out otherwise

Opt-In



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General Data Protection RegulationThe General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force on the 25th of May 2018, replacing the existing data protection framework under the EU Data Protection Directive.

Article 4 of the GDPR defines consent as meaning “freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her”.

There are a number of requirements that are necessary to satisfy the conditions for consent:

• Organisations processing data on the basis of consent must be able to demonstrate that the person to whom the data relates has given their consent; • Where consent is given as part of a written declaration which also includes other matters, the request for consent must be presented in a manner that is clearly distinguishable from the other matters, in an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language; • Individuals have the right to withdraw consent at any time and it must be as easy to withdraw consent as to give it.

The GDPR also stipulates that consent will not be freely given where the individual has no genuine or free choice; or is unable to refuse or withdraw consent without detriment; or where the performance of a contract (such as the provision of a service) is dependent on consent even though consenting to such processing is not necessary to perform the contract. Furthermore, separate consent is required for each type of processing operation.

Further guidance will be issued in relation to the GDPR.



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Introduction The purpose of this section is to give you the mechanisms to develop a marketing plan for your business. It focuses on the planning stage, and how to go about developing a robust marketing plan. The aim of this section is to help you to identify the right set of marketing activities for your business. The key to achieving this is to be crystal clear about the objectives of your marketing efforts.

Once you are very clear on the objectives, you are then guided to identify the right set of activities to implement to help you achieve your objectives. This is covered in detail in the next section, which examines the merits of the various marketing tools available to you.

It may be helpful to read this section in conjunction with A Guide to Developing Business Strategy for Financial Brokers, which was produced by PIBA in 2013. In this guide, we examined the whole area of developing a compelling value proposition, an important driver for your marketing activities.

The Planning ProcessIn order to achieve a robust marketing plan, you need a robust planning process. The diagram below sets out a process to be used, the aim of which is to stop you from simply diving in and starting to deliver marketing activities! The key to a successful marketing plan is gaining clarity of the objectives of the plan. Once you know what it is that you want to achieve, then you can identify the right set of marketing tools to be used by your Financial Brokerage.

The above graphic captures the marketing planning process. For the remainder of this section we will explore the

• Research phase • Market positioning • Business changes.

From these three preliminary phases, you should be in a position to set down clear objectives for your marketing plan.

Developing yourMarketing Plan

RESEARCHPHASE

MARKETINGTOOL

CLEAROBJECTIVES

MARKETPOSITIONING

COSTPRIORITIESMEASURES

BUSINESSCHANGES

DEVELOPA PLAN

• Choose your events carefully – go where your

target market congregate

• Never sell –your aim is to build relationships

• Ask lots of questions,be interested in the people you meet

• Practice a 20 second elevator pitchabout what you do

• Follow up by email / social media

5 TIPSFOR BETTER

NETWORKING



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The Research PhaseCentral to the development of a successful marketing plan is ensuring that it takes account of the wider market circumstances, the attributes of your particular business, and indeed the business objectives and target audiences of your business. The research phase is crucial as it provides a firm foundation for the marketing plan and ensures that the plan is based on carefully considered reality, rather than gut feeling. You should probably allow 3–4 hours without distractions to complete this properly. To achieve the desired results, the following four areas should be examined:

1. Medium-Term ObjectivesThe first step in the research phase is to articulate and write down what the medium-term objective of your business is, over a 3–5 year time frame. This is important as, first of all, it gets you thinking about where you want your business to be in the future – in fact most Financial Brokers complete this stage quite quickly as they intuitively know where they want their business to be! This goal also becomes an important sanity check for the marketing objectives, to ensure that they are relevant.

This goal should be very clear and unambiguous. To achieve this, make sure it is a SMART goal:

• Specific – What is it that you want to achieve? Is it a number of clients, income levels or geographical reach? • Measurable – What is the actual figure that you want to achieve? • Attainable – Make sure the goal is achievable! While it should it be stretching, a completely unrealistic goal will end up being ignored. • Relevant – This goal is the future of your business! Make sure that the goal truly reflects where you want your business to be in the future. • Time-Bound – Have a clear date by when the goal should be achieved. This will ensure a real focus for everyone working towards the goal.

2. The External EnvironmentThe next part of the research phase is to understand what’s going on outside of your business and the impact of these events on your business. There are a lot of factors impacting your business over which you have little or no control. However, ignore these factors at your peril, as you could miss some golden opportunities. Indeed, on the other hand, failing to prepare for (say) legislative changes could seriously impact your business. To examine these external impacts on your business, an often-used tool is ‘PEST Analysis’, which enables you to examine external impacts on your business (over which you have little or no control) across the four dimensions of:

How each of these dimensions might affect the world of a Financial Broker is covered on pages 7 and 8 of A Guide to Developing Business Strategy for Financial Brokers.

MEDIUMTERM

OBJECTIVES

BUSINESSPROFILE

RESEARCHPHASE

YOURTARGET

MARKETS

EXTERNALENVIRONMENT

POLITICAL ECONOMIC

SOCIAL TECHNOLOGICAL



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3. YourBusinessProfileThis is a critically important part of the research phase: identifying the particular attributes of your business and what makes you different from the other Financial Brokers or companies that you’re competing with. To achieve this, you should complete a SWOT analysis that looks at your particular business in terms of:

The Strengths and Weaknesses will typically be factors that are internal to your business, while the Opportunities and Threats will typically relate more to factors specific to your business but in the external marketplace. This is covered on page 9 of A Guide to Developing Business Strategy for Financial Brokers.

4. Target MarketsThe final stage of the research phase is to identify the customer groups that you want to reach through your marketing plan. The target audiences of most Financial Brokers will consist of existing customers, new customers and introducers – the effort needed here is to identify the particular segments within each of these groups that you are going to target with your marketing efforts. This is covered in detail on pages 10 and 11 of A Guide to Developing Business Strategy for Financial Brokers.

