Archive for July 2010
Financial Advisors Need a Marketing Strategy
How many times have you actually heard a CPA/Financial Planner complain about how much money he or she has spent on marketing? Does anyone actually market their practice these days? Do you? Does your competition?
In today’s increasingly competitive market, many CPA and Financial Planning firms are feeling that if they do not market, they will quickly be left behind their competitors. But when it comes to making this investment in marketing, most CPAs and Financial Planners are more inclined to do what feels comfortable – which is nothing. Or, in most cases, have such an informal or haphazard approach to marketing that their efforts are spotty at best. Some even consider marketing as behavior unbefitting a serious professional.
But what is marketing and how does one market effectively?
One definition for marketing is the process for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. Or, in other words, marketing is the process of obtaining new clients and generating new business from existing clients. Sounds simple, right?
But if CPAs and Financial Planners as a whole are unfamiliar with marketing and are rarely using this tool to increase their practices, how can one begin to “market” his or her practice?