Kaselnak’s Marketing Knack

A recent survey showed that 70% of advisors plan to spend less than $1,000 a month on marketing.  Even as 99% of advisors say they need to improve at least one of their marketing practices.

Another indicator of advisors’ troubles with marketing is expectations:

• 52% of advisors expect 20 new clients from marketing of $1,000 to $2,000
• Only 17% of advisors would consider an investment of $1,000 to $2,000 a success if it garnered less than 11 new clients

Excuse me as I begin my tirade… ARE THEY FRIGGIN’ CRAZY!!!!!!!!!

What is the average commission on a new client?  Geez!  Even a $25,000 investment at 4% is $1,000.  And I hope most of you aren’t accepting clients with less than $25,000 minimums or you have more problems than marketing.

If you brought in two crappy $25,000 accounts you’ve made $2,000.  On a $1,000 marketing investment…now for you financial professionals out there…what kind of return is that on investment?

100%.  How long did it take you to get it?  A month (at most).

Again, you financial professionals out there…what is the annual compounded return on a 100% per month?  That number is too high for me to calculate.  Anybody able to give it to me?

How much would you invest in an investment with that kind of return?  I’d mortgage my house! Heck, I’d mortgage my mother’s house!

And yet, only 17% of advisors would think a $1,000 investment in marketing yielding 11 new clients is a success:

11 crappy $25,000 accounts at 4% commission = $11,000 in commission

$1,000 marketing investment returns AT A MINIMUM $11,000 in commission and only 17% of advisors would think that is a successful marketing campaign.

With the math and investment skills of the remaining 83% that didn’t think that was successful…it would be safe to say, I would choose one of those 17% as my financial advisor.

Guys and gals, you do the math on your clients’ investment accounts.  Why not do it on your own investment…MARKETING!

If you invest $100 and you make back $140 in a month, what should you do?  Take the $140 and reinvest and make $196…then $274…then $383…then $537…$751 just 6 months later.  Take something that is working and keep investing more in it!

Marketing only costs you money when you make less than you spent.  Otherwise, invest…invest…invest!

Well it’s time I pulled another “highly successful…rarely used” marketing concept out of my filing cabinet for you.  What do I mean by “highly successful rarely used”?  I have coached many successful financial professionals for 8 years now.  It is amazing that the best ideas I give them are only utilized by 1% of them.  The other 99% say, “Wow! That’s a great idea!”  And do nothing.

Which are you? If you are one of the 1% willing to take action then you’ll be able to double your business in a year with this idea.

First put together a list of all your “A” and “B” clients.  Then get a cross directory (a list of people by address).  You can either buy it (www.coleinformation.com) or get it at your local library.  Then each time you meet your clients for their annual review ask them if they would do you a favor.

Pull out a postcard that you have already printed up with verbiage similar to the one below.  Let them know that you would like to send it to their neighbors and ask if they would be OK with it?  I know that the guys that have tried this, NEVER had someone say no.

Example postcard verbiage:

Do these names ring a bell?   <Your Client’s name>  <Your Client’s address>

They are your neighbors and they heard that we were doing all the things that other advisors forget to do!  At first they thought, “What things?  We’ve got all our financial concerns covered!”  Ooops! Contrary to their attorney, CPA and financial advisor’s assurances, they found out that they were missing important documents that these professionals had never discussed with them.  They had not protected themselves from ID theft and their professionals had missed over a dozen important details that could have caused major problems for them or their family.  In one short visit we filled all these gaps and they left happy, sure that now their finances truly were in order.

As our way to introduce ourselves, we would like to send you our “Financial Survivor’s Guide” that is a comprehensive guide for you, your spouse and your family should anything ever happen to you.  Call right now for your free, no obligation guide, on us!  You and your family will be glad that you did!

How hard is it to just ask your clients this simple question at your annual meetings?

What do you get?

About 1 in 4 cards that you send out will call you for the free guide which costs you about a buck to mail to them.  You then simply continue to drip on them with handwritten cards or invite them to your next seminar.

It’s not a matter of “if” they’ll become a client but instead, “when” they become a client.

Learn more about the “Neighborhood mailing system” at TeamingWithClients.com

We’ve been speaking the last few weeks on Direct Mail.  This post I’d like to spend some time on the real reason you send out direct mail…

You don’t send direct mail to get it opened (though that is helpful).  You don’t even send it to get read (though that too is necessary).  You send it to get a response.   So how can we increase the probability of response?

