Category Archives: Marketing 101
Positioning: Are You Top of Mind?
Mindshare is the level of awareness of you and your firm in the mind of a prospective client. It’s important you build mindshare in your chosen markets so that your firm is top of mind when a prospective client is ready to take action. In their classic marketing book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind,…
Zero Marketing is Not An Option
You know you need to market yourself and your business. You also know you need to do it consistently, to drive growth. The problem is you’re not quite sure how to do it. With so many options, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and do next to nothing. The reality, however, is you need to do…
Stop Selling Products and Start Sharing Your Ideas
Small minds, discuss people, average minds, discuss events, but great minds discuss ideas – Socrates When selling, average producers discuss products. Top professionals share ideas. ‘Idea’ is a powerful word. It’s a clean four-letter word that can be applied to any product or service. No matter what you’re offering, you can connect it to an…
How to Create a Proprietary Marketing Network
If you’re struggling to produce solid organic growth every year, consider creating your own proprietary marketing network. Financial services marketing falls into three categories: One-dimensional traditional marketing. The focus is on short-term tactics for client acquisition Two-dimensional relationship marketing. The focus is on client retention, achieved by building long-term relationships Three-dimensional proprietary marketing. The focus…
Marketing vs. Prospecting
Did you know that for a shark to breathe, it must keep moving? This movement forces water through its gills; if it stops, it drowns. The same is true for your marketing program. It must remain active; if it stops for any length of time, it loses its strength. I often see professionals experience difficulties…
Is Your Marketing Division Effective?
In my experience working with many financial services professionals and businesses, I have found most have access to a good product division (their insurance, banking and finance offering), good compliance division, good service division, but a non-existent marketing division. One of the reasons the marketplace seems so crowded is that most professionals have not differentiated….
Are Your Marketing Materials Client-Centric?
‘Knowledge workers’ are those who think for a living. The term was first coined by Peter Drucker. He defined knowledge workers as high-level workers who applied their theoretical and analytical knowledge, acquired through formal training, to solve complex problems or develop new products and services in their fields of expertise. He noted that knowledge workers…
Is Your Marketing Turning Your Business Into a Commodity?
There is no such thing as a commodity. All goods and services are differentiable. —Theodore Levitt I buy my shoes from a family owned specialty men’s shoe store that has been operating in Melbourne for over 60 years. An employee with 16 years of service tells me the business has over 30,000 customers who, on…
9 Pieces Of Marketing Material Every Professional Should Have
The purpose of having marketing materials is to package your expertise, to help sell to a prospective client, and to sell yourself. A growing problem for many financial services professionals is the poor standard of their written marketing materials (including brochures and websites). This makes it difficult for them to differentiate their services and…
3 Secrets of Effective Content Marketing
The Content Marketing Institute has just released a new research report “Content Marketing in Australia 2018: Benchmarks, Budgets and, Trends.” The article entitled: “Beyond the Build What Content Market Australia Must Do Next” provides three important lessons for financial services professionals: 1. Focus on the needs of your audiences. Instead of promoting your products…
