Financial Services Marketing Made Easy

Insurance sales people tell us that insurance marketing, acquiring new clients, is their #1 challenge. But it’s ridiculous, as daily, thousands of individuals send checks to Fidelity, to Vanguard, to USAA, Prudential, Hancock, and other financial services companies that don’t even have a sales force. So why do these sales professionals have a problem getting new business when there isn’t any shortage of prospective buyers? It’s life insurance agents, annuity sellers, financial advisers, stockbrokers–they mainly chase after potential customers instead of pull them in, as the large businesses do.

Big organizations use an extremely uncomplicated marketing and advertising technique. They throw out bait such as an offer for a guide, “How to Rollover Your IRA” by running a full page ad in the NY Times. Over the next forty eight hours, they likely obtain a couple thousand orders for the guide. Now they have the couple thousand people today who are really interested in what they offer. Individual financial sales professionals, on the other hand, seek out men and women, prospects the professional has no idea are interested. They do everything from cold calling to networking to begging for referrals. But, the individual financial professional can instead use the exact same very efficient technique of the big firms.

You don’t need to have a large budget for successful financial services marketing. You just need to supply info documents like the substantial players do. For instance, take a look at the Sunday newspaper. You will likely see some big advertisements offering booklets like “Three Ways to Have a Worry Free Retirement” or “5 Mistakes to Avoid When Moving Your IRA.” Fidelity, Merrill Lynch and others get thousands of calls from motivated and engaged prospects. Why do you run after prospective customers instead of using the exact same technique of having prospects call you?

Instead of expensive print ads, you can use the Internet for really low cost. You can use Adwords pay per click advertising or run text ads on particular Internet sites. For example, doing a look-up on “Columbus Ohio Senior” revealed 6 websites that appeal to seniors in that city. This seems like an excellent place to run an ad for your guide “Pros and Cons of Annuities.” The prices for these ads ranged from $20 to 50 dollars per month– quite inexpensive. I started by own practice exactly this way with a $52 ad in a senior citizen newspaper advertising such a pamphlet. I was then talking to the serious men and women instead of using a shot gun method trying to contact anybody that would listen.

The prospect calls for your pamphlet. You send it. You follow-up in 2 days with a non-threatening phone call inquiring about the benefit of the guide. (Note that many professionals in financial services don’t know how to have a conversation that engages the prospect and we highly recommend this "make friends" approach). You ask the right questions and have the prospective client reveal their curiosity or concern, what encouraged them to obtain the pamphlet. Should you have appropriate sales skills or talent, you are able to convert a substantial percentage of these inquiries into appointments. By the way, when I invited these individuals that ordered the booklet to my seminars, 33% showed up. Now you realize the best way to locate responsive prospects for a smaller investment. Now that’s not a hard method to do insurance marketing, is it?