This is the research phase completed! Assuming this has been done properly, you will now be in a position to move forward through the planning process, confident in the knowledge that all relevant factors have been considered.

Market Positioning and Business Changes While these two areas are closely linked, they are best looked at one at a time.

1. Market Positioning “Positioning is not what you do to a product; it is what you do to the mind of a prospect.”Reference: “Positioning: The battle for your mind” - Ries and Trout (1972),

Does this apply to Financial Brokers? Absolutely. It is vitally important that you are crystal clear on what your market positioning is / will be. You then need to ensure that everyone associated with your business delivers in line with this positioning, every single time. Again, refer to page 11 of A Guide to Developing Business Strategy for Financial Brokers for insights into developing your positioning, as this will be an important guiding light as you develop your marketing activities.

Your positioning must be credible and deliverable, not simply an aspiration. There is no point in having a positioning that you cannot deliver – this will just result in over-promising but under-delivering. What are potential positioning areas for Financial Brokers? They could include the likes of:

• Expertise in certain product lines, customer segments, areas of the market • Provision of a local service in a geographical area, being accessible to customers • A superior service proposition / quality of advice • A particular cost proposition / remuneration structure.

Your positioning statement should then be captured in a few simple sentences. It should be a galvanising statement that succinctly describes your business and that is credible to clients. But remember – your positioning is as strong as the weakest link in the delivery chain. Everyone throughout your business must buy into it or else they will potentially undermine your positioning.

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS



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2. Business ChangesAs you complete your marketing planning and in particular identify your desired market positioning, some issues or challenges may be brought to the surface that won’t be addressed by the marketing plan. It is important to capture these, and ensure that they are addressed elsewhere in your business, to ensure that these broader business issues don’t undermine your desired positioning.

Examples of broader business issues that may need to be addressed include:

• If your positioning is based on Expertise: Are all of your customer facing staff experts in their fields? Are there training plans that need to be implemented? • If your positioning is based on Professionalism: Is the client experience one of a professional environment and experience at every touch point with your business? • If your positioning is based on Service Quality: Do your clients actually experience excellent service? Is there further work needed on your business processes?

Clarifying your Marketing Objectives (and Activities)Having completed your research phase and having identified your market positioning, you are now in a position to identify your all-important marketing objectives. If you’ve been rigorous to this point, typically you will find that the objectives for your marketing activities simply fall out of the work completed and are staring you in the face! However now we’ll look at some typical marketing objectives for Financial Brokers.

These are the six most common objectives, with the ones highlighted being the three most common in the current market environment. Set out below is a quick overview of each.

• Brand Building: Increasing the general awareness of your business and product offerings among your target market and the wider public. • Drive Sales: Converting prospects from leads into actual sales, including the sales and marketing tools to support this process. This is when you are in front of prospects. • Drive Leads: Increasing the number of prospective clients for your business both from inbound and outbound marketing activities. Getting more people in front of you! • Develop Partner Relationships: Building mutually beneficial relationships with accountants, solicitors and general insurance Brokers. • Connect with Existing Clients: Increasing your retention of existing clients and cross-selling opportunities. • Change Market Positioning: Changing the positioning of your business in the eyes of your customers and the wider market. For example, extending your services from product excellence to being recognised as an expert financial planner.

Some of your marketing objectives may be appropriate for only part of your target market. For example, you might have an objective such as: “To implement a client engagement programme for our top 50 clients”.

BRANDBUILDING

DEVELOPPARTNER

RELATIONSHIPS

CHANGEMARKET

POSITIONING

DRIVESALES

CONNECTWITH EXISTING

CLIENTS

DRIVELEADS



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The important task now is to identify the right objectives for your business. While you might think that five or six of them are appropriate for your business, there are undoubtedly one or two (or possibly three) that are much higher priority than the others. Remember that for each objective you will have a number of marketing activities, so identify and focus on the important ones at this stage. As you address them, you can then look at the rest. If you try to address too many objectives, each with a number of marketing activities, you run the risk of being overwhelmed by the task at hand. Narrow your objectives down as much as possible and make your job manageable.

At this stage you should be clear on what you want to achieve under your marketing plan. Identifying the right marketing objectives for your business is really important as it gives you the best chance of delivering the right set of marketing activities to achieve the desired results. You can also be confident that these objectives are based on a solid research platform and the desired positioning of your business. 3.

• Constantly review yourprofile to tighten it up.

Keep it brief and to the point

• Personalise every singleinvitation that you send

• Concentrate on building a networkof quality, not quantity

• Be active – post content, like andshare articles, comment on articles

• Find LinkedIn groupswhere your target market

are members

5 TIPS FORBETTER

LINKEDIN USE



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The Marketing Activities OverviewIf you go back to the planning process for a minute (see the diagram below), you will see that at this stage you have achieved the key task, which is identifying your marketing objectives. The next step is to identify the right set of marketing tools/activities for your chosen objectives.

Below is an overview of the main marketing activities that should be considered under each of the marketing objectives. Following this is an examination of each of the tools in turn.

