7 Elements Of Marketing You Must Know

Marketing is the life blood of business organisations, which is driven by customers. Marketing is a wide term and it includes all activities which ultimately will result in increasing your brand value and sales. Marketing, thus is not just about advertising or sales but it includes everything from acquisition to maintaining a customer.

The financial advisory / distribution business is one which needs to have a proper marketing plan. It is essential for any advisor to survive and grow in the present competitive market which is fast evolving. As advisors, marketing must be viewed as a must have strategic tool to grow business, and not a nice-to-have frill when you can afford it. If you feel you cannot afford spending much on marketing, perhaps that is exactly what your business needs!

In the financial advisory profession, one has to create a respectful 'image' in the minds of the customers. The customer too should feel that you are a 'premium' advisor who cares and works for them. Starting from client acquisition to client satisfaction, there are immense opportunities for the advisors to engage with the customer and create this brand / image for himself. Effective marketing also gives an opportunity to the advisor to retain, educate and update the client in the rapidly evolving industry. In this article, we are sharing a few essentials, which every advisor must be familiar with:

1. Message: One should be very clear and concise while conveying the idea or information about your product or your practice. The message should be in a format, medium, language, tone and form which is most suitable to your target customer. The message itself should be framed keeping in mind what appeals to the customer.
2. Clarity: You should be well versed with what you are talking about. Information backed by proper data and figures will help you better communicate and convince your clients. Always keep ready information and sales pitch and cases /examples handy when talking to the clients post marketing activity.
3. Storytelling: You can enhance your sales skills by quoting examples or narrating anecdotes of your clients, friends or relatives, who have made enormous returns by investing in mutual funds. Stories always have a better impact than simply reciting statements. However, one would need to be discreet / careful in sharing any confidential information.
4. Timely follow up: After any marketing activity, it is highly recommended that one does a follow up on the same. This will create importance of the message in the customer's mind and would also ensure higher success ratio. In absence of a proper follow up, marketing activities tend to fade away quickly in your customer's mind.
5. Selective: Do not market everything to every client. That would be a foolish strategy. Instead, try to create groups of customers having similar interests /profile and communicate ideas in a targeted manner. Keep a track of what you are marketing to which client. Clients would prefer and respond to communications which are timed / spaced adequately over time and are relevant to them. Do not repeatedly follow up or keep hammering any specific idea to clients.
6. Technology: Thankfully, technology has come to the rescue of the advisor in many ways, including marketing. Automated tools and solutions in CRM and many other modules have made life easy for advisors who are wiling to make use of it. Making technology your partner in marketing is something that every advisor must do to survive and grow in future.
7. Social Media: Having social media and digital presence is ubiquitous – all pervasive in the business today. It is where most of your existing clients are today and it would be wiser for you to use social media effectively to highlight your knowledge, services and also for promotion of new ideas. One has to be careful and alert though in managing social media accounts like Twitter and Facebook. Having a well managed and regularly updated website, is the first step in creating your digital existence.

Apart from the above seven essentials, one also has to ensure that the marketing activities are well directed to achieve something. Here is a list of some of the deliverables or results or benefits which one should aim for in any marketing activity...

• Branding: Creating a superior image / brand about you and your business. Helps create awareness about you and helps you differentiate from others.
• Creating Need: Creating a need /demand for your services and thus creating new clients and/or business opportunities in existing clients. This may include exploring clients for new sales opportunities.
• Communication: Important updates / information to clients on a regular basis to keep him informed. This will include regular operational updates as also business related alerts.
• Education: Helping spread information and awareness to educate clients on products, services, personal finance, etc.
• Seeking Information: Getting feedback /suggestions on your services /offerings or getting data / information from clients needed by you.
• Relationship building: Strengthening relationship with clients by expressing greetings, best wishes, etc. on events, festivals, etc.
• Gratification: Making the client feel happy and to express gratification on your behalf.

Conclusion:
Effective marketing will increasingly become more digital and essential in our industry. There are market forces which will make advisors focus on reducing costs and increasing volumes. On both fronts, effective use of technology will, to a large extent, determine how your business will survive and grow in future. Marketing, especially digital marketing, is slowly finding its way in the core planning equations of your business. The ones who are quick to respond are the ones who are standing in line to success.

About NJ:
We at NJ, are making constant efforts to help you meet your growing and evolving marketing challenges. NJ offers many tools and solutions which can help you do almost all marketing related activities which you can plan in business. Solutions like NJ BizMall, NJ Web Nest, NJ CRM, etc. can help you greatly transform your business. We hope you can explore these services and make full use of same.

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