Susan B. Weiner Investment Writing - Susan B. Weiner Blog

If you’re planning your first webinar, don’t forget to plan for audience participation. People who participate learn more and will give you better evaluations. I first

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learned this when I developed and led custom workshops on “How to Do Business with the Japanese” back in the 1980s. My financial writing workshops have only reinforced this lesson. In this post, I’ll share some practical tips I learned preparing for my first webinar.

1. Ask up front for participation

People won’t make comments or ask questions if you don’t encourage them. Tell people at the beginning of your presentation that you’d like them to participate.

2. Tell your audience where and how to pose questions

It may not be obvious to your audience where they can type in their questions. Tell them where to go. You might even point to it in one of your slides.

3. Ask them questions

Prepare questions to ask your audience early on. This will get them involved. Plus, it will give you a sense of how they’re responding to your material.

You have options.

• Polls are easy for your audience to answer.
• Yes-no questions require only a little typing.
• More complex questions can also work.

4. Don’t expect instantaneous responses by your audience

It takes time for people to input their responses, even when they simply click a button to answer your poll. Don’t get caught off guard by this. Instead, plan some patter to fill the time as you wait.

5. Encourage participation by responding

If you ask for participation, but fail to acknowledge audience participation, your audience will stop responding. Plan to integrate audience responses into your presentation. Answer their questions and mention at least some of their responses to questions you pose. I took this one step further by basing a blog post on some of the responses I received to a question I posed in a webinar.

6. Have a colleague help you

You may find it overwhelming to sort through your audience’s input. So, don’t go it alone. Ask a colleague to view the audience’s questions or answers and feed them to you. I found this very helpful in reducing my stress while I was presenting.

Can YOU add suggestions?

If you can add suggestions for attracting audience participation, please do. I look forward to hearing from you.

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Investment and wealth management executives like to talk about themselves. Who doesn’t? But this hurts their firms when it’s reflected in their marketing.

Photo: World Series Boxing

What financial advisors say about you vs. me–or we

A group of financial professionals helped me test my belief that talking about “you,” the audience, is more powerful than discussing “me”–or, by extension, “we,” the company that’s marketing to you.

Here’s the question I asked participants in “The Power of You: The Secret of Great Blogs that Boost Your Readership”:

Which introduction do you prefer? Introduction #1 focused on you, the audience or Introduction #2 focused on me, Susan. Explain your choice.

Prior to asking the question, I’d introduced my webinar in two ways. In Introduction #1, I’d discussed the benefits my audience would receive from watching my webinar. In Introduction #2, I described my blogging success and other credentials related to the webinar’s topic.

You may wonder how my two introductions relate to you, if you’re a financial advisor, investment manager, or wealth manager. In my experience, many financial websites – and other marketing pieces – use Introduction #2. They are about “we, the firm,” not “you,” the prospective client.

The results? A knockout by “you”

Respondents unanimously preferred the introduction focused on “you.” Here are some of their comments about why they preferred a focus on “you” over a focus on the speaker.

• When you spoke about yourself, I stopped listening
• You connects with me, lets me know whether it’s useful
• I don’t care about you, but I do care about what I can do to be successful
• “I” sounds pompous
• It’s not about the speaker, it’s about meeting the need of the target audience.

What this means for you

When writing marketing materials or client communications for your firm,

1. Use “you” more than “we”
2. Communicate in terms of benefits to your readers more than products, services, or characteristics of your firm
3. After you write something, ask yourself, “Why will my reader care about this?” If it’s not obvious, then delete or re-write.

Which do you prefer for your company – marketing materials that use “you” or “we”? Why?

Please comment on your opinions.

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I found inspiration for a model sales letter in the introduction to “How to Get to the Top and Stay There: 10 Strategies for Developing a Multiplier Mindset,” a free report available from Dan Sullivan of The Strategic Coach.

The formula goes like this:

Paragraph 1: As a [fill-in-the-blank], you are exceptional…

Paragraph 2: Like most other [fill-in-the-blank]s, you know you could go further…

Paragraph 3: How do you transcend the obstacles?…

Paragraph 4: [Fill-in-the-blank] can help.

To read a good example of this formula, register for The Strategic Coach’s free report and read the section called “Why a Multiplier Mindset?”

Sample sales letter

Here’s a letter following the model. It’s for a financial advisor who works parents worried about providing for their children’s college educations.

You’re a smart parent who knows a college education is essential for your child’s success. College graduates earn $20,000 a year more on average than high school graduates. Plus, they are more likely to find a good job and keep it. The unemployment rate of college graduates was only 2.2%–half the rate of high school graduates–in 2007.

Like most other parents, you can’t pay your children’s tuition out of your paychecks. You know you must plan and save.

But how do you figure out how much to save and the best way to save? There are so many confusing options – 529 plans, Coverdell savings accounts, and more.

