Mark Mersman, Chief Marketing Officer at USA Financial - Hey, what's up guys! Today I wanted to share really quick and simple idea with you. You know, in our industry, we constantly hear from a compliance side of things, you know, you have to know your client, you got to know your client. And that's true, obviously on the financial side, that's really important, but I'll challenge you with a question. How well do you really know your clients? And the simple idea is, and we've worked with advisors on this over the years.
Create a very simple survey and not the typical survey that you might be thinking a survey that is really more of a guess a questionnaire to get to know them right so the one that we've created and obviously you can build your own or you can leverage ours if you work with us but it asks about their children their grandchildren now that is typically something that you're all using already you're probably gathering some information on their kids hopefully you might be getting some information on the grandkids but what this really does is it obviously is going to give you an opportunity for two things. Number one, you've heard ad nauseum the importance of connecting with the next generation so that when mom and dad end up passing and that those assets transfer, you can then be there and have a relationship already established with that next generation. The other opportunity obviously is things like 529s for the kids or the grandkids. A huge opportunity for you.
That's a good way to continue to bridge that gap there with the next generation. So that's an easy one. but the next one is knowing their favorites. sounds really silly, but things like what's their favorite holiday? What are their favorite beverages? What are the favorite meals, restaurants, desserts, candy, sports teams, flowers. I mean, anything from maybe favorite movies, songs, bands, colleges, sports teams. You know, the thing is. Once you understand that the opportunity from a marketing standpoint inside of that is unbelievable. know, anytime something then ends up happening with that client or you want to give a gift or you want to create an event around something like that, or the best opportunity really is use that information to leverage it and create a better client experience. So if you know what their favorite beverages, you can have that when they come in for a meeting. If you know what their favorite song is, know, imagine you've got that playing in the background. Or if you happen to know what their favorite restaurant is and you went out to eat there, you can send them a quick note. Hey, ADAT, such and such a place was thinking about you. Really kind of a unique opportunity to enhance that client experience and put a really personal touch on that. The next part of the questionnaire that we would encourage you to think about including is things that they're involved with. So clubs, organizations, groups. whether that's maybe a rotary club, a Kiwanis club, Lions club, their church, any of these clubs, groups, organizations, many of them are looking for speakers. They're looking for maybe guidance that you could provide or offer to them.
Once you understand what they're involved with, you know, you can ask that simple question, "Hey Joe, you know, I noticed that you're, you know, involved in such and such a club, do they ever have outside speakers? You know, me and my team often will come in and provide presentations specific to groups like that." You know, that's a simple opportunity for you to then leverage your knowledge and insert it as a value add to that relationship. So don't forget to ask that the next thing that I would encourage you to think about including and making sure that you know about your clients is what events or outings would they be interested in? You know, whether it's wine tasting, whether it's cooking, whether it's gardening, whether it's shopping or watching sports games or museums or card playing, you know, our, our questionnaire, the way that we have it structured, you know, it's just a checkbox. Very easy for them to go through. And, you know, then you can take it inside of your CRM. And now you've got that database and you can check off Joe and Sally are interested in, you know, card playing, or they're interested in gardening. This basically gives you the roadmap. Once you've done this with enough of your clients to build out a marketing calendar centered on these events and outings. And now all of a sudden, if you know, Hey, 15 of my best clients really enjoy gardening. You can go reach out to your local gardening store and say, Hey, would you be willing to put on an event for a small group of my clients? You know, maybe extend a discount to them. If I bring 15, 20 people in come, maybe you do a little show and tell on your store or some sort of kind of DIY type of approach. And now all of a sudden gives you a very inexpensive way to connect with your clients, spend more face time with them. And obviously for those types of events, you can certainly encourage them to bring friends of theirs along with them.
Along the same vein, but slightly different is asking them, about various educational topics they might be interested in attending events on. So whether this is about college planning, whether it's real estate, whether it's mortgages, whether it's estate planning, Medicare, travel, personal growth, that sort of thing. There's a ton of opportunity there. Now these topics are a little bit more educational focused, not as much entertainment centered. Certainly you can infuse some entertainment into that, but I think understanding that just simply putting it out there and asking those questions, identifying the clients that have interest in certain areas. It allows you to build out your marketing calendar based upon the things that your clients are actually interested in.
So really simple idea, get to know your clients, know your client, not just from the financial side. We know you do that very well, but leverage it to understand the things that they're invested in, not from the money standpoint, but from a personal time standpoint and things that they enjoy. And I think if you do that, you will find that knowing that about your, especially your best clients, you will quickly have the playbook right there in front of you for how to market to them and how to leverage that, that relationship that you have to ultimately, obviously the ideal scenario is you get further introductions. from your clients to their best friends.
All right, that's it. Take care, and have a good one.
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The Financial Advisor Marketing Playbook is a podcast/video series for high-performing financial planning professionals that are committed to improving their craft, helping their clients, and growing their business. Hosted by Mark Mersman, Chief Marketing Officer at USA Financial, this series contains a wide variety of content – from quick win ideas to long-form interviews, each episode provides actionable marketing ideas and insights that can be implemented easily into your practice. From digital marketing to traditional direct-response marketing, each episode delivers straight-forward and engaging content that any financial professional can use to improve their bottom line and grow their practice.
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