MARKETING ACTIVITIES

Act

ivity Objectives Build your Brand Drive Leads Drive (Leads into)

SalesBuild Partner Relationships

Connect with Existing Clients

Change Market Positioning

OfflineTools

Advertising ✔ ✔ ✔

Public Relations ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Seminars/Conferences ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Networking ✔ ✔ ✔

Corporate Entertaining ✔

Newsletters ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Corporate Brochures ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Corporate Presentations ✔ ✔ ✔

Product Brochures ✔ ✔

Corporate Social Responsibility ✔ ✔ ✔

Sponsorships ✔

Direct Mail Campaigns ✔ ✔ ✔

Telesales ✔

Customer Surveys ✔

On

line

Tool

s

Website ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Blog ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Social Media ✔ ✔ ✔

Email Marketing ✔ ✔ ✔

Video Marketing ✔ ✔

SEO ✔ ✔

Google AdWords ✔ ✔

Social Media Advertising ✔ ✔

RESEARCHPHASE

MARKETINGTOOL

CLEAROBJECTIVES

MARKETPOSITIONING

COSTPRIORITIESMEASURES

BUSINESSCHANGES

DEVELOPA PLAN



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TheBenefitsandPitfallsofeachOfflineMarketingActivityIn the ‘Marketing Activities Overview’, you can identify the most relevant set of potential activities for each of the objectives that you’ve defined for your marketing plan. You’ll now see set out below some thoughts in relation to each of the offline marketing activities contained in the Activities Overview.

ADVERTISING

Description: Increasing brand recognition and product messages through paid content in media channels including press, radio, TV, outdoor, magazines etc.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Potential to get messages out to a wide audience

• Expensive – can be very!!

• Wide choice of media channels • Difficult to target effectively at the preferred audience – now easier online

• Opportunity to use creative messages • Opportunity for brief messages only

• Opportunity to connect with prospects unknown to the Financial Broker

• Hard to measure the impact

• Very cluttered environment

PUBLIC RELATIONS (PR)

Description: Provides exposure to your audience using topics of public interest and news items that do not require payment to the media provider.

Benefits Pitfalls

• High credibility as viewed as gaining expo-sure based on merits of message alone

• Takes a lot of time to cultivate effective ongoing media relationships

• Can allow lengthy and complex messages to be discussed and explained

• Often a ‘live’ environment – potential for ‘curve balls’ and fewer second chances!

• Highly engaging if communicated well • Choice of right medium is critical

• Can enable ongoing relationships with media (newspapers, radio stations etc.)

• Hard to measure the impact as no direct results

• Opportunity to connect with prospects unknown to the Financial Broker

• Competition – many ambitious Financial Brokers seeking these opportunities!

• Free!



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SEMINARS / CONFERENCES

Description: Inviting your target audience to hear presentations of relevant content as decided by you, delivered by a range of speakers including yourself.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Great opportunity to showcase the capabili-ties of your business

• Can be hard to attract the right audience – content and speakers must be right

• Gain captive time with your target market • If executed poorly, will reflect poorly on your business

• You can select messages that will enhance your business and sales opportunities

• Speaker quality and their message is key – if poor, this will turn off your audience

• Great networking opportunity • Often no direct link to sales

• Potential to introduce new clients to your business

• Can be expensive in time and resources

NETWORKING

Description: Where groups of like-minded businesspeople identify, create, or act upon business op-portunitiesforthebenefitofmembers.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Opportunity to meet groups of people within your target market

• Some people find it hard work

• Opportunity to showcase your business to individuals within the networking groups

• You must find the right groups – not just groups of Financial Brokers!

• Gain captive time with your target market • You’ll fail if you are only looking to ‘take’ from the group. You must ‘give’ too!

• Opportunity to build mutually beneficial relationships with other businesspeople

• You must perfect your market positioning to differentiate yourself from the rest

• Potential to introduce new clients to your business

• Turning your network into clients can be a slow burn



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CORPORATE ENTERTAINING

Description: Thanking existing clients by inviting them to a social occasion, either individually or as part of a wider group.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Opportunity to say thank you to clients • Quality of the event is important – poor qual-ity will reflect poorly on your brand

• Opportunity to learn more about your clients outside of a formal business meeting

• Devil is in the detail – small factors stick in the minds of guests: positive and negative!

• Opportunity to engage the partners and children of clients

• Mix of guests is important

• Opportunity to ‘stick in their minds’ • No direct link to sales

• Can be expensive

NEWSLETTERS

Description: Issuing a regular bulletin of relevant news items in relation to your business, the mar-ket and the products that you sell to clients and prospects.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Great opportunity to remind clients of the wider capabilities of the business

• The content is key. Poor content will reflect very badly on your business

• Opportunity to present the professional face of your business

• You must commit to it. Stopping after one or two issues will undermine your credibility

• Opportunity to push key sales messages • They can be expensive – costs include de-sign, print and postage

• Opportunity to stay in touch and remain on the clients’ radar

• Thinking up and writing relevant content can be time consuming

• Can be used as a showcase of your professionalism with potential business introducers

• Some people perceive them as junk mail



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CORPORATE BROCHURES

Description: Developing a highly visual, top quality brochure that showcases the people, skills and capabilities of your business.

Benefits Pitfalls

• A very professional introduction to your business with prospective clients

• Quality is critical. This is your professional showcase so it must be excellent quality

• A reminder to existing clients of the wider capabilities of the business

• They can be expensive – costs include design and print, and maybe photography

• A showcase of your professionalism with potential business introducers

• May need to be updated as personnel / product set / business focus changes

• A professional ‘take away’ for callers to your office

CORPORATE PRESENTATIONS

Description: Similar to a Corporate Brochure, developing a top quality presentation that introduces your business when presenting to new clients.

Benefits Pitfalls

• A very professional introduction to your advice meetings with new clients

• Again, quality is the critical factor. Done well, corporate presentations are a real asset; done badly, they are a detractor

• A very useful ‘scene setter’ that can help to put clients at ease

• You need to consider your presentation method – paper slides, laptop, iPad?

• Can be easily tailored for different clients

• Can be easily tailored for use with potential business introducers

PRODUCT BROCHURES

Description: Brochuresdevelopedtopromotethefeaturesandbenefitsofparticularproductlines.The Financial Broker brochures demonstrate a full range of product brochures.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Will help to promote a particular product line with prospective clients

• They can date quite quickly as legislation, tax rates etc. change

• Very useful as background information on a product line for clients

• They can be time consuming and costly to produce

• Will demonstrate professionalism in your approach: better than a handful of fliers!

