Lead Generation for financial advisers has never been easy, in fact it’s probably harder now than it’s ever been.
Pay per Click 
is dominated by the lead generators, with their no risk model.
Basically, they collect information from suspect sources and sell that to you.
Dependent on the model in use, each click could be costing the lead generator £4- £6, these get sold for 10x that to you.
And then there is the IFA Life model – go on one of their Social Media courses (£400) or buy the manual (£82) learn how to leverage Linkedin/Twitter. Good luck with that; let me ask you when was the last time you purchased goods or services via Social Media? I rest my case there.
Would you choose a gynecologist or proctologist based on their social media efforts? Doubt that either!
You could also try Unbiased. Once upon a time they delivered solely for the IFA market place, but now other professionals have joined the party.
Mr Simons has a brain fart on his birthday and decides that he must get some pension advice, contacts an adviser via Unbiased – it’s only a brain fart. But you have paid £50 for the privilege of talking to him.
How many £50’s can you afford to spend?
Short audio presentation below – listen to it. It’ll put the rest of this page in context.
IFA Marketing in 2017
What About – Local Advertising. Good idea, run some print ads.
Get them compliance approved so they are practically meanlingless, and run them the local paper that few people read. Good luck with that.
Sure there are plenty of people looking for your high end investment advice in amongst the used Ford Fiesta and Bob the Plumber.
Firstly, once compliance has finished with it the ad is useless, secondly, who reads the local papers?
Are any of these options valid for you?
In 2010 when I wrote my series of articles for Professional Adviser Magazine and was quoted in Money Management (was part of another business then) times were changing for your industry, and that change has continued. Interesting to note that the advice I offered some seven years ago still stands. It’s still accurate. The reason is this…
Most financial adviser marketing is based on tactics, run some ads, call some clients, bore yourself stupid at 7am on wet Wednesday at a networking meeting, get a new website. Put something on Twitter.
All of this is doomed to failure, the reason is this. They are all tactics.
The things I wrote about in 2010 are principles, and these are timeless. They never go away. Engaging with your customers, becoming a centre of influence, being the ‘goto guy/gal’
Working out who your target market is ( here is a great article on this subject even if I do say so IFA Marketing) the starting point of us working together. If you don’t know what you are looking for, how are you going to find it?
Sadly many IFA firms have no idea – they think everyone is their target market – to that I always reply “what including people that can’t pay for fees” and the “high maintenence ones.” The list goes on. If you want to do business with everyone, you won’t ever have a real business, just a job without a salary.
Principles are the key. They are timeless.
And then there is working out how to get your firm to be a centre of excellence, specialising. The firm that provides advice to blind one eyed gold miners living in Sussex is easily findable online (few specialists) and this could be one client to end all clients.
You need to be a whale in very small pond in 2017. If you ain’t then you are joining the bar full of wannabees chasing the same talent every Friday night.
Importantly, the above analogy is the right one. Like asking for sex on first date, getting clients to commit at the first interview is hard. Which is why automation and follow up is key to a long standing business. Key is how much of this are you doing. I can help you sort this.
If you really want to know how an upstart of a company ended up with £73billion under management in a short time – it’s because they are good at all of the above. And the reason your financial advice practice will never deliver everything you want in terms of financial success is because you are not very good at the above.
No one cares about you or your business, getting good at selling and marketing is what you need to do and the sooner the better.
When you are ready, get in touch. I’d be happy to chat. Just don’t expect an out of the box instant solution – there ain’t any . Just loads of hard work that will deliver your seat at the feast, instead of waiting for scraps.
Contact me as soon as you ready – IFA
Audio Version Of ” Having a Target Market For Your Financial Advisory Practice Is Important” is below.