Jorge's Thoughts: 6 Tips to Becoming a Trusted Local Expert

Hyper-local marketing demands that you use a more integrated approach to impress upon your ideal prospects that you are the trusted, go-to local expert. 

It’s important for your company to have a plan that continually places your products and services at the forefront of your local market using a variety of channels that will provide you with several opportunities to deliver a compelling message, your benefits and your value proposition. The company that creates that top of mind awareness with consumers is the one that wins their business in the end. 

Here are a few ways to do just that: 

1: Know your ideal target client.

Believe it or not, this is actually a challenge for many financial advisors. There’s a difference between what you want in a potential client and the clients that actually drive your revenue. To accomplish this, conduct an audit of your last 20 new clients. This audit could include the following data points:

• Source: Where did this client come from? (e.g. referral, seminar, etc.)
• Address: This will indicate if there’s a cluster of clients in a specific area in your geographic market.
• Age: This will indicate a key demographic for future prospecting.
• Admitted assets: How much money do they have to invest?
• Assets secured: How much of the available assets are you able to use for their financial plan?
• Services provided: Retirement income, estate planning, etc.
• Products sold: Mutual funds, life insurance, long-term care, etc.
• Date of first contact: When did you first hear from this client?
• Date of closed sale: When did you receive payment/s for products and services delivered? Knowing the number of weeks from first contact to close will give you a clear idea on how frequently you need to prospect.

2: Know your competition.

Though you would like for your customers to overlook your competition, it’s crucial for advisors to be well-versed in who your competition is, what they offer, what makes them stand out and why prospects respond to them. This information can help you make important marketing decisions as well as help you hone in on what the competition offers and how they differentiate themselves. 

3: Understand your prospects’ needs.

Selling a product or service to prospects begins with assessing their needs and understanding how you can help. This is more than knowing who your clients are as advised in step one; this is more about identifying with your prospects’ short-term and long-term concerns so that you can exceed their expectations, thereby building your brand and outshining your competition. 

4: Use the proven social dinner event approach, not the outdated lectures, workshops and lunch seminars.

It is an incontestable fact that dinner/evening seminars at better restaurants - when compared to all other forms of advertising and if done correctly - generate the most consistent flow of qualified and motivated prospects and the best ROI. In fact, a recent survey of top dinner seminar producers shows an average ROI of more than 300%.  If you think that sounds too good to be true, do the math. If you invest $10,000 in a seminar marketing campaign that generates 40 buying units and you close only 10% of those prospects (assuming an average commission of just $7,500), you’ll have an ROI of 300%.

5: Use local magazines and publications. 

 Simply getting your business’ name mentioned in a local magazine is not meaningful enough to generate buzz or connect with your local market. Local magazine advertising offers many benefits that make investment on your part worthwhile. According to Forbes, many businesses rely upon online advertising, so “the decline of print publication can actually be used as a marketing advantage. The publications are less crowded, allowing more room for your ad to shine, and possibly even cheaper prices for that ad space.” 

6. Establish an online voice with social media.

Social media is a great way to grow your brand, attract prospects and create a digital voice, but tackling your social media presence by creating accounts that you randomly use will do more harm than good. Create a calendar to schedule your postings.  If you already have a social media presence, ask a marketing professional to conduct an audit on your profiles and identify areas that need improvement. If you don’t have a strong social media presence, ask a marketing professional skilled in digital strategies to develop strategies and content and to post on your behalf if needed.  Ask her/him to collaborate with you on marketing goals and to compare your social media presence with your competitors’. Also, follow these best practices:

• Remain current with topics of interest. 
• Stay relevant and consistent…deliver a solid message with benefits.   
• Be engaging by offering value. 
• Monitor and respond to online conversations.  

Tweet me and let's chat about hyper-local marketing:

 @JorgeVillarRME

By: Jorge Villar, President and Founder 

#hyperlocaldata

Jorge's Thoughts: How to Build Connections through Data

We volunteer a lot of information about ourselves to the digital world, and marketers know that. Good marketers make effective and appropriate use of data that will allow them to:

1) create messaging for products, services and solutions to target interested audiences

2) begin building relationships with prospects and clients 

With the vast array of marketing that arrives in the inboxes and mailboxes of our target audiences, it's crucial to the success of our campaigns to break through the noise. How do we do that? 

Build your connection based on data. 