• It is important to get the balance right between overly technical (difficult to read) and overly simple (not informative enough)

• A strong asset to a wider product sales campaign



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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR)

Description: Delivering a positive impact through your business on the environment, consumers, employees, community or charities.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Paints a very positive picture of your business among a wide audience

• No direct link to sales

• Can build a strong spirit among employees and staff through engagement in the CSR initiative

• May have a cost in terms of time or money, depending on the initiative

• May attract new clients who prefer dealing with socially responsible brands

• Important to associate your brand with the right initiative / charity

• Can yield positive PR benefits

SPONSORSHIPS

Description: A fee paid (typically in sports, arts, entertainment or causes) in return for access to the commercial potential associated with the body / event.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Will give you exposure to participants / supporters of the sponsored event / team

• No direct link to sales – can be hard to measure the benefits of sponsorships

• Will be seen by a wider audience through promotion of the event / team

• Can be very expensive

• Can yield corporate entertaining opportunities with key clients and employees

• Important to associate your brand with the right initiative / charity

• Can yield positive PR benefits • Important to leverage every opportunity presented by the sponsorship – it will be up to you to do so!

DIRECT MAIL CAMPAIGNS

Description: Contacting clients or prospective clients directly by mail / email to promote a particular product or service

Benefits Pitfalls

• Very focused on a particular product line • Quality is key: poor quality will be seen as junk mail / spam and will detract from your business

• Will engage all salespeople as the catalyst for a push on a particular product

• Rigorous follow-up must happen

• The message will arrive as you desire it to be received

• Can be costly, particularly for offline campaigns

• Very measurable in terms of response rates



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TELESALES

Description: Where an agent solicits potential customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face-to-face appointment scheduled during the call.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Can be a good source of lead generation • You are outsourcing so risk poor representation of your brand

• You have complete control of the message / products to be promoted

• Leads generated can be poor quality, resulting in wasted time and money

• Different scripts / approaches can be tested to optimise the chances of success

• To improve the chances of success, you need to engage and test different scripts etc.

• Very measurable results

CUSTOMER SURVEYS

Description: Inviting a group of contacts to participate individually in a survey to enable you to presentbackfindingsinrelationtothegroupasawhole.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Can yield important information about your clients and their thinking

• Poorly prepared surveys will annoy participants and result in low participation

• They offer a great opportunity to engage your clients with the findings

• Doing the survey is not enough – you must present back the findings for full impact

• Can provide very useful material for seminars / conferences

• Can be expensive to see the full process through

• They provide excellent PR opportunities

• Use proper emailmarketing software that

provides useful analytics andnice templates

• Use a content schedule to ensure you consistently deliver

• Focus on short, quality contentrather than long rambling pieces

• Build your email list rigorouslyas you meet new people

• Use the analytics availableto identify the content desired

by your audience

5 TIPS FORBETTER EMAIL

MARKETING



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Online / Digital MarketingOnline marketing is now a core element of every Financial Broker’s marketing approach. As Internet usage continues to grow in Ireland and becomes an everyday part of life, the importance of digital marketing likewise grows.

According to Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures released in December 2016, 89% of households now have Internet access, with 82% of individuals regularly using the Internet. While email is still the most common activity being carried out (83% of users), this is now closely followed by search activities (82%), social media (70%) and Internet banking (64%).

One of the other main drivers of Internet growth is the ability to access it by smart devices such as mobile phones. Today 83% of individuals who access the Internet do so using a smartphone. This figure jumps to 96% for individuals aged 16–29 years of age, giving a sense of the importance of a strong mobile presence in reaching clients of the future.

Against the backdrop of these figures, having a website that effectively communicates a Financial Broker’s capabilities and strengths is no longer optional. With so many people using the Internet for research purposes, it is simply imperative to have a strong online presence in order to demonstrate the credibility of your business.

A website offers a window into your business and allows a potential client to get a feel for the strengths of your business; and for the suitability of your business to meet their needs.

Social media use in IrelandSocial media usage in Ireland also continues to grow, and now plays a core marketing role for many Financial Brokers today.

Source: Ipsos MRBI: Social Networking Tracker – Jan 2017

Many Financial Brokers are very active on LinkedIn, some have built up significant Twitter followings, and others use Facebook to target potential customers. This growing use of social media by Financial Brokers mirrors the growth of social media usage in Ireland today. The growth of LinkedIn usage in particular is important for Financial Brokers, as they seek to engage with business owners and professionals, who are often active users of LinkedIn.

DATA TREND SOCIAL NETWORKING ACCOUNT OWNERS IN IRELAND - FEB 2015 - JAN 2017

Source: Ipsos MRBI: Social Networking Tracker – Jan 2017

63%

FACEBOOK

60% 59%63% 64% 64%

67%64%

24%

FEB 15

LINKEDIN

24%

MAY 15

23%

AUG 15

28%

JAN 16

25%

APR 16

27%

JUL 16

28%

OCT 16

29%

JAN 17

FEB 15 MAY 15 AUG 15 JAN 16 APR 16 JUL 16 OCT 16 JAN 17

28%

TWITTER

26% 28%31% 29%

26% 25%29%

22%

FEB 15

GOOGLE+

26%

MAY 15

21%

AUG 15

25%

JAN 16

27%

APR 16

26%

JUL 16

27%

OCT 16

26%

JAN 17


63%

FACEBOOK

60% 59%63% 64% 64%

67%64%

24%

FEB 15

LINKEDIN

24%

MAY 15

23%

AUG 15

28%

JAN 16

25%

APR 16

27%

JUL 16

28%

OCT 16

29%

JAN 17


28%

TWITTER

26% 28%31% 29%

26% 25%29%

22%

FEB 15

GOOGLE+

26%

MAY 15

21%

AUG 15

25%

JAN 16

27%

APR 16

26%

JUL 16

27%

OCT 16

26%

JAN 17




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It is also worth considering the different types of online media – owned, earned and paid – and some of the characteristics of these particular classifications.