The cardinal rule for getting response is making it as easy as possible for them to do what you want them to do.  If you want them to send for a free report, give them some different ways to order the free report:

• 24 hour 800 number (800 numbers almost always out pull local numbers)
• A tear off card to mail back for the information
• Better yet a pre-paid postage tear off to get it back to you
• A website to download it at

Really any way that you can think of to respond, give it to them as an option.

Another thing to keep in mind is to make sure that you give clear instructions on what they should do.  For example, if you want them to call the office, tell them who they should talk to and what they should ask for.  You want to lower the anxiety level as much as possible to encourage response.

But as important as all the above is, your offer and how it is delivered is the topmost reason you are or are not going to get a response.

You have to make sure your message is as emotional as it is logical.  You have to appeal to their desires; love, greed, fear, guilt etc.  You must also make them feel that you are talking to them and only them.  There are basically two ways that you can achieve that feel of one-to-one communication.

First and foremost is the handwritten note.  A handwritten note inherently has the feel of one-to-one communication.  It is the most intimate type of communication, even ranking higher than most conversations.

Secondly, you should be specific in describing the type of person that would most benefit from your offer.  Target your message to a target audience.  If you are selling life settlements, try:

“You have something we want and we’ll pay you more than you will believe. If you have a life insurance policy that you no longer need.  You could get 3 to 5 times what you think it is worth.”

Handwritten note:
Mary and Jim, If you have life insurance you don’t want or aren’t using, don’t cancel it…call me instead , I’ll get you a quote on what it’s worth.  I think you’ll be pleased!  XXX-XXXX

There is no doubt in my mind that if you implement the points I’ve made in the last few months on direct mail you could double your business in just two months.

Recently we talked about how to get your inexpensive direct mail read and found it was basically three things:

1. Handwritten note
2. Larger size than normal mail
3. Different size than normal mail

This week I would like to talk about a great way to get prospects and clients to respond to your direct mail.

It really is just another way of making it look different from junk mail.  Junk mail is sent to the masses and for the most part has a message that would work just as well one time of the year as another or one part of the country as another.  It is TOO general!

To get the biggest bang for your marketing buck you must:

• Personalize (use their name and your handwritten message) as much as possible.
• Make it timely (use something in the news or special date; e.g. 4th of July)

You can tie newsworthy events to an offering.  For example, a few years ago the movie “Sicko” was being promoted and discussed on one TV show after another. Why not offer a card that lets people know that if they want to know the rating of their hospital to give you a call and you’ll send them a report.

Or you can make the same offer for nursing homes!  Holy cow!  Now that is a great idea!  Think about it!  Who needs more financial help or is more acutely aware of the need for financial professional help than someone that is either entering or helping a loved one enter a nursing home!

If they request the report you simply go to www.healthgrades.com to get the report to send them with a little bit about how your help people in similar situations.

Another way to use this idea is that people are very aware of holidays and tend to be very responsive to offers linked to holidays as long as the link makes sense.

Think about tying a 4th of July card to a review of their US Savings Bonds.  What a great way to get in front of clients that have significant assets that you may be able to find a better home for.

What about using a Memorial Day card to offer a “Spring Cleaning” where you sit down with them to go through the records they need to keep and those that they can safely discard?  You could even offer a tip sheet on how long you need to keep documents.

It is really not that difficult to tie in a holiday with some service you provide if you just think about it.  If you are stumped we’re always here to help. Just give me or someone at Hoard a call and we can help you.

The last few months we have been talking about getting more return on your marketing budget by using a series of mailings or more than one type of media.

Now let’s talk about how to format your direct mail. There are two basic categories…plainly put, those that come in envelopes and those that do not.

Those that don’t come in envelopes are typically called self-mailers and they include postcards, tabbed tri-folded flyers and catalogues.  Self-mailers are generally cheaper but also more likely to be thrown out as junk mail.

So how do we utilize this much cheaper form of mailing while avoiding the hazard of having 90% of it thrown out as junk mail, by the recipient, without even a glance at it?

You have to make your direct mail offer jump out of the junk mail pile and into the curiosity pile.  You have to prevent them from throwing it in the garbage without first looking at it.  How do you do that?

