Recently I have been conducting one-on-one LinkedIn training sessions for advisors on how they can better utilize the professional social networking site. Each advisor has different restrictions on how they can engage with the site depending on the rules set forth by their compliance department. I have found that most compliance departments will allow advisors to have LinkedIn profiles, but will not necessarily allow them to actively participate in groups, install applications, update their status or mass email their connections. For those advisors who are allowed to have a LinkedIn profile but have been restricted in their use of the site, there are still strategies that can be utilized to make LinkedIn a valuable sales and marketing tool. Below are four strategies to implement even if you can’t use LinkedIn to its fullest potential.

Strategy 1: Build Your Network

LinkedIn becomes more powerful as the size of your network increases. This is because you are only able to see profiles of people within your network (i.e. 1st, 2nd or 3rd Connections and Group Members). To make effective use of LinkedIn, you will need to continuously build your network. This will allow you to discover more potential clients and centers of influence. Start expanding your network by importing contacts. You can do this by selecting “Add Connections” in the Contacts menu and uploading a spreadsheet of your contacts’ email addresses. The resulting list will show you who is on LinkedIn and will allow you to send a mass invitation to connect.

Once you have started with your initial network, you’ll want to continue adding all new contacts to your network. Make inviting all new contacts to join your LinkedIn network a part of your weekly routine. This includes people you meet professionally and socially. You never know where the next client or referral will come from, so don’t exclude people from your network.

Another way to build your network is to install an Outlook toolbar which will notify you when an email contact is on LinkedIn. You can download and install either the LinkedIn or Xobni toolbar which will show you LinkedIn profile information about each of your email contacts and provide you with a link to send an “invitation to connect” request. These tool bars eliminate the need to manually look up a contact to see if they are on the site and then send an invitation request. Plus, they constantly remind you to build your network.

Strategy 2: Join Groups

You may have been told by your compliance department that you can’t post a discussion question, answer a discussion question, post a news article, or comment on a news article. That doesn’t mean that joining groups is a waste of time. Even if you never actively participate in a group, joining allows you to expand your network. By joining a group, you are able to view the profiles of everyone in the group. This helps when you are researching prospects since their profiles might not be available to you otherwise. In addition, you are able to send an email directly to fellow group members without being linked in with them through the “send a message” function. Joining groups provides you with direct access to hundreds if not thousands of individuals who would otherwise be outside of your LinkedIn reach. Just be cautious when emailing through LinkedIn since some compliance departments require a screenshot of the message you are sending including the name of the person to whom who you are sending it.

Strategy 3: Research Prospects

LinkedIn provides a wealth of information about a prospective client. By reviewing a prospect’s profile prior to your first meeting, you can discover past employment history, educational background, professional associations and personal interests. This will give you a better understanding of the prospect and may assist in directing the conversation during a first appointment. The only limitation with this strategy is that you are only able to view profiles of people within your network. Having a larger network, as described in strategies one and two, will increase the likelihood of being able to see a prospect’s profile.

Strategy 4: Research your Network for Introductions & Referrals

Do you know which of your clients have relationships with the types of people you would like to meet? If they have a LinkedIn profile you can easily find out. When you connect with your clients, centers of influence or networking contacts on LinkedIn, you can look through their connections to see who they know. By researching your LinkedIn contacts’ network, you can make informed decisions about who has the ability to make quality referrals and introductions and create a marketing strategy around that information. For example, you can ask for referrals and introductions to specific people within your contact’s network when you have a referral conversation. Or, you can plan a private client event and make extra effort to ensure that clients with strong networks attend. Researching your network will allow you to focus your referral efforts.

Conclusion

In my personal experience, the strategies listed above are acceptable by most compliance departments who allow advisors to use LinkedIn. However, you will want to consult with your compliance department before implementing any of these ideas to make sure you are in observance of your firm’s policies.

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies. For more information, visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.

This past weekend, I sat on a social media panel discussion for the NAPFA NorCal meeting with Cathy Curtis, CFP® of Curtis Financial Planning, Chuck Rylant, CFP® of C.J. Rylant Wealth Management, and Leslie Banks, Director of Marketing for Morningstar.  While I was there, I had a chance to ask each of my fellow panelists, “What’s your favorite social networking site?”  Instead of my usual weekly post, I thought I’d share their responses in the videos below and invite you to share your favorite social networking site by leaving a comment.