Media Definition Examples Use Pros Cons

Owned Business has 100% control of content, and partial ownership of social platforms

Website NewsBlogFacebookTwitter LinkedIne-newsletter

Engagement. Communication. Relationships.To get earned media

Targeted.Segmented Timing.You “own The message”

BiasedNot seen as independentTime building Volume Content quality


Earned The customer is creating the media for you

ForumsBlogFacebookTwitter LinkedIn

Positive earned media means customers will share with target market

Respond, manage and answer negative earned media

Most valuedBelievableTrustedTransparentBest route to sales

Lack of control Public forms an opinionVolume is challenging to achieve. e.g. Facebook fansCan be negative feedback


Paid Paying to influence consumer behaviour and improve results

AdWordsBanner AdsSponsorship

Different from ‘owned’ media as it is instant and doesn’t need quality or volume

Meets consumer demandImmediate. VolumeControlMatrixes are easily measured

Crowded market.CredibilityVolume is expensive Usually needs high quality ‘owned’ media to back it up, e.g. directs traffic to the website

TheBenefitsandPitfallsofeachOnlineMarketingActivityIn the ‘Marketing Activities Overview’, you can identify the most relevant set of potential activities for each of the objectives that you have defined for your marketing plan. You will now see set out below some thoughts in relation to each of the online marketing activities contained in the Activities Overview.

WEBSITE

Description: The online ‘shop window’ of your Financial Broker business, promoting your services and products, and the hub of your online activities.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Opportunity to showcase your business online

• Website must be easy to use – if not, the user will leave the site

• Presents a credible and professional view • Content approach must be properly thought out – it must engage the user

• Consumers comfortable researching businesses online

• Incorrect or out of date information damages your business image

• Opportunity to be found by prospective clients

• Badly written content damages your image



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BLOG

Description: A section within your website or a standalone digital asset that enables you to demon-strateexpertiseandfinancialleadershiptoclientsandprospects.

Benefits Pitfalls

• A great tool to regularly deliver your opinions and expertise

• Once you start, you need to keep going! Important to have a plan

• Enables you to stay in front of prospects and clients who subscribe to your blog or visit your website

• You need to constantly be thinking about interesting topics to write about

• Adds fresh content to your website – important for SEO purposes

• You need to commit the time required to deliver interesting and thought-provoking content

• No cost once set up

SOCIAL MEDIA

Description: Connecting and engaging with clients and prospects – for Financial Brokers, this is mainly through LinkedIn and Twitter.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Opportunity to draw in / build closer links with existing / prospective clients

• Incomplete or badly written profiles paint an unprofessional picture

• Great opportunity to regularly stay in front of clients and prospects

• Inappropriate use of these channels will damage your personal / business brand

• An additional channel to regularly deliver your opinions and expertise

• Care needs to be taken in topics shared – you don’t want to go viral on a negative topic!

• No cost • This is not a channel for sales messages



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EMAIL MARKETING

Description: Communication with clients and prospects via email to deliver insights, build engage-mentandhighlightfinancialopportunities.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Great opportunity to get in front of clients and other subscribers via a channel they use every day

• Sales messages should be used very sparingly, otherwise you risk annoying clients. Content should primarily inform / educate.

• Great opportunity to demonstrate expertise • Care must be taken with writing – the quality will reflect on your business.

• Very low cost in comparison to similar offline activities

• Careful consideration to be taken in relation to data protection

• Excellent analytics available – you can see who is engaging with your content

VIDEO MARKETING

Description: Placing video messages on digital channels: websites, email newsletters, blogs, stand-alone YouTube channel.

Benefits Pitfalls

• A great tool to engage people who prefer visual messages

• A lot of care needs to be taken with the script to make it engaging

• Good opportunity to highlight key messages, with statistics / graphs etc.

• Unless the videos are very regularly updated, production values are important

• Opportunity to introduce key people in the business to clients

• Good for SEO purposes

• Keep the video short.2 minutes is too long

• Allow 3 words per second when developing the script –

max. 300 - 350 words

• If the video will sit on your website, ensure high production values

• Keep the language and messages simple and conversational

• Be careful with humour – it needs to be very good

to work!

5 TIPSFOR BETTER

VIDEOS



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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO)

Description: Engaging with a specialist to increase your ranking in Google organic search results for key terms associated with your business.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Google organic search results carry a lot of credibility and will drive traffic to your website

• Needs specialist support

• Once initial work is done, SEO is a low monetary cost method of driving website traffic: it takes time instead

• Takes a lot of time - a key driver of results is new fresh content and social activity

• SEO is a culmination of a number of channels working well together – website, social media etc.

• Requires an investment of time and money before results are seen

• Effort must equally be made to drive clicks on your website to your ‘Calls to Action’

GOOGLE ADWORDS

Description: Advertising that appears above Google organic search results for key terms associated withyourbusiness,drivingtraffictoyourwebsite.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Very targeted advertising – you are appearing as the user searches on Google for your particular keyword term

• The ads don’t carry as much credibility as the organic search results

• Huge flexibility of campaigns – they can be quickly turned on / off, ads changed, keywords changed, budget managed etc.

• Auction prices can be high for particularly attractive keywords

• Excellent analytics to measure success • Effort must equally be made to drive clicks on your website to your ‘Calls to Action’

SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

Description: Increasing brand recognition and product messages through paid content that is placed within or around a user’s social media news feed.