For prospects: 

1. Use critical data points when prospecting. These include age, income, zip codes, IPA and net worth. This is the core set of information you need to ensure you market to those who will be best served by you. 

2. Obtain data on an audience 15-25 miles within your office. Those within this range are more likely to attend your seminars and visit your office. 

3. Identify 7,000-15,000 households that meet your criteria for a target audience. 

4. Use your selected data points to craft your message. Your messaging should speak directly and effectively to the audience profiled by the data. 

5. Stay top of mind. This requires you to send messages frequently and over a long period of time. Develop a strategy that includes messages delivered in a variety of ways for the next 8-10 months. 

Remember: Competition can be fierce. You may have 300-500 advisors within the 15-25 miles who market to audiences similar to yours. 

For clients: 

1. Dig deep within your data on existing clients. In building relationships with your clients, you learn more about them. Use that data when crafting your messaging. This includes data points such as hobbies, habits and affiliations. 

2. Create personal and individualized messages that do more than sell your products and solutions. Acknowledge your clients' birthdays or ask them about their children's softball teams. 

3. Use social media to complement data you've obtained from lists, but use data gathered there responsibly. Craft messages based on social media information in a respectful tone and with content that provides value to your clients. 

Remember: Clients often rely on emotions when making decision. Establish a solid emotional connection with them as you build your relationship. 

Tweet me and let's chat about using data to connect with your target audience:

 @JorgeVillarRME

By: Jorge Villar, President and Founder 

#connectdata

Jorge's Thoughts: Great Marketers Use Smart Data

Great marketers rely on accurate data to make smart marketing decisions 

and unlock their relationships with clients. 

It's critical to the success of our marketing to focus on what our clients want and what the the metrics show. In the real estate game, investors are taught to select properties to which the buyers will be drawn. The same goes for marketers. When it comes to strategy, product design and messaging, data guides me to what consumers want and what prompts their response. 

Consider this: a Miami Subway franchise owner noticed his sales lagged on the weekends and spent several months testing different phrases and pricing models to change this. He finally come up with a catchy phrase that made sense to consumers and increased traffic: "Five Dollar Footlong." A movement was quickly born because this franchise owner was tuned in to his sales data. Those three words created attention, generated more sales and drove more visits; a look at this data prompted Subway to adopt the motto for a game-changing national advertising campaign. 

Listen to the data. Pay attention to what makes your clients respond. Give them what they want, how they want it and when they want it. In turn, you're likely to get what you want. 

Tweet me and let's chat about how to use data:

 @JorgeVillarRME

By: Jorge Villar, President and Founder 

#smartdata

Convert More Clients with These 5 Tips

Earlier this week, our founder and president Jorge Villar shared 3 important tips on developing messaging that will help you convert sales. Every word within your messaging matters, and some words more weight than others. 

But what other tips should you consider as you strive to convert more prospects to clients?

Let's take a look at these 5 ideas:

1. Listen. 

Are you listening to your prospects? Are you talking over them or interrupting them? Do you take the time to hear them out and then paraphrase what they say to make sure you understood them? This critical - and simple - tip can change the way your prospects see you. Be clear and concise when you speak and respond to them, but make sure you provide them ample time and space to speak first.

2. Be irresistible. 

What do prospects really want from you? What can you offer them to solve their problems? Identify those solutions and kick them up notch by creating offers that compel them to do business with you. The offer should provide convenience and highly competitive advantages and should also showcase your exemplary level of service.

3.  Help them make the right decision. 

If you're talking to a prospect, you have both already recognized that your services are needed and are being considered. Don't focus on selling her your service; focus on selling her the solution that fits her needs.

4. Remember your manners. 

Just as your parents said, "yes m'am" and "no sir" go a long way as do "please" and "thank you." What impression of a business are you left with when one or more of its team members are discourteous to you? What does it say to you when someone you do business with goes above and beyond to exercise exemplary etiquette with you? Provide your prospects with not just the treatment they deserve but the treatment they will talk about to their friends.

5. Follow up consistently. 

By following up, you not only increase your opportunities to convert sales but you also create opportunities to build relationships and develop trust with your soon-to-be clients. These relationships are what will inspire clients to stay with you long-term and to refer business to you.

What would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments or tweet us: 

@rme360

#convertthissale 

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

Back to Basics: Three Tips to Make Direct Marketing Work for Your Brand

So you think direct mail is dead, huh? Think again! 