Cathy Curtis, CFP®, Curtis Financial Planning

Chuck Rylant, CFP®, C.J. Rylant Wealth Management

Leslie Banks, Director of Marketing, Morningstar

A few weeks ago I was speaking with an advisor about the types of marketing his firm does.  He listed several standard marketing campaigns.  He then went on to tell me that his main marketing strategy is to help others first with their needs and business tends to follow.  He called this strategy “Karma Marketing.”

The concept that doing good deeds will result in positive outcomes is something that many of us believe to be true in our own lives.  While this is not something I have heard translated into a marketing strategy, it makes perfect sense.  By making other people’s needs a priority, you build deeper trust and rapport than you would by selling your services first.

After hearing the term Karma Marketing, I began to analyze the marketing strategies of all of the different advisors I know and realized that this is an unspoken strategy adopted by several of them.  It is something that is difficult to put down in a marketing plan but it has significant results.  Here are some strategies I’ve observed about how advisors are applying Karma Marketing.

Facilitate Introductions

Connecting people with one another is a simple way to help both prospective clients and centers of influence (COI) with their personal and professional lives.  This can take the form of a simple introduction via email or LinkedIn, a more personal introduction such as inviting both parties to lunch, or a mass introduction such as inviting them to a networking mixer or hospitality event you are hosting.   Introductions can be both professional and personal.  For example, if someone is new to town, introduce him or her to someone of similar interests or hobbies.  Another example would be introducing two people in a similar industry who may be able to help each other’s business.  Your prospective clients and centers of influence will appreciate the introduction and will consciously or subconsciously make an effort to repay the favor, helping your business along the way.

Promote a Business

If you work with executives, managers, business owners or entrepreneurs, promoting their business creates goodwill.  You can promote someone’s business by providing them with referrals or you can take a more creative approach.  For example, invite a business owner or professional to write an article for your newsletter or blog that educates your audience but still promotes their business.   If you host events, consider choosing a venue owned by one of your prospective clients on an off-night.  They will appreciate the business and the exposure.

If you are engaged in the world of social media, consider promoting individuals and businesses on Twitter and Facebook.  One advisor I know promotes a different business each week on her Facebook Group page.  Other advisors promote businesses on Twitter by forwarding (aka retweeting) messages or recommending that their followers follow this person as well (aka Follow Fridays).

Promoting a prospective client’s or COI’s business is an inexpensive way to create good karma that will hopefully pay off down the road through direct business or referrals.

Volunteer

Volunteering is another way to create good karma.  You can sit on the board of a non-profit, mentor small businesses, organize alumni association networking mixers or volunteer at a charity event.  Not only will you be surrounding yourself with your target market, you will have to opportunity to help these individuals with what is important in their lives.  For example, if your target market is small business owners, by mentoring this group you are equipping them for success.  This leads to goodwill which is bound to come back to you in direct or indirect business.  Or you may decide that you would rather organize an alumni association mixer each quarter.  By volunteering your time, your alumni group benefits and you may also benefit from a referral  to a friend or family member. Choose volunteer opportunities that are near and dear to your heart that you will enjoy doing year after year.

The key to Karma Marketing is to be genuine.  Don’t be anxious to see a return on investment for your time and effort.  You never know where business from these efforts will come from.    Just enjoy doing good deeds for other people and positive outcomes are sure to result.

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies. For more information, visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.

Anytime I explain to people what I do, there is some confusion. No, I’m not a financial planner. I help financial planners market their businesses. To those who are not in the world of financial services or marketing, this can sometimes be a confusing concept. However, once my profession is clear, inevitably people want to talk about their financial planners with me. I always welcome this feedback because it provides me with further insight into what people are looking for in their financial advisor. The reason I bring this up, is because it happened again this weekend.

This past weekend I visited my aunt and uncle in Denver while I was in town for business. They are in their mid 50s, have two kids in college and own a business. For many of the advisors I work with, my aunt and uncle fit their target market. In the interest of anecdotal research I asked my uncle how he chose his advisor. He went through his history of working with a broker who had no idea who he was, another firm who was not transparent about fees and finally his current planner who he has been working with for the last year and a half.

I was looking for specifics, so I asked my uncle how he met his current advisor. He said that his advisor came into his shop to purchase a piano (my uncle owns a piano sales and restoration business). They found they had several common interests, so they kept in touch. I don’t know the exact sequence of events, but they’ve had dinner at each other’s houses and the advisor even accompanied my aunt and her friends on their annual 18 mile hike across the Continental Divide. They connected on a personal level before initiating a business relationship. In fact, my aunt and uncle already had plans to have the advisor over later this month to play music and have dinner together.