Benefits Pitfalls

• Potential to get a range of very creative messages out to a wide audience

• Creativity values must be high – otherwise the ads could simply annoy users

• Opportunity to carry out very targeted advertising

• Must be rolled out alongside clear ‘Calls to Action’ to drive actual results

• Very flexible and easily adapted campaignsExcellent analytics available



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Finalising the PlanHopefully at this stage you have identified the activities that you want to deliver under your marketing plan. You have considered the benefits and pitfalls of each and have picked the activities that best fit your chosen marketing objectives. These objectives were built on your market positioning, which in turn was developed as a result of the rigorous research exercise you carried out at the beginning.

Now you just need to capture and write down the plan. It’s not enough to simply capture a list of activities to be delivered; a final piece of work needs to be completed. For each activity, you need to capture the following:

1. Priority You first of all need to decide which are the most critical activities to deliver above all others. They may not be the

most urgent activities, but over the lifetime of your plan (probably 12–18 months), they are the most important. These ones must happen!

2. Estimated Cost You need to estimate the cost of each activity, as all Financial Brokers have a limited marketing available budget. This

might take some ‘ringing around’! You then need to compare the likely cost of the activities with your available bidget. Often there will be a shortfall, and this is where choices must be made. Obviously your high priority activities should remain on the plan. You then need to look at the rest and choose whether to ‘water down’ the activities under each of your marketing objectives or, indeed, remove one of the marketing objectives for the lifetime of this plan.

You should also consider the cost in terms of the time required to deliver the activities. Will you have this time? If not, you will need to budget for outsourcing this work.

3. Delivery Date When is the actual activity to be delivered? If it is a long project, it might also be worth capturing when you will start

working on the activity, and some interim milestones. This is really important, as it will keep you focused on the activity.

Some tips? Put in an actual date, not just a month (or, worse still, “Quarter 4”)! Also, make sure that these dates are in your calendar or to-do list.

4. Delivery Responsibility Who is actually going to take responsibility for delivery of the activity? This must be one person’s name! There needs

to be a single owner for each activity to make sure it gets delivered. Shared responsibility creates ambiguity and things start falling through cracks.

5. Measure of Success The most important point is kept until the end: what gets measured gets done. If you don’t set target outcomes for

each of your marketing activities and then track the results against those targets, how will you know whether it was successful and if it should be repeated in the future?

This is where marketing gets a really bad name! As John Wanamaker, considered the father of both the modern department store and modern advertising, said:

“IHalf the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

It’s not always possible to link your marketing activities back to sales, but there are a wide range of other targets and metrics that you can use to measure the success or otherwise of each of the activities that you’ve chosen. These include measures such as:

• New client numbers • Levels of cross sales • Customer satisfaction measures • Website traffic • Online presence • Delivery of plan.

If you include each of your chosen activities and complete the five steps above for each, you now have a very robust marketing plan.



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Introduction The purpose of these case studies is to demonstrate some practical examples of structured marketing approaches that have been successfully implemented by Financial Brokers. Each case study focuses on a different marketing objective as follows:

1. To turn more prospects into clients by developing a brilliant first meeting 2. To build an effective communication programme for existing and prospective clients to drive long-term relationships 3. To develop a robust introducers proposition.

Case Study 1 - Toturnmoreprospectsintoclientsbydevelopingabrilliantfirstmeeting

The BackgroundIn this particular case, the Financial Broker is already running a successful business. He has a relatively small client base of approximately. 100 clients, most of whom would be reasonably high value. He has a well-developed advice process, with future cashflow modelling as an important part of his financial planning approach with some clients (where it is appropriate).

In general, he offers an excellent service to his clients throughout the lifetime of his relationship with them; with robust financial planning, a well honed financial / product advice approach, and an excellent ongoing service and review offering.

This adviser is remunerated mainly by upfront commission from providers, with a trail attached to assets under management. However, with some clients he operates on a fee basis instead. Because of the quality of his approach, once he gets a client he tends to hang on to them, and he has suffered very little client leakage.

However, this Financial Broker has capacity to deal with more clients. His challenge was to communicate effectively the quality of his approach to prospective clients, and turn more of these prospects into actual clients.

The Solutions1. Referrals In examining this issue, we looked at it from a number of different viewpoints. We started by looking at the profile of

his prospects and where they came from. The main observation here that it became obvious we needed to address was that he was meeting a very low number of referred clients, particularly in light of the quality of this approach. This Financial Broker was “simply not comfortable” asking for referrals. We addressed this by identifying and implementing a few changes to his approach:

• Building in a structured method to actively ask for referrals, at a point in the relationship when the client experienced significant value. This is usually immediately after the financial planning stage and when any financial solutions have been identified. We role-played these conversations. The Financial Broker now recognises that clients are very comfortable being asked for referrals when they believe the referred person will also experience value.

Case Studies



Page 34

• To help existing clients identify potential candidates to refer, we then spent time looking at the online networks of the clients that the Financial Broker was connected to on LinkedIn. This enabled the Financial Broker to actually suggest names of contacts to the client, and where the client felt that the person might be a suitable referral, the initial introduction was carried out via the client, but using LinkedIn. This is a very business like approach, with the added benefit being that where no meeting ensues, the Financial Broker now has a new channel through which to keep the prospect aware of his potential value.

2. Website review We then re-wrote some of the content on the Financial Broker’s website. The content was very old and very product

and sales focused, and gave no sense whatsoever of the value offered by the Financial Broker. The Financial Broker added a section on financial planning, and the content on the website is more focused on the planning / advice proposition now, rather than on the products that will ultimately follow.

This was a very important step, as inevitably most clients will research the Financial Broker before coming to that all-important first meeting.