There are a few ways to make inexpensive mail jump out at your prospects:

1. Handwritten note—No one can throw away a handwritten note without finding out what it is about.  They just can’t!  But keep in mind, don’t use some fake looking font but either an actual handwritten note or use a technology that is very authentic looking (beware…there are beginning to be a lot of fake looking, handwritten fonts out there now.)
2. An unusually interesting or beautiful picture on the front—People simply love pictures!
3. An unusual size or shape—Using an over size card or a card cut into an unusual shape will make it feel and look different from the other junk mail so it doesn’t get lost.

You can still get an unbelievable return on investment with the less expensive postcard type mailings if you do them right.

Doing them right means that you write a great headline, you know exactly what your goal is with the mailing and you keep it out of the junk pile.

In future updates I’ll spend a little more time talking about what you should actually put in the copy to get your prospect to act.

Last time we talked about when you have multiple contacts with your prospect or client base your success rate goes up exponentially.  You will get a higher response than just the number of contacts would explain. If you send out one piece and get a 1% response and then continue to contact them say 6 times, your response rate will not go up to 6%, but instead be closer to 12% to 21%.

It will go up far higher than simply adding the number of exposures together. A way to leverage multiple exposures even more is to use multiple media e.g. newspaper, seminars, radio, billboards, etc.  The closer together you can coordinate these different types of media, the more effective it will be. It creates a, “These guys are everywhere. They must be something big.” You have to keep in mind that not all the media will have the same response rate but instead builds the response rate as part of the total package.  Your radio show or commercial may have little or no response rate but it will cause your seminar or direct mail response rate to go up. People will say, “Hey, I know these guys!  I just heard them on the radio yesterday.” When this happens, they will be much more responsive to your direct mail offer.

Obviously, you do not have an infinite amount of money to spend on advertising in all sorts of media but there are some inexpensive ways you can use this concept of helping consumers remember who you are and thus increasing the response to all your marketing. These include:

1. Make sure all your marketing has the same look; colors, logo, layout etc.  Many advisors of making the mistake of wanting to “keep it fresh,” by constantly changing the look of what they do.  Look at what happened to Coke when they introduced New Coke.
2. If you can come up with an easy to remember slogan or tag line that you can use it really helps with word of mouth advertising.
3. Target market—you are much better being a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.   Choose a group of people and hit them continually with your message instead of sending to the masses.
4. Consider hitting them with house flyers that are hand delivered by having a high school kid attach them to their doors.
5. Sponsor a local event—golf tournaments are always looking for hole sponsors or your town probably has some sort of holiday events that are looking for sponsorship.  These not only are good for the community you live in, they are excellent ways to build image and name recognition.
6. Creating a total marketing plan around these items anchored by a handwritten note campaign will have you bringing in as many clients as you want within 12 months.

Soon we will be talking some more about direct mail and how it should look to give you the highest response.  We’ll look at a couple of case studies that have been done to find the most effective layouts you can use on your direct mail.

What do you need to get a high response to your lead generation and client mailings? It ends up being three things:

1. A good headline that is addressed right at your target market
2. A good FREE offer
3. Multiple mailings

I’ve discussed headlines before, but if I get some feedback that you would like me to discuss it again, I’ll be happy to. But for now, let’s focus on the last two items.

First, what are some good FREE giveaways?  Your giveaway should be connected in some way to your offer.  Don’t give away steaks if you are selling insurance, all you are going to get is people that like to eat steaks not people that are interested in insurance.  With that said, your offer should be attractive enough to get those people that are even moderately interested in insurance to raise their hand for your FREE stuff. An example of that for a property casualty agent would be–A free home safety booklet just for setting an appointment. A booklet of ten free car washes when we write your auto insurance. Guaranteed handling of your accident claim in five days or a 10% cash bonus on the settlement.

An example for an annuity sale would be—A free booklet about how to not outlive your income.  An free check of their current annuity for correct beneficiary or annuitants. An example for a life sale would be—A free analysis of current policies to ensure they are using the new life expectancy tables and to-age-100 guarantees.  A book on a life insurance concept like “Missed Fortune: 101.” But…and it’s a big but, the most important thing when it comes to direct mail, lead generation and prospecting via mail is repetition.

Now here’s the secret about direct marketing that virtually no one in the financial industry understands.  In order to acquire new clients - no matter how good the offer is, a single exposure to a given group of prospective clients, it will have minimal effect. But multiple repeated exposures will have a positive effect disproportionate to the number of exposures.

You really need to stop and pay attention here.  If you get this your marketing is going to get a lot more effective, very, very quickly!