Having guided many parents through the process leading to their children’s college graduation, I can help. Please contact me at XXX-XXX-XXXX or info@XXX.com for your free initial consultation.

Why this letter works

This letter works because you

1. Flatter readers at the beginning, putting them at ease.
2. Reassure readers in paragraph 2 that they’re not alone, so they shouldn’t feel ashamed to acknowledge a problem.
3. Define their problem in paragraph 3.
4. Offer a time-tested solution in paragraph 4.

If you’ve been successful with a similar formula, I’d like to hear from you. I’m also open to suggestions on how to improve the formula.

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Financial writers and compliance departments are often at odds. But the two sides must learn to get along. Nobody wins if flat writing turns off prospective clients. Or if marketers create unrealistic expectations in the minds of current or prospective clients.

Photo: winged photography

“Weasel words” help writers and compliance officers coexist. Writers can often defuse compliance officers’ anxieties about guarantees by using words and phrases such as “may,” “we believe,” and “seek to.”

Disclosures are another tool. However, long disclosures are daunting. Sometimes I’d rather delete a topic than introduce a scary disclosure. For example, I’d talk about an investment strategy without referring to the mutual fund using the strategy.

Capitulation is the path taken by some. I don’t recommend that writers always cave in to compliance officers. Caving in is easy, but it doesn’t serve your material well. Sometimes compliance officers’ suggestions are based on their editorial preferences rather than a perception of legal or regulatory risk. When you point this out, compliance professionals are often open to negotiation.

Sometimes you can call in back-up. It’s helpful if a senior person in your organization backs you up by saying, “Our business is willing to take the risk of not making changes.” I’ve also achieved good results by presenting examples of similar companies with sterling reputations using the language questioned by my compliance officer.

I’m curious to learn more about how other writers–and compliance professionals–cope. Please answer the poll asking, “What’s your favorite way to make your financial writing acceptable to compliance?” You’ll find the poll in the right-hand column of my blog.

Here are your potential answers:

• Add disclosures
• Cave in to every request by compliance
• Insert “may” in sentences challenged by compliance
• Insert “we believe” at the beginning of sentences challenged by compliance
• Negotiate the most important points, cave in on the rest
• Say your business is willing to accept the risks of publishing without changes
• [Your own answer]

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Advisors, which counts more for your potential clients–your personal chemistry or your process for helping them reach their financial goals?

Photo: Steve Jurvetson

Chemistry wins. At least that’s what an article about voters’ approach to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary suggests to me. “Voters Examining Candidates, Often to a Fault” appeared in The New York Times on December 29, 2011.

Potential voters interviewed by The New York Times

…were hard-pressed to recall details of the candidates’ plans to reduce taxes, create jobs and shrink the government.

Yet they knew about the marriages and mannerisms, the faith and careers of the candidates, and they brimmed with unvarnished opinions about any trait that strikes them as admirable — or just as likely, annoying. (Emphasis added by me.)

For example, one interviewee “…is leaning toward voting for Ron Paul because of the Texas lawmaker’s unpolished speaking style….” Another “… is drawn to Mitt Romney because the well-coiffed candidate reminds him of his father, a business executive.”

Advisors’ personal chemistry counts

Personality is more memorable than plans. That’s the lesson I take away from this article. Anyone marketing to individuals should keep this in mind.

Blogging boosts personal chemistry

The importance of personal chemistry is another reason for advisors to consider social media, especially blogging. It’s a great way to develop chemistry before you meet or even speak with a prospect.

If you’d like to boost your financial blogging skills, sign up now to get the EARLY BIRD rates on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Lesson Writing Class for Financial Advisors.” I’ve recently updated the class FAQ.

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Excerpt from Wells Fargo Advisors ad

Financial advisors often struggle to communicate the value they offer to clients. I think Wells Fargo Advisors nailed it with an ad I saw in The Wall Street Journal (p. A5 on Dec. 29). The image above is excerpted from that ad.

Four things make this ad powerful, in my opinion.

1. Emphasis on the CLIENT, not the firm

More than half of the ad is taken up by a client photo. However, what the client says is more important than the photo, as I explain in point #2. Too many ads, advisor websites, and other marketing pieces emphasize the firm more than the client.

This emphasis on the client carries into more use of “you” than “we,” “us,” or “Wells Fargo Advisors.”

2. Emphasis on the BENEFIT, not the feature

The client says, “Confidence comes from knowing I have a plan for my future.” That’s a powerful statement with great appeal for many prospects, especially in a volatile year. The ad gives more attention to this benefit than to the feature, which is the plan.

3. Reassuring discussion of uncertainty

Uncertainty about the future has people on edge, but Wells Fargo Advisors is “With you when you need clarity in an uncertain world.”

The firm also has a reassuring tag line: “Together we’ll go far.” It’s reassuring, but it’s also vague enough to make it through compliance review. Nice job!

4. Effective use of numbers

“95% of Envision(r) Plan holders are able to live the life they planned.”

