Poll: How quickly and often should you follow up with prospects for your financial services?
Gaining new clients is important to you. That’s the whole point of your marketing. However, a blog post by Karyn Greenstreet suggests that you aren’t making the most of a great opportunity: systematic follow-up with prospects who contact you. “Most people will make one follow-up call or email to a prospective customer. But if they […]
Miller’s Killer: Paper swap brainstorming blog and article ideas
How can you come up with fresh ideas for your blog, newsletter, or white papers? I recently discovered a new technique, The Paper Swap in “Think Bank: Break out of brainstorming boredom with these thought-provoking topics” in Spirit Magazine (no link available). Here is a description of this group brainstorming technique: Participants write ideas on […]
Focus your marketing, says the “Financial Services Marketing Handbook”
Targeting your prospects instead of marketing to everybody works best, as the Financial Services Marketing Handbook suggests in the following quote: Very few companies can afford to be everything to everyone any more. Even companies with mass-market products (like basic checking accounts) segment their markets so that they can focus their limited marketing dollars […]
Facebook likes and links for financial advisors vs. the rest of the world
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, or so the cliche’ goes. But financial planners regulated by the SEC and FINRA often can’t use techniques promoted by social media gurus. This article discusses one such Facebook page technique. Somewhere I read that I should ask people who “like” the Investment Writing Facebook […]
How to add personality and warmth to your financial writing–Part two
Personality and warmth help your readers connect with you. In part one of this post, we discussed using personal stories. In this post, I add four more techniques: Self-deprecating humor Analogies Distinctive language Quotations 1. Self-deprecating humor Humor can be tricky because it can veer into the offensive. But gently poking fun at yourself […]