If you are patient enough to give prospective clients repeated exposures or mailings you will have a positive impact, far greater than the number of exposures.

Here’s one example - say you’re doing a lead generation mailing of 5,000 people. From a single mailing you might pull anywhere from as low as 1% response or less. Maybe twelve to sixty responses. The variants between the twelve and the sixty may depend on how attractive your offer is.

But if you’ll mail to those same 5,000 prospects six times over a four month period your overall response might be as high as 20%, 150 to 1,000 people. You should only expect 6 times the response because you mailed 6 times but instead you got about twelve times the response from the single mailing not just six times. Why?

See, the multiple contacts don’t just increase response proportionately they increase it exponentially. Is this always true? No. Sometimes you have a crappy or old list, the offer is weak, the company lacks credibility, whatever and no amount of mailing will overcome it. But, presuming the list has been chosen with reasonable care and intelligence, the offer is good, the mail piece is good then this kind of effect should be achieved.

In next week’s tip I will reveal another way to get multiple exposures for your business that can multiply your results.

I hear so many sales persons tell me that they never get a good response rate from their direct mail.  When I ask them what they have been sending it is anything from seminar invites to product offers to “form” letters describing how their company works and why it would benefit the reader to work with them.

Well let’s think about why direct mail doesn’t work…because it doesn’t, at least not the way it used to.  How many times is the average American hit with a marketing message on a daily basis?  I’ve seen anywhere from 500 to 3,000 times mentioned by reliable sources.

Some scoff at these numbers but think about it.  Just driving to work today, how many marketing messages were you exposed to?  Well let me take you through my morning from the time I got up until the time I arrived at work.

5:45 a.m. -  Worked out.  Had my Ipod on so only one message…IPOD

6:45 a.m. -  Eat breakfast while watching the morning news and reading a magazine. Exposed to 10 commercials. The news show actually promoted 2 products. In the magazine as I thumbed through, I counted 72 ads.  The cereal box, Milk carton and frozen blueberry bag are all covered with marketing Messages.

7:15 a.m. -  Showering and dressing while listening to news radio.  Exposed to another 18 commercials.

7:45 a.m. -  Spend 15 minutes watching cartoons with my kids.  Exposed to another 8 Commercials.

8:10 a.m. -  Drive to work while listening to the radio. Exposed to another 6 commercials (I’m lucky, I have a 15 minute commute).  I drive past about 60 retail stores all trying to entice me inside with their signage.  I drive past 5 different vehicles that have their marketing message painted on them.  I drive past 11 bill boards proclaiming their message.  Heck, I even drove by a corner with an actual human being holding a sign for a furniture sale!

So how many marketing messages is that? 197 marketing messages before I step out of the car to walk into work.  How many of you would have guessed that many messages in the first couple of hours of the day?  And had I stretched even a little I could have come up with another 100 messages…from bumper stickers to the branding of every item I touched or saw.

Now how many of these messages actually registered with my brain?  Maybe 1%.  I’ve become immune to them.  If you and I had not learned to tune out this assault on our senses, our brains would explode!

So how do you as somebody that has a message that you want to get out to the masses avoid becoming noise?  How do you make sure that people are not tuning your message out?  Two words, be different.

Different how?  Any difference is better than none at all.  Build a bill board 3 times bigger than all the others…that’s different…that would work…that is illegal.

I could make a long list of ridiculous ways to be different but in deference to you and your busy day, let me suggest one way to be different that is cheap, effective and accomplishes a lot more than just being different.  Try a handwritten note.  People rarely get them.  It makes them stop in their tracks and read what you have to say.  It is not only different in how it affects your prospects but it tells them that you are different as well.  It says that you are not treating them as the masses but instead, you are treating them as an individual…and that means the world to your prospects.

Learn more about the “5Q Process” at TeamingWithClients.com

The “2 cent stamp card” was a huge success.  We have had user after user tell us that their phones have been ringing off the hook and that one, two and up to 5 clients or prospects have called them with money to invest!  Which brings up the point, “What is the best type of mailing to send to prospects and clients?”

The main reason letters or solicitations from most financial professionals fail is that they are written too professionally.  I have talked to so many advisors that are afraid to look unprofessional.  They don’t want to send out a card with a joke or a riddle because they believe their clients will think less of them.