I wanted to share this because it is not the first time I’ve heard a story like this. Financial advisors are in the relationship business (or at least should be). So what better way to build a relationship than to interact with your clients and prospects outside the sphere of your business?

You may be asking yourself, “This is great, but how do I incorporate these types of activities into my marketing plan?” Obviously it’s not as easy to schedule hikes and dinners with your prospects as it is to schedule a workshop or a newsletter. But you can create monthly goals for yourself such as having 4 clients/prospects over for dinner and two rounds of golf with your contacts each month. This will help ensure that you are paying attention to your relationships. You’ll also want to include the costs of these activities into your annual marketing budget to help reinforce them as legitimate marketing efforts.

To be effective at nurturing these relationships, you should utilize your CRM (Customer Relationship Management System) to keep you organized. Every time you interact with a prospect or client, set an alert to remind you to contact that person again next month, next quarter or whatever time interval you deem appropriate. If you don’t take the time to set a reminder, you’ll get busy and the next thing you know, a year will have passed since the last time you met socially with a client or prospect.

This approach will not work with every prospect or client. Some would rather not see you except for their annual reviews. Others, however, want to have a relationship with you. You are helping them achieve their goals in life and they want to feel like you understand them and their family. For these prospects and clients, don’t hesitate to get personal.

It goes without saying that you have to be genuine when socializing with clients and prospects outside of the office. If you are walking through the motions because you think it will lead to new business, you will probably fail. However, if you are genuinely interested in specific clients and prospects, formalizing the process by setting goals and scheduling reminders will only help the effectiveness of your efforts. As you start thinking about your marketing activities for next year, don’t be afraid to adapt the way you think about marketing and start getting personal!

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies. For more information, visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.

With only two months left in 2009, time is running out to get in your last minute marketing campaigns.  It is important to realize that marketing in November and December is a different beast than the rest of the year.  If you are like many advisory firms, you might find it difficult to set appointments with prospective clients during this time.  This slow period doesn’t mean you should halt your marketing efforts.  Instead, you need to adjust your strategies and take advantage of the unique opportunities that are available to you during this period.   Here are five tips to help you make the most out of your end of year marketing.

Write your 2010 Marketing Plan
Now is the time to write your 2010 Marketing Plan so that you can come out of the gate running in January.  Document your objectives and strategies for the year and write down how you plan to accomplish them.  I recommend you pull out a calendar and schedule the specific dates in which you wish to accomplish each activity.  This will provide you with set deadlines to ensure that you are systematically and consistently marketing.  Marketing plans take time to create and executing campaigns takes even longer.  If you wait until January to write your plan, you’ll be playing catch up.  Worse, you many miss out on great marketing opportunities in January which is traditionally a receptive time for prospective clients.

Meet with CPAs
CPAs are in a slow period for their business from now until the end of the year.  Take this time to nurture your relationships with these professionals for the purpose of generating referrals in 2010.  If you host continuing education courses (CPE) for CPAs, schedule them from now until mid December.  If seminars are not your style, schedule coffee, breakfast or lunch meetings.  Once February hits, these professionals will be out of reach, so nurture your relationships now to plant seeds for referrals in 2010.

Reach Out to Clients
Your clients are the lifeblood of your business.  Show them you appreciate their business by doing something nice for them.  Whether you send Thanksgiving cards, holiday cards, gifts or flower arrangements, your clients will appreciate the sentiment.  You may also consider hosting a fun holiday appreciation event like a Holiday Lights Limo or Bus Tour where you are chauffeured around town admiring light displays and drinking seasonal libations.  Encourage your clients to bring friends and your field trip may turn into referral business.

Network
Networking is an important part of any marketing strategy because it helps you expand your social and professional circles. The more people you meet, the more opportunities for business.  Late fall provides a variety of unique networking opportunities.   It is common for associations, charities, and businesses to host holiday parties and fundraising events.  Take advantage of these opportunities to meet new people by attending as many events as you can manage for the remainder of the year.  More importantly, find a way to connect with these people after the event, whether that is by phone, email, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.  While the introduction to a new contact is important, maintaining the relationship will be even more critical to success.

Develop a Client Survey
Client surveys are valuable tools to analyze satisfaction levels, evaluate service offerings and identify potential referral sources.  It makes sense to gather client feedback through surveys at the end of the year or at the beginning of the coming year.  Either way, now is the time to develop your survey.  You can easily create your own email survey with a tool like SurveyMonkey.com or you can hire a firm like Advisor Impact to help you.  You will want to encourage participation by either offering to donate X amount of dollars to a charity for each survey returned or conduct a drawing for a prize among those clients who complete the survey.  Just remember to distribute your survey in the first week of December or after the first week in January to garner the most response.