3. The Meeting Approach This really was the nub of the issue. When probed, it became very clear that the Financial Broker was failing in one

of two ways with most prospects. With some prospects, he was having lots of nice chats about what he does, but in reality the client was leaving none the wiser about the real difference this Financial Broker could make to his life. With others, the Financial Broker was too eager to get into the detail of the fact find and start solving problems. This came across as trying to get to the money, rather than really understanding the client’s situation.

To address this, we focused on three main areas, with the aim of demonstrating the incredible worth of the Financial Broker to these prospects in this initial meeting. A mix of preparing new material and role-plays achieved this:

• The right way – every time: This Financial Broker had no process, hence the chats or diving into the detail. We developed a process for the meeting from the moment the client walks through the door. The purpose of this was to build trust and demonstrate professionalism. This process is now used in every meeting.

• Find out what the client wants: This is not a fact find. This is finding out the goals, financial objectives and dreams of the client. This is what makes it meaningful to the client. This is what keeps them awake at night and it’s nothing to do with product (in their mind). Clients worry about questions such as: Will they run out of money? When can they retire? Can they plan to live abroad for four months of the year when they retire? By getting the client to start talking about these types of questions, the bond between the Financial Broker and the prospect is strengthened, as it’s all about the client. After many role-plays, this Financial Broker is now an expert at asking open questions to get prospects talking about their financial concerns, hopes and dreams!

• Cement trust with transparency: We then developed a very engaging (and short) presentation that focused on a few key messages that the Financial Broker needed to communicate. He has this presentation on his iPad and uses it over cups of coffee, in his office etc. The purpose of this is to demonstrate a well thought out approach to prospects when, after talking about themselves for a while, they inevitably ask the Financial Broker, ”Tell me what you do”. Now is not the time for a chat. This presentation covers:

- The advice process: Each of the steps the adviser will go through with the client, developed out as a visual picture.

- The Financial Broker’s business: How long in business, experience, provider partnerships, qualifications, Brokers Ireland membership etc.

- The Financial Broker’s differentiators: Looked at from a client benefit perspective – articulating the value sought by clients and how his approach delivers this value.

- The commercial arrangements: The Financial Broker discusses openly how he gets paid. While this might appear unexpected, prospects know you need to get paid. If they see the value they will garner, they are comfortable to have this conversation. A number of clients have in fact commented favourably about the transparency of this approach.



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Since this work has commenced, the Financial Broker has seen a significant increase in his conversion rate from prospect to client. Much of this is down to new-found confidence: some of it is down to these marketing activities being carried out.

Case Study 2 - Tobuildaneffectivecommunicationprogrammeforexistingandprospectiveclientstodrivelong-termrelationships

The BackgroundIn this particular case, the Financial Broker has been in business for over 15 years and has built up a large life and pensions business. He has one other person working with him in an administrative capacity.

He has a large client base of approximately 800 clients (he thinks). However, when pushed, he reckoned that he only knew somewhere in the region of 120–150 of them well. The rest of the clients were one-off transactions in the past, and over the years these clients have been falling by the wayside.

He has an excellent presence in a large town in Leinster, is well known around the town, and is well established. However, he felt challenged by three main areas:

• His 120–150 top clients were those he knows well, not necessarily his high value clients. They got the best service.

• The ‘best service’ was a once / twice a year review meeting and a good reactive service when clients called. There was no more proactivity. He felt threatened by some highly proactive advisers who were now drawing some of these clients away.

• The remainder of the clients were pretty much forgotten apart from an annual letter, except on a reactionary basis when they rang the office. In here there were probably some nuggets: some amazing cross-selling opportunities that the Financial Broker was not aware of.

The challenge was identified as building a moat around the clients as much as possible. Even though he could not service 800 clients effectively himself, there was no appetite to hire another salesperson.

The SolutionsThe first point for the Financial Broker to take on board was that there was no quick fix to this issue. For the bulk of the clients, the Financial Broker was no longer on their radar: in many cases they had another adviser now or simply were not aware of the breadth of areas covered by the Financial Broker. So there needed to be a gentle creation of awareness of the Financial Broker’s potential role in the eyes of clients.

However, first of all the Financial Broker needed to understand who his top clients actually were. To do this, he needed to segment his clients – this was covered in detail on pages 10 and 11 of A Guide to Developing Business Strategy for Financial Brokers. This helped him identify who his best clients actually were: not the ones he was most friendly with! When this exercise was complete, it became clear that there were approximately 75 clients who were of significant value to his business, and that the loss of these would have a material impact.

We then set about putting in place the following:

1. A client brochure This was developed with a number of purposes in mind – to be given to new clients, and given to an accountant who

refers business: but also to be sent out at annual review stage to all existing clients. It is a short brochure, but of high quality to create the right impression. The impact of this is hard to measure in that it relies upon feedback. However at a minimum, it let all clients know of the breadth of services on offer and it certainly directly resulted in some phone calls to the office.



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2. An email newsletter This was a breakthrough activity. It began with the administrator taking on the task of building up the email list by

ringing clients. They now have more than 500 email addresses for clients – at the start they had only about 200. Every phone call / meeting finishes now with “Can I check we have the right email address for you?”

The Financial Broker now sends out a bi-monthly newsletter with general topics in relation to personal finance. It’s not a selling tool: instead it is an education / awareness building tool. In fact, after running with this for a few issues, this Financial Broker also bought into the benefits offered by LinkedIn to reach new audiences with this content. The success of these tools has been obvious to him through examination of the analytics available.

3. Top Clients Programme Once the Financial Broker identified the value of the top 75 clients, he undertook to lock them into his business by

using a mix of networking and marketing tools.

• Preferred client offering: He developed a commitment to these clients, which he captured in a formal document. This included agreed formal reviews each year, the communications mentioned above, and access to the seminar programme (see below).

• He did the legwork: He then made a point of getting out and meeting these clients. Some he knew well, some he didn’t. A small number of the latter weren’t interested; in fact one asked where he’d been over the last few years. But a number of them welcomed his approach and in fact he has done three significant financial reviews that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and each has resulted in new business (one very substantial piece).