These financial professionals believe that they should be professional in their communication, and they are right to a point.  You should absolutely be professional when:

• You are speaking about your client’s money and investments

or

• You are handling a client’s or prospect’s question or concern

But you should be contacting your clients in some shape, form or manner at least 21 times a year to maintain their loyalty (April ‘06, OnWallStreet, “Illusions of Loyalty”).

What should you contact them about then? You certainly shouldn’t be contacting clients 21 times a year about money.  If you do, your clients will think that the only thing you care about is their money…and that is an extremely dangerous thing for them to think.

If you want to get their attention and you want them to think positively of you, make your clients smile.  Make your clients feel good about themselves.  Make your clients want to be around you.

Think.  Who do you like to be around?  Some guy who’s really smart and is always talking about his favorite subject?  Or someone that can put a smile on your face?  Who do you want to introduce your friends to, a gal who is an expert and can’t wait to show everyone that they are an expert or someone that is quick with an interesting story or has the ability to make people feel good about themselves?

This goes for both working with your clients and prospecting for leads.  Clients and prospects will remember a salesperson that puts them in a better mood.  It is a scientific fact that humans release chemicals when they are feeling good that make them like the people surrounding them that moment even more than they usually would.  This is the kind of chemistry you want to use in your favor!

Many successful advisors I know find that the most successful part of their newsletter is their quiz!  They get more phone calls from that portion of their newsletter than all others combined.  The Client and Prospect newsletter about the little old lady writing a tongue in cheek letter to the bank was by far the most popular with our user’s clients.

Clients, prospects, people in general all love to share entertaining stories, facts, jokes, whatever.  If you can give them one to pass around, you now have more people that want to be around you and who know who you are.

Please don’t take yourself so seriously! A little levity will pay huge dividends!

Learn more about the “Hot News” system at TeamingWithClients.com

As marketing becomes more difficult, you need to get more creative.  Quit throwing money at the problem and start thinking outside the box.  Prospects are throwing junk mail away, they are not attending seminars, they Tivo their TV so they don’t have to watch the commercials.  They just plain don’t want to be sold.

Now don’t get me wrong, Prospects LOVE to buy, they just don’t want to be sold.  So how do they decide to buy?  Well, personal relationship is the number one reason.  It could be a referral or they might work with a friend, etc.

How else do they make their buying decisions?  By what they see in the Media…papers, television, magazines.  If it is in the media, then it must be true.  If the advisor is in the media then he or she must be great.  So how do you get yourself in the Media?

Same way you get into a prospects life.  Create a relationship.  The best tool for that is the handwritten note.  Here is the 6 step process to getting into the Media:

1.  Determine where it would be most profitable for you to be seen or heard – First, think about what your best prospects read.  Where do they get their information?  What do they trust?  Second, think about the big credibility builders like the WSJ or New York Times.  Put together a list of publications that would be worthwhile to get your name into.  (And don’t forget the newsletter of local companies or groups in your area!)

2.  To write or to be the expert – You can choose to either write an article and submit it or to position yourself as an expert to be quoted.  Generally, being quoted holds more water with most people.  Anyone can write an article but reporters obviously would only go to experts for quotes (not true, but that is what the general public believes).  To become an expert determine who writes about consumer issues and financial matters.  Send them some information that might be useful to them to either create a story or give them an idea on a story worth reporting.  Jot a note introducing yourself and send it to them in the mail.

3.   Consistency and regularity – Make sure that you continue to do this like clockwork.  This will build trust and credibility for you.  And remember, this should not be self-promoting info. It should be something worthwhile for them to write about or pursue.

4.   Make sure you are easy to find – When you begin to be quoted you had better be sure that you are easy to find.  The reporter is not going to put your contact information into the article.  People will be forced to seek you out elsewhere.  Make sure that you are easy to find in the phone book and that you have some branding activities going on elsewhere as well.

5.   Make sure that you are ALWAYS available – When a reporter calls, get back to them NOW, not later.  If you are reliable as a quick and easy resource, they will come back again and again. And once they use you, send them a note thanking them for their professionalism and assure them that you are willing to help again in the future.

6.   Don’t be stupid and lazy – This type of marketing is the most valuable of all marketing and costs nothing but a bit of elbow grease.  I have seen people spend over $100,000 in marketing in a year with marginal results and yet they are unwilling to spend a few minutes each week nurturing these relationships.   Please put this to work for you right now before you forget!

Like handwritten notes, they are cheap and VERY EFFECTIVE!

Learn more about the “Letter to the Editor” system at TeamingWithClients.com