Make the most of these last two months of the year by planning for 2010 and finding fun and creative ways to market to your clients, network within the community and nurture existing relationships.  Doing so will set the stage for a prosperous new year.

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies. For more information, visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.

More and more advisors I talk to are seeing the value of Facebook as a marketing tool.  Even if Facebook doesn’t lead to immediate new business, it is a way to maintain existing relationships quickly and easily.  To stay in contact in the past, you would send an email, make a phone call or even write a letter.  This was not only time consuming, but it limited how often you could stay in front of your contacts.  No one would want to hear from you on a daily basis.  But now with the proliferation of social media, you can stay in front of your contacts multiple times a day.  It is the frequency of contact that makes social media a powerful marketing tool.   Advisors are at a particular advantage because they are in a relationship-oriented business and social media is all about relationships. So, in theory, everything you do in social media is a relationship builder and hence a marketing opportunity.  Maybe, even, let’s say… Mafia Wars!

If you have a Facebook account, you have undoubtedly seen your friends posting information about their successes in a social game like Farmville or Mafia Wars.  And like most people not playing social games, you find them annoying and a waste of time.  But what if these social games provide a unique marketing opportunity for you?  Would it be worth playing?

For the purposes of this article, when I refer to “social games” I am talking about the multi-player games that are seamlessly integrated into social networking platforms like Facebook.  These are casual games played by the average person (not hardcore gamers) that allow players to interact with each other.  Still not sure what I’m talking about?  Visit http://zynga.com/ to see a list.

I too was annoyed with Facebook’s social games until I realized how many of my contacts were playing and decided that this was something I needed to explore.  I started playing Mafia Wars a couple of months ago.  Without going into too much detail, the purpose of the game is to build a powerful mafia which you can do with the help of your other Facebook friends.  Players help each other out by exchanging resources and assisting in attacks and mob jobs.  In other words, players are working with their Facebook friends to achieve their goals.

Now you may be asking, “So what? How is this going to help my business?”  I’m not here to claim that it will.   I have no proof or anecdotes to suggest that playing social games leads to new clients.  I’m here instead to raise the question, “Can social games be used as a marketing strategy?”  The reason I ask this is because I had an epiphany the other day while playing Mafia Wars.  I realized that the people I am playing with are people I don’t know well at all.  Some are people I knew 10+ years ago.  Some are advisors I don’t know but have connected with on Facebook.  Now, I’m interacting with these virtual strangers on a daily basis through Mafia Wars.  I help them achieve their goals by assisting them when asked and they return the favor.  These people stay top-of-mind for me as I assume I do for them.   Every day we are building a stronger (virtual) relationship between us.

This may seem like a preposterous idea, but why should it?  People who play golf together form a bond.  Why can’t people playing an online game form a bond?  I realize there is a major difference in that golf allows face-to-face communication while social games do not.  But as more and more people become comfortable with online relationships, this won’t seem as ridiculous of a notion.  Building relationships is always a good strategy for growing an advisory business, so who is to say that social games can’t be a viable marketing tool?  You aren’t striking up a new relationship.  You are playing with contacts you are already connected with on Facebook and are deepening the bond.  It is a type of drip marketing in more inconspicuous packaging.

I throw the question out to you.  Do you think social games can be a way to nurture relationships that lead to future business?  I’d love to hear your thoughts – both the pros and the cons so please leave comments on my blog.  Or if you just want to join my mafia, you can find me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kristen.luke.

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies. For more information, visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.

This last week I attended a client appreciation event hosted by an RIA that I work with in San Diego.  The event featured a wine and hors d’oevres reception at a trendy restaurant followed by a series of lectures by three renowned speakers at a contemporary art museum.  With over 200 people in attendance, the event was quite the success.  The clients were delighted and the centers of influence were full of compliments.  Attending the event reinforced to me the importance of incorporating client events into a marketing plan.

Many advisors shy away from client events because they think they are costly or are viewed as ineffective.  My response to the first objection is that there is an event for every size budget.  As to the second objection, my response is that time spent in front of your “A” Clients is always a productive use of your time.

I agree that client events can be expensive.  But you don’t have to spend $10,000+ on an event to do something special for your clients.  Here are some inexpensive to moderately expensive ideas to start showing your clients how much you appreciate their business… and their referrals.

