How to Use Direct Mail Marketing For Your Financial Advisory Firm—Two Proven Strategies

Financial advisors are bombarded daily by a long list of potential marketing activities. Online leads, Facebook advertising, SEO, automated LinkedIn connections, email blasts—the list goes on and on.

None, however, can hold a candle to the power that Direct Mail Marketing delivers.

When marketing your financial advisory firm, direct mail—more often than not—takes a backseat. Advisors think it’s old school, or that it doesn’t work, or that it’s too expensive. Our goal today is to dispel these common myths and offer you a vision of just how powerful direct mail marketing can be for your financial practice.

What Types of Direct Mail Marketing Exist?

First things first. Direct Mail Marketing. Let’s define what precisely that means. The definition of direct mail is “Advertising sent to prospective customers through the mail.” Seems pretty self-explanatory right? Unfortunately, that’s a pretty broad definition. The challenge in understanding and implementing direct mail marketing as a financial advisor is that there are so many different forms of direct mail marketing.

For example, you have:

• Every door direct mail (EDDM) offered by the post-office
• Seminar marketing using direct mail advertising
• Sending clients letters and follow-ups via mail
• Implementing an ongoing direct mail drip-marketing campaign

Adding to this complexity is exactly what form of mail you should send.

• Postcards?
• Sales letters in envelopes?
• Bi-fold or tri-fold self-mailers?
• Note cards or greeting cards?
• Window envelopes?
• Live postage vs. pre-sort?
• First class vs. standard class postage?

Beyond that come these additional questions:

• What should my design look like?
• What is my call-to-action (CTA) or offer?
• How to I generate the highest response?
• When should I send my mailing?
• And many more…

Since the last thing you want to do is waste valuable time and money on ineffective marketing campaigns, understanding and navigating this challenging world of direct mail needs to become your first priority.

With that goal in mind, let’s take a look at two of the most successful forms of direct mail marketing that you can use as a financial advisor to grow and expand your business. We’ll take a quick look at what that activity is, how it works, and why it really delivers!

Direct Mail Successful Marketing Idea #1 – Seminar Marketing

Seminar marketing has been around for many, many years. At its core is the concept that people like attending group-based events. They feel safer, less intimidated, and more open-minded to learning. Seminars go by many names, including Workshops, Events, Courses, Trainings, Conferences, and more.

Here are some of the many benefits of Seminar marketing:

• Leverage your time speaking to multiple prospects at once (often up to 30 – 40!)
• Showcase your expertise, experience and confidence
• Advertise your practice in an educational and informational environment
• Schedule multiple sales appointments all at once, boosting your pipeline

As a financial advisor, group based events, or seminars, simply cannot be beat. In my history as a marketing coach to hundreds of advisors, one thing stood out that every top producer had in common… they all ran seminars or group events. It’s really that simple.

Assuming you believe in the power of seminars, the question then becomes “How do I fill the room?” While we could spend hours dissecting the methodology behind advertising for events (and perhaps I will on future posts!), the quintessential method that still outperforms today is direct mail marketing.

So, how does this all work?

1. Find a presentation topic that you feel comfortable presenting
2. Find a restaurant or location to host your event
3. Work with a mail house to run a “demographic count” in your area
4. Fine tune the demographics that will yield the best results
5. Design the professional mail piece you want to send
6. Send the direct mail piece to your list
7. Take reservations/RSVPs
8. Send confirmations before the event
9. Deliver a world-class presentation
10. Schedule appointments!

Assuming you run events and seminars consistently, you can really begin to generate a highly consistent flow of new prospects and potential clients, month-after-month, and year-after-year!

Direct Mail Successful Marketing Idea #2 – Ongoing Drip-Marketing

Our second successful direct mail marketing idea is called “Ongoing Direct Mail Drip-Marketing,” or Drip-Marketing for short.

Drip-marketing is the process of sending something to your prospective clients over, and over, and over. Month-after-month, year-after-year. Drip, drip, drip… just like a water faucet! The concept behind drip-marketing is an idea called “Nurturing.” Nurturing is the process of taking a newly initiated relationship and helping it grow and flourish into a sale or client conversion.

For example, you just planted a new seedling in your garden. Now your goal is to get it to grow. You must care for that seedling. You must nurture it. How do you do that? You diligently, day-after-day, tend to that seedling. You make sure it has water. You ensure it has sunlight. Simply put, you pay ongoing attention to it until it grows into a healthy, beautiful plant.

The same can be said for your prospective clients.

Let’s say, for example, that you meet with 30 prospective clients from your seminar event that we discussed above. You successfully schedule 50% appointments. That means you’re meeting with 15 clients, but not meeting with the other 15. What do you do next? If you’re like most advisors, you forget about the 15 that didn’t schedule appointments, and only focus on the ones that did. But, that is leaving a tremendous amount of missed opportunity on the table.

Direct Mail Drip-Marketing means that you would continue to “drip” on those potential clients with direct mail. Each and every month. Here are some of the advantages:

• Many people aren’t ready to buy when they first meet you
• You’re staying in touch every month until they are ready
• You begin building trust and a personal connection
• When your client is ready to buy, they think of you
• You stay top of mind, not your competitors
• It’s low cost and has a tremendously high ROI

There is significant value in direct mail drip-marketing, you just need to get the process up and running. One thing is for sure… if you don’t stay in touch with your prospective clients, they won’t magically think to call you. And email isn’t the answer, nobody even reads it these days!

Here’s how it works:

1. Set up a list of your top prospective clients
2. Upload those into a direct mail drip-marketing platform (like VFM!)
3. Create your first postcard
4. Mail it to that list!
5. Continue this every single month (at minimum)

At Vision Financial Marketing, we make direct mail drip-marketing easy. We have all the campaigns and content ready to send, so you can literally get a new campaign sent in minutes. Follow our system and you’ll be well on your way to many new client conversions!

Conclusion

Direct Mail is a fantastic form of advertising for financial advisors. The key is ensuring you follow the right steps and follow a proven marketing approach to ensure you maximize your investment.

If you’d like to talk to Vision Financial Marketing about your direct mail drip-marketing efforts, just click here to schedule a 15 – 20 minute demo and Q&A session.

We’ve helped hundreds of advisors successfully boost their marketing and direct mail results, and would love to help you too!

Until next time,