Direct Marketing Association found that the response rate for direct mail to an existing customer averages 3.4%. 

Epsilon found that 50% of U.S. consumers prefer direct mail to email. 

And Target Marketing found that direct mail has the highest rate of success in new customer acquisition at 34%. 

An effective direct mail piece walks your brand, your products and your services into your prospects' homes and you become the topic of conversation around the dinner table. Professional, personalized and compelling direct marketing packages coupled with targeted consumer data will open the door for you; the quality of your products and services will close that door on your way out of a successful sale.

























Check out these three tips to having a successful direct marketing campaign: 

Use a list that best fits your needs. Use multiple data files to identify your prospects by age, income, zip code criteria and other important selects. What about your markets should you consider? What lifestyle choices of your prospects will make a difference when narrowing your target? Work with a list database expert to ensure you have the right list. 

Create a professional, personalized and compelling mail piece. This isn't the time to mail our your company brochure. Your direct mail piece should have a strong offer and a strong call to action as well. Your brand's brochure allows it the opportunity to inform, but its direct mail pieces should ask for specific action. Give your prospects multiple ways to respond to increase your chances of that action. A marketing services expert can provide you with copy and design services to ensure your message invokes the response you seek. 

Manage your responses. While you can't anticipate the exact number of responses you will receive, you can plan ahead so you can manage those responses swiftly and effectively. This will depend on the action you identify in your messaging. Are you asking prospects to email you for more information? If so, have that information ready to send and/or discuss. Are you asking prospects to call in and discuss a particular product or service? If so, train the team who will field those calls on what types of questions to expect and how to answer them. Are you asking prospects to visit a landing page and download something? If so, make sure the messaging of that deliverable matches the direct mail piece and that the link is functional and accessible. 

What other tips should you consider when launching a direct mail campaign? Tell us in the comments! 

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

6 Tips for Building Lasting Client Relationships

 Do your favorite brands interact with you on social media? Do they show their appreciation of your patronage? Do they give you the "wow" factor at each point of service?

If they want to build lasting relationships with you, then they should be doing these things and more. And if you aren’t providing such things in an effort to build meaningful relationships with your clients, then it’s time to make immediate changes. Use the following tips to help you provide amazing service so that you can wrap the story and reputation of your brand around each client and prospect.

• Celebrate milestones with clients. This sounds simple, huh? But often we find ourselves too busy to remember birthdays, anniversaries or other important milestones our clients celebrate. Make time to send a card or to send a VSnap video via social media or email for such dates. (VSnap allows you to record 60 second personalized videos, a technique that can help you establish a connection and create trust.) 

• Remember that not every call should be a sales call.  If a client thinks you only call to sell her something new, you won’t be able to establish a meaningful relationship.  Find other opportunities to call clients and provide value to your service. Invite them to lunch to say thank you for their business, send them links to articles relevant to their businesses or call them to discuss best practices for a product or service you provide. Try to have multiple client touches throughout the year. 

• Don’t hinge your entire relationship on digital communication.  It’s very easy to rely on e-mail as the primary relationship tool, but remember that clients need to hear your voice and see your face, both of which add a personal touch and go a long way toward deepening client relationships.

• Exceed your clients’ expectations with the “wow” factor. One of the best ways to develop a meaningful relationship with your clients is to give them 1) exceptional service and 2) exceptional results. Don’t oversell yourself and don’t promise more than you can deliver, but set expectations that provide you with opportunities to excite your clients. Think about the last time a brand left you saying “wow.” Did a representative call you by your first name? Did he tweet about your business from his company’s profile? Did she deliver a product or document to you because you couldn’t come into the office? Did he send you a goody basket with a handwritten note? Remember how you’ve been dazzled by exceptional service and recreate such moments for your clients.

• Inspire your team with best practices. So now that you’ve recalled how you were dazzled, inspire your team to do the same by discussing best practices. One of the most powerful ways to continue with providing the “wow” factor is to share ideas on how to do so with your employees and/or colleagues. Bring in breakfast one morning and sit down with your team to listen to their ideas and to pass on yours as well. Talking about these ideas can increase the chances that providing “wow” factors become a standard for your brand.

• Find common ground. Do you and a client both love sports? Do you both have aging parents? Do you both enjoy the same activities outside of the office? Talk with them about such common ground issues; having something to talk about other than the business you are collaborating on makes working together on both sides much more gratifying.

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360