Lunch & Learns

Hosting a monthly one hour lunch presentation in your office is an inexpensive way to regularly stay in front or your clients. All you need is to schedule a speaker and cater lunch.  A modest budget for this type of event is $10 per person.     Your first instinct may be to have a financial workshop each month but the presentations should vary.  Be a resource to your clients and offer them presentations that would be of interest to them but may fall outside of your expertise.   This may even mean conducting a presentation that is purely for fun!

Wine & Cheese Events

I have this saying when it comes to marketing – you can’t lose with booze.  Now, I’m not advocating the irresponsible consumption of alcohol.  I’m just saying that in my experience events that serve alcoholic beverages are usually successful.  It sets the tone for a more casual and relaxing atmosphere than a formal business event.  I worked for an RIA who used to hold monthly wine and cheese events for clients in their board room.  The evening would feature a local non-profit organization which would give a 20-30 minute presentation about the work they were doing in the community.  The clients were impressed by the charitable intentions of the firm and were introduced to previously unknown, but worthy organizations.  At the same time, they enjoyed a lovely evening of wine and cheese, which was purchased at Costco to keep the cost down.  We even hired a bartender from a party staffing company for $100 for the night.  This not only added another level of sophistication to the event but also transferred the liability of serving alcohol to the staffing company.  These events were quite popular with clients and it strengthened relationships with the non-profits as well.

Suites at Sporting Events

Reserving a suite at a sporting event is a fun and casual way to build rapport with your clients.  You will want to find a suite that holds between 15 and 25 people so that you are able to spend time with all of your clients.  Encourage your guests to bring their friends or family members since it will be a more enjoyable experience for them and may lead to possible referrals.  The price of a suite will vary depending on the city and the sport.  For example, a suite at a minor league baseball game will cost significantly less than a suite at an NFL football game or the U.S. Open golf tournament.

Create a Custom Event

If you know you have enough clients with a similar interest, you can tailor an event especially for them.  Perhaps it is a food and wine tour if you live near a wine region.  Or it could be a  small golf tournament.  I can’t take credit for this next idea since I borrowed it from the Financial Advisor Forum , but Certified Financial Planner Jeff Rose hosted a round robin tennis tournament since he had a client who was a former tennis coach.  All of these ideas are fun alternatives to the standard educational events but are still centered on the clients’ interests.

There are hundreds of ideas out there for client events.  The key is to create an event that your clients look forward to attending and will want to talk about with their friends, family members and colleagues.  While it is important to provide continuing education to your clients, it will be the social events that help solidify the client relationship.  Choose a balanced mix between the two as you incorporate client events into your marketing plan.

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies. For more information, visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.

Fall is the time to start thinking about your next year’s marketing plan.  You may think to yourself, “It’s only October… I still have three months before I need to think about my marketing plan.”  Before you know it, the holidays will come and go and the New Year will be upon us.  Don’t wait until mid-January to start planning for 2010 because you will miss out on some great marketing opportunities early in the year.

To start planning for 2010, I recommend you read my article, How to Construct a Marketing Plan & Budget. Your marketing plan should incorporate a variety of strategies so that you are generating new business from multiple sources.  You should also take into account the different opportunities each month presents to you.  Here is a breakdown of strategies and campaigns that each month uniquely offers to incorporate into your plan for the upcoming year.

January

Early in the year, people are still committed to their New Year’s resolutions.  This is the perfect time for educational workshops for both clients and prospects.  If you plan on conducting public workshops at all during the year, you should schedule at least a couple in January.  Educational client workshops are also well attended during this time of year.  If you don’t have the capacity or desire to hold live client presentations, consider starting a webinar series in January to reach your clients.
January is also an opportune time to conduct an annual client survey.  A survey not only gauges satisfactions levels, it also identifies potential referral sources so that you can tailor your marketing efforts to those clients most likely to refer.

February – April

Late winter through spring is a great time to market your business.  Spend this season attending networking events to meet new centers of influences (COI) and prospective clients.  Also continue to host public workshops if that is one of your strategies.  Make sure you are consistently contacting your clients through meetings, emails, phone calls, webinars, newsletters and social media. Consider hosting a client appreciation event during these months to not only show appreciation but also to provide your clients the opportunity to introduce their friends and family members to you.