This is one of the client-benefit-focused statistics used in the ad. It’s powerful.

Plus, the statistic is given credibility by an external source: a survey conducted by Harris Interactive.

Communicating advisor value and Twitter

Thank you, Twitter friends, for getting me fired up about the topic. I jumped on this ad partly because of an online conversation about advisor compensation that included @MichaelKitces tweeting, “@nathangehring @MattBrandeburg @rwohlner @susanweiner I think primary reason we talk abt comp is b/c we’re bad at explaining our real value”

What about you?

What do YOU think of this ad?

Can you suggest a better or different way to discuss how advisors provide value to clients?

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Google Analytics revealed my most popular blog posts of 2011. Wordle.net created the image of the most popular words in this top 10 post. Enjoy!

1. Writing resources for equity research analysts–There are some specialized resources for analysts.
2. My fill-in-the-blanks approach for structuring articles–Bloggers can use this powerful technique to quickly produce a post.
3. Career strategies for wealth managers without a book of business–My CFA charterholder colleagues contributed valuable advice to this article.
4. White paper marketing: Walk a fine line–There are three key characteristics of white papers.
5. Quick check for writers, with an economic commentary example–An easy-to-use technique for checking whether your writing is easy to read.
   

   Image created using Wordle.com

6. The 10-postcard approach to financial advisor marketing
   
7. Mark Tibergien’s one thing for financial advisors’ business improvement
8. Best practices for institutional asset manager websites
9. Financial advisor prescription by Statman evokes strong response
10. Mind mapping technology for financial advisors

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I imagine a group blog run by financial advisors would face several challenges in producing interesting, high quality blog posts on a regular schedule.

Image: HikingArtist.com

These include the following:

• Coming up with mutually agreeable topics for blog posts
• Setting a schedule for publishing blog posts
• Getting posts written, edited, and approved

I have ideas about how to tackle the challenges.

Brainstorm as a group

Need topics that will satisfy your group as a whole? Try brainstorming topics in a meeting with the other blog contributors.

By the way, I’m assuming you need to satisfy the group because you’re blogging with other employees of your firm. If not, agreement may not be necessary, but group discussion is still a spur to creativity.

Create an editorial calendar

It’s easier for your team’s writers to contribute regularly if they have a schedule.

Here’s a sample editorial calendar for a group blog:

Notice how subject areas repeat on a regular schedule, making it easy for writers to know when their posts will run. Once they know that, they should be able to calculate dates by which their first drafts are due.

Create a process

You don’t want contributors to turn in their posts at the last minute. This is why you need a well-defined process with due dates. The process might include the following steps.

1. Submission of first draft for content review and proofreading
2. Rewriting, if necessary
3. Compliance review
4. Rewriting, if necessary
5. Publication on blog
6. Monitoring and responding to comments

Other tips for group blogs?

Please share your best tips for managing group blogs. I also welcome your questions.

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I’m thankful for the knowledgeable and talented professionals who have contributed guest posts to my blog this year.

Here’s a list of guest posts sorted by topic, including client communications, marketing, social media, and writing.

Client communications

• Math and the Gender Gap: Does it affect financial planning? by Laura Laing
• Why use a mind map with clients? by Alex Murguia

Marketing

• Articles You Publish in Financial Trade Publications Will Impress Prospects by Beth Chapman
• Blogging: why you want a better bounce rate by Tom Mangan
• Creating Pitch Books Without Losing Your Mind: Design and Content Management Tips by Margaret Patterson
• Easy SEO: How to Really Get Found on the Internet by Steve Tannuzzo
• Personalized Risk Management Planning–A Great New Business Opportunity by Michael T. Carpenter

Writing

• The ABCs of Creative Capital Rights by Wendy J. Cook
• Doctoring the Books – The Right Way by Laura Matthews
• A Magazine Editor’s Top Tips for Improving Advisors’ Writing by Ryun Patterson
• Subject Lines: Are you reading this? by Kristin Harad
• Using Clause Analysis to Fix Your Complex Sentences by Joe Croscup
• Using Story Telling to Educate Clients and Prospects by Chuck Rylant

Other financial topics

• What about China? by Annie Logue

I also hosted some wonderful guest bloggers last year. See “Guest bloggers: 2010 in review.”

This post was updated on Dec. 28, 2011.

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You want your posts to rank high in Internet searches.

Photo: artzubi

However, search engines don’t start exploring every new blog as soon as it’s created. Luckily, you can speed up this process by bringing your blog – not individual posts – to the attention of search engines.

There’s a one-time process to accomplish this. You submit a request for each search engine to index your blog. There’s no guarantee they’ll comply immediately, but your index request is likely to accelerate the process.

For instructions on how to get your blog – or any website – indexed, go directly to the search engine that interests you and check out ProBlogger.com’s 5 Ways to Get Your Blog Indexed by Google in 24 Hours.

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