Is Your Marketing Opening the Right Doors?

By Bill Kica on April 6, 2022

“A brand that captures your mind gains behavior. A brand that captures your heart gains commitment.”  – Scott Talgo

“Lost in a sea of sameness…” 

That’s how one astute senior advisor described his frustration with his marketing efforts. Despite upping his marketing budget each year, he felt as though he was throwing good money after bad. After years of trying, most new clients joining the practice still came from client referrals and not from a direct result of their marketing efforts.

Since he reached out for my help, I took the opportunity to ask him a few direct questions:

• While marketing and how you deliver your message is important, my first concern is knowing what your brand actually stands for in the minds of your clients and ideal prospects?

• Is your branding opening the right doors to give you access to the exact types of prospects you desire?

• Does your reputation precede itself in the niche segments of the market that you most wish to be known?

• Are prospects even listening to your story? Or is your message just getting lost in the clutter? This syndrome is what I call the blah, blah, blah effect or trying to insert an unremarkable value proposition into the field of view of highly desirable prospects but with sadly undifferentiated branding.

Misconceptions About Branding

In my experience, many Financial Advisors think they are very good at both branding and marketing. And many Financial Advisors use these terms interchangeably when in fact, they are very different.

Unfortunately, some Financial Advisors have a limited view of what a comprehensive marketing ecosystem consists of. One tell-tale sign can be learned from looking at their website. Simply putting together a client brochure or website with headshots or team pictures, bios and services offered list may indicate that they lack a comprehensive understanding of what creating a magnetic brand can do for their growth.

“Branding is the act of communicating and positioning. Branding is how you are perceived and why you exist in the first place. Marketing is the act of promoting and selling. Marketing is how your message is delivered and gets out.”

• Branding is why > Marketing is how
• Branding is long-term > Marketing is short-term
• Branding is macro > Marketing is micro
• Branding builds loyalty > Marketing generates a response
• Branding is the being > Marketing is the doing

– Source: Matchstic

Another misconception about branding is that you need to have a pithy “elevator speech.” Too often, we hear advisors repetitively deliver a canned “elevator speech” that attempts to cover everything and stands for nothing in the hopes of sounding appealing.

In the end, this hollow approach fails to communicate what you alone can do for the client. Upon debriefing prospects after hearing these generic attempts at communicating their value proposition, the prospects would tell me, “oh, now I get it, now I know what they do. . . they do what my current advisor does for me”. Thus, the advisors attempt to stand out above the clutter land with an audible thud!

While these elevator speeches may be well-rehearsed, I have found that in focus group work with affluent clients, the client seldom comes away with a lasting impression or call to action that advisors think they do.

The bottom line is that brand-building isn’t a series of isolated activities; instead, it is a complete ecosystem in which three elements – differentiation, innovation and cultivation combine to produce a sustainable competitive advantage.

• Differentiation: “edges” that you alone or very few can truly deliver on

• Innovation: breaking away from the pressure to scale or homogenize the client experience to deliver something genuinely remarkable so people feel compelled to tell others (aka remark to others) what you do.

• Cultivation: the ability to create Brand Ambassadors who are willing to spend their influential capital to connect you to people they have an influence on.

Here are five key brand drivers that can put us on the path to creating a magnetic brand, one that pulls clients in and seek us out to engage with us rather than pushing our way in or trying to interrupt their field of view to get them to look at us or what we have to offer:

5 Key Brand Drivers:

1. Awareness: Is our name the first one that comes to mind for ________? (fill in the blank for your niche specialty, e.g., defined benefit programs, setting up Donor Advised Funds, etc…

• Differentiation: what are the “proof-points” or reasons to believe our services are more relevant to the target client?

• Emotional Connection: does our brand or reputation connect to the customer on an emotional level? Research suggests that all things being equal that clients make their final decision not based on logical analysis but rather on how we make them feel.

• Accessibility: are we perceived as more convenient?

• Value: do we offer more value for the same relative price?

To learn more about how to increase the power of your branding, contact Bill Kica at bkica@hightoweradvisors.com