Advisers 'reluctant' to invest in marketing

Adviser businesses may be missing out on clients because they haven’t kept up with changing marketing trends.

Wednesday, July 18th 2018, 5:59AM 3 Comments

by Susan Edmunds

Adviser business coach Tony Vidler said financial advisers had proved to not be good at adapting to the newer methods of engaging consumers, such as social media.

They were also reluctant to invest in full-scale communication systems and build their brands, he said.

“They are very poor at capturing and building awareness and engaging for the long term.”

He said it could not be attributed to the age of advisers, who are mostly aged over 50. “Adaptability is not an age thing  - it’s an attitude thing, it’s an intelligence thing.”

Too many advisers were still focused on the short-term, the next client engagement, sale or piece of advice or document to produce, Vidler said. 

They were not thinking long-term or investing in systems that would support their business development in future.

Regulation was putting more pressure on advisers to work in the back office rather than the front, he said. “They are not stepping back to work on the business.”

But Damian McDonald, chief executive of Moberate Technologies, said it was likely a case of advisers not knowing where to start, rather than being unwilling.

He said if technology was too complicated, people would not use it. The time, energy and research involved in setting up a marketing solution could put advisers off, he said.

“If you googled ‘business marketing tools’ you will find thousands of of tools available online that can be used to help you market your business. In fact, as of 2018, there are over 6000 registered technologies that could be used.”

He said, once advisers had decided on a technology strategy and could implement it, they had to think about what they wanted to communicate through the selected channels and how the opportunities were managed.

“In some cases people are trying to piece together multiple technologies to try and come up with a marketing solution. Managing multiple logins, passing of information and the training required for each separate application simply becomes too overwhelming for typically non-technical advisers.”

His firm has launched a new smartphone-based marketing platform, AdvisorPromoter, that is designed to help financial advisers with this problem, providing traditional marketing tools alongside marketing automation technology via smartphone.

Tags: marketing

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Comments from our readers

On 31 July 2018 at 4:27 pm interested2 said:
Help please... Tony Vidler is often a trusted source of innovative ideas. Not sure this was in fact a product he was endorsing though. Has anyone used this smartphone app - did you get the results you wanted? Any comparison to the old call centre model? Thanks!
On 17 December 2018 at 2:55 pm Paul J Burns said:
I think Tony Vidler is in quite a strong position to assess the general prevalent attitudes (re investing into marketing). Indeed I'm not surprised with his findings. In the words of the inimitable Michael Morrow "Too many advisers are not only cheap, but too cheap - for their own good". As I don't want to be convicted of the same indictment. I've (just now) subscribed to the AdvisorPromoter program. Happy to give anyone my experience of it - in due course.
On 18 December 2018 at 8:42 am Backstage said:
I have seen Damiens Advisor Promotor APP and can say it is very impressive. Great for engaging new prospects and for reengaging existing clients. It is the smartest adviser tool i have seen in a very long time

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