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August 13, 2020 at 12:37 AM
It has been said that to be successful in the financial services business; you need to specialize and target your marketing to your specialty. Let’s take a look at what target marketing is:
“Target marketing is researching and understanding your prospective customers’ interests, hobbies, and needs so that you can focus your message and your marketing budget on the specific segment of the market that is most likely to purchase your product or service.”
By this definition, you are narrowing your marketing dollars to the most likely segment that will take advantage of what you are offering. You are looking for the who, what, why, and how of your market so you can really focus on them.
(Related: How to Target Affluent Clients Online)
Decide who is going to be your ideal prospects, so you don’t waste your time or money chasing prospects outside of your market. Let’s say you decide on the senior market. There are several areas of specialization in which you can focus. Those who are nearing retirement may need post 401(k) strategies, those in early retirement, and those in later retirement facing health care decisions. You might define your group as those seniors age 67 to 77 with investable assets of $250,000 who have adequate income. Or another strategy is not to be specific but have products that you can use to fill a variety of needs. So, in that case, all seniors from those just entering retirement all the way to seniors in their mid 80’s become your market.
What will you offer this group to meet the needs they have? Focusing on safety, fees, and decent returns seem to be a winning combination. There are other needs this group has, but the more broadly your definition, the more opportunities you will have to influence your market to take advantage of what you have to offer.
The where can be locally or regionally or even nationally if you have the resources to market over a diverse geographic area. For me, I like to focus on the 10 miles around my office. For most advisors, the cost of mail or advertising limits how far afield your marketing can reach.
Next, you can get into market research and drill down your marketing to an almost unlimited number of demographic parameters — age, sex, marital status, zip code, income, assets, magazine subscriptions, etc. There is an entire industry built around how to find just the right prospect for you.
Philip Richardson, CFP, CLU, ChFC, is the founder and president of 