• Seminar programme: This started out as two lunchtime seminars per year for local business clients. They were held in the office, with about 30 clients invited to each. The aim was for it to take one hour in total – 20 minutes for soup, sandwiches and coffee, followed by a short presentation that the Financial Broker ‘topped and tailed’. One presentation was by a representative from a fund provider: the other by a tax consultant whose message was about the benefits of getting a Financial Broker and tax adviser collaborating on a client’s behalf.

These seminars were extremely successful. It got clients into the office, a number of clients spoke about the networking benefits for themselves, and a few suggested areas of interest for future sessions. As a result, the Financial Broker organised a bigger evening seminar for 60 clients, with each client bringing a guest. It ended up with over 85 attendees hearing presentations by an economist, a fund provider and a local, successful entrepreneur. More importantly, the Financial Broker got five new clients out of it, more than paying for all his marketing activities over the year. The seminar also got great coverage in the local media. His clients, and the wider town, have a clearer view of the value he brings and the services he offers.

Case Study 3 - To develop a robust introducers proposition

The BackgroundThis was a situation where a Financial Broker, based in Munster, who specialises in pensions and investments, has found the going quite tough in recent years. While he hasn’t lost much business and his Assets under Management have performed quite well in line with markets over recent years, he has seen a significant fall off in new clients and new money into funds from existing clients. He has a significant proportion of his AUM on trail commission; however he is still reliant on bringing new assets in the door.

A new opportunity opened up to him where a contact of his in a medium-sized accountancy firm referred a client to him. two more followed over the course of that year, each dealt with efficiently and effectively.

The challenge that was posed was how to spread his reach within the accountancy firm beyond his contact, and gain the trust of the other accountancy partners so that they would also refer their clients to him.



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The SolutionsWe approached this from two angles: primarily how the Financial Broker could demonstrate his own skills and expertise to gain credibility with the other partners and then, as a secondary aim, how he could add value to those partners in their own roles.

1. Gaining credibility This particular Financial Broker is already well set up generally in relation to communications. As part of this, he has

a fit for purpose website, a regular client newsletter, and an excellent professional profile on LinkedIn. These were among the tools used as follows:

• Gaining introductions to other partners: This was the first step and was implemented predominantly through meetings arranged by the Financial Broker’s contact. Where this wasn’t possible (or advised by the contact), introductions were made using the “Get Introduced” functionality in LinkedIn. This enabled the Financial Broker to build a relationship (albeit more distant than he would have liked) with these other partners.

• Added to communication programme: The Financial Broker then ensured that all of the content that he shares, demonstrating his expertise, now went to these new contacts. The contacts were added to his newsletter (he sought permission to do so through LinkedIn) and he also shared the content into their LinkedIn update streams.

• 2+2=5 presentations: This was how we referred to these! This was a short presentation, for use at the initial meeting with the partners. The presentation focused very much on the role of the accountant and how the Financial Broker could assist them in their own role. However, each presentation was also personalised to the role of the particular partner’s area of specialism – for example the presentation to the tax partner focused on pension reliefs, tax efficient protection products and other tax angles that the Financial Broker could bring to the table. This was important, and was remarked upon by a number of the partners, not only for the effort put in, but also for the knowledge of their roles!

• Case studies: The Financial Broker also prepared a number of case studies of innovative solutions that he had implemented and that he knew were relevant to challenges that would typically be faced by an accountant.

• Briefings for partners: The Financial Broker has also kept the accountants briefed on issues within the life and pensions industry that they need to remain aware of, but may not be that knowledgeable about. The most recent briefing was in relation to the proposed amendments to the priority orders on the wind up of Defined Benefit schemes.

2. Add value to partners This was harder! How could we actually add value to these partners? We came up with two activities as follows:

• Guest posts in newsletters: The Financial Broker offered the partners in the accountancy firm the opportunity to include guest posts in his newsletter. This ended up delivering the great result of one of the accountants securing a new client on the back of this, which of course became a great story to tell the other partners.

• Joint client events: The Financial Broker has held a budget briefing in conjunction with the accountancy firm, which they each invited clients. This of course opened up opportunities for both the Financial Broker and the accountants to secure new clients.

The results overall have been promising. Some of the accountancy partners have not engaged at all with the Financial Brokers; some have engaged but without any results. However, three partners have now referred business to the Financial Broker.



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The purpose of this guide was to assist you in every aspect of your marketing efforts. We hope that it gives you the guidance and tools to implement your marketing activities effectively.

The guide sets out some of the areas that are critical to the success of a concerted marketing drive. It identifies the factors to be considered in getting the best CRM system in place to help you capture and use all the information available to you about your prospects and customers. It covers the important data areas to support your marketing activities and reminds you of some important housekeeping tasks to be carried out. Finally, it gives you some direction to implementing an effective content marketing approach.

The next section covers the all-important compliance considerations that are so crucial in ensuring that your marketing activities are carried out responsibly and in line with your legal obligations.

The next section gives you a step-by-step approach to use in planning your marketing activities. This gives you a road map to help you develop a plan that is effective and capable of implementation. This is followed by a section that considers the merits of each of the activities (or tools) available for your use under the two main categories of activities: offline and digital marketing.

Finally, three case studies have been included to demonstrate the practical application of the earlier sections within this guide.

We hope you can use this guide to develop effective and rewarding marketing approaches for your Financial Broker business.

Summary



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Financial Broker is a Brokers Ireland initiative for all Financial Brokers

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www.financialbroker.ie

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One – Uniﬁed Voice The Financial Broker Guide to Marketing ... · -Case Study 3 - To develop a robust introducers proposition 43 Summary 45. Financial Broker The inancia roer