The Common Marketing Mistakes Financial Services Businesses Make (And How To Fix Them)

“At this point, I’m close to giving up. Seriously – this marketing thing just isn’t working. I’m going to shut it down and go back to word of mouth”.

Have you ever felt this way when trying to market your business?

Have you spend money or time trying to build a stream of leads, but got little or nothing to show for it?

I was sitting in a discovery session with a client (a Mortgage Broker/ Financial Planner) when she started listing out all the things she had done to try and get new clients through her doors.

Sue (not her real name, obviously) had tried marketing with Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Offline flyers, local event sponsorships and directory/listing services but nothing was working!

She had spent more than $30,000 over the course of a year to try and generate new clients, but to the best of her knowledge – she had only got a few phone enquiries and nowhere near enough real customers to justify her investment.

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So – what was going on? Why was Sue’s marketing failing?

I took a quick look through her ads and found that she made some of the most common mistakes businesses make in their marketing.

These mistakes will stop your marketing dead in its tracks, and is the virtual equivalent of throwing your money down the drain…

Ready to learn what these 3 mistakes are and how to fix them?

1) It’s all about you

Do your ads only talk about you? How you started in the business? How long you’ve been in business for?

Well, sorry to be blunt, but your potential clients don’t care!

Now, I don’t say that to be harsh – but the truth is that your clients only care about what you can do for them.

So make it about them! Here’s a simple formula (some samples at the bottom of this article as well):

“I help [specific group of people], [solve a pain or improve something in their lives] by [something you can do for them].”

2) Not Focused Enough

This issue comes up a lot with businesses that perform different services under the same roof – for example, Financial Services firms that do Retirement Planning, Mortgage Broking and Investment Planning.

If you run a business like this, you’re probably thinking: “Well, if I leave any of my services out – aren’t I missing out on opportunities for sales?”

There’s a saying in Sales: “If you’re trying to sell to everyone, you’re selling to no one”. And it’s absolutely true.

Here’s a fun way to think about it. Remember the last time you were ordering Pizza for dinner? What kind of restaurant did you look at to get your pizza?

Was it a restaurant that sold Chinese, Thai, Hamburgers, Indian and Pizza?
Or was it a restaurant that just did Pizza?

If you saw the “multi-styled restaurant” (I think I just made up a new “buzz-word”) wouldn’t you think to yourself: “they do so many different styles of food, I bet everything is kind of mediocre, and nothing is truly special…”

And it’s the same for your services…

If a customer is looking for retirement planning, and you advertise for financial planning, investment advice, first homebuyer loans and business advice – would they think you’re the right company for them?

Now – that’s not to say don’t market to all the different areas of your business… it just means that you need to separate the different segments and FOCUS on just one segment with each marketing piece.

3) No follow-up

When it comes to high ticket sales, or sales where people’s health, wealth or relationships may be affected, it’s VERY rare for people to buy on the first go (some statistics say it’s as low as 2%).

In fact, for some clients you’ll probably have to speak to them 5 or 6 times before they sign the dotted line.

One of Sue’s biggest problems was that she didn’t have a system in place to follow-up and build a relationship with her leads!

She and her team would talk to the leads once, and try to send them some information, but if they didn’t get back to her – she wouldn’t call or email them back.

She had spent money getting leads on the phone with her, she had spent time talking to these leads to try and build a relationship with them – she had spent money and time crafting a great information pack, but at the end of the day all she had done was help her competition!

She had gotten her leads to realise they should probably speak to a Retirement Planner, she had gotten them to actually pick up the phone, but once her leads put the phone down, they would get back to their lives and in a short amount of time forgot all about her!

Even when the information pack arrived, all it did was to prompt her leads to compare what she did with other Financial Planners in the market.

If she had followed up with those leads – getting their feedback on the information she sent and adding more value to their lives on a consistent basis – do you think some of those leads would have come on board as a client?

Your Turn

Now that you know about these common mistakes – does it change your marketing in any way?

Does it help you better understand how to structure your marketing to attract your idea clients?

Leave a comment or send me an email ([email protected]) and let me know what you think!

Samples

As promised, here are a few samples of the simple marketing formula that will help your marketing be more “client-focused”:

I help first homebuyers save money, time and stress on their first home by guiding them through the entire process.
I help near-retirees retire in comfort (and not compromise their life-style) by setting up their finances and asset structures in the right way. This means they can have absolute peace of mind when retiring, and not have to rely on pensions or other people.

I help property investors achieve their financial goals by finding, sourcing and negotiating the best property deals for them (based on their individual needs).
Want to learn more about how you can creating marketing that brings in actual clients and helps to grow your business? Connect with me on LinkedIn or send me an email at [email protected]

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