May

If you incorporate a COI strategy into your marketing plan, May is the time to kick off your marketing efforts to CPAs.  Marketing to CPAs from January to April is a waste of time since it corresponds with their busy season.  After the tax season ends, CPAs are more likely to attend your events or meet with you one-on-one.  Plan your CPA marketing campaigns to fall between May and early August.

June – August

June begins the slow season for advisor marketing.  Prospects, clients and COIs all seem to be taking summer vacations during this time so reduce the number of campaigns that require participation (e.g. workshops and webinars) as the summer progresses. This may be a perfect time to nurture COI and referring client relationships.  Treat your contacts to hospitality events such as a baseball game or a round of golf.  Enjoy the summer with the things you love to do, but make them productive marketing activities as well.

September

September is another excellent time to host educational workshops.  Summer is over and people are getting back into their normal routine.  They are starting to think about the responsibilities they had put off for the summer and are ready to tackle them again.  This can mean addressing their finances.  Plan on hosting client and public educational events from September until early November.    If you put on an intriguing event, attendance is likely to be high during this time.

October

Late August through the first half of October is usually another busy period for CPAs.  If you plan on hosting continuing education courses for these professionals, begin hosting them again in late October through mid December.

Consider hosting a client appreciation event in October as well.  If you held one in the spring, half a year will have passed and it will be the appropriate time to host another one.  Since October is half way between summer and holiday vacations, clients are generally in town to attend.

November

November is generally your last good chance for marketing to the general public for the year.  By the week of Thanksgiving, prospects and clients have shifted into holiday mode and aren’t listening to you anymore.  Get your workshops and webinars scheduled in the early part of the month.  Focus your marketing efforts for the rest of the year on keeping your name in front of your clients and prospects.

December

End of year tax planning always seems to be a popular push for advisors during this time, though I find it rarely seems to lure clients or prospects into the office.  It’s the holidays and people aren’t thinking about their finances.  Take this time to engage your contacts with holiday cheer instead of focusing on their money.  At a minimum, send holiday cards.  If you want to do more, host a Holiday Open House for your clients and their friends in your office.  This is especially popular with retired clients.

December is also filled with holiday parties and galas.  You can incorporate all of these networking opportunities into your marketing plan as a way to be productive and meet new prospective clients and COIs in a month that might otherwise be a slow marketing month.

Start Today!

However you decide to construct your marketing plan for 2010, get started today!  Having a written plan in place will enable you to hit the ground running in January and create momentum for the whole year.

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies. For more information, visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.

By now it is common knowledge that LinkedIn is an effective tool for connecting with existing contacts and facilitating introductions to new contacts.  If you have read my other articles about LinkedIn, you know the site also offers opportunities for advisors to market to their target market and centers of influence through LinkedIn groups.  Participating in various groups is one way you can utilize LinkedIn as a marketing tool, but for the more ambitious marketers out there, creating your own group can present even greater opportunities.  Creating and administering your own group is a time consuming strategy but it increases your exposure to your target market and allows direct access to your group members via LinkedIn email.

Before you start your own LinkedIn group, you will want to consider who your target market is.  Is there a large enough pool of people in your niche on LinkedIn to warrant a specialized group?  If not, don’t waste your time.  This strategy is a numbers game, so if you don’t have a large enough pool to start with, it won’t work.  But if you specialize in a large niche industry, this could be a very productive way to spend your time.

Create a Group

To start a group, go to the Groups page and “Create a Group.”  Fill out all of the profile information requested.  When creating a summary and description, make sure you include keywords that your target market would likely search when looking for groups to join.  For example, if you worked with employees in the healthcare industry, you may want  your summary to say, “This group is specifically created for past and present employees in the healthcare industry looking for information about their retirement benefits including employees of HCA, UHS and  Kaiser Permanente” (keywords have been underlined).  After all of the information has been submitted, you group is live and ready for content and members.

Add Content

Before you begin inviting people to join your group, start by adding content so that new members will have something to read when they first join.  The first thing you should add is a discussion item which states the purpose of the group and how members should use it.  Mark the “Make this discussion featured” box so that it will appear at the top of the discussion list making it the first thing members see when arriving at your page.
The next step is to post articles in the news section of the group.  This can include posts from your blog or articles featured on your website.  If you have a blog, go to the “Manage” tab and select “Manage News Feed”. You can add your RSS feed so that all posts from your blog automatically post to your LinkedIn group.  You can also include feeds from other news sources you think are relevant to the group if you would like to include additional content.  Be sure that all of the content you are including is relevant to the group so that your area of expertise is clear to members.

Invite Group Members

Now that you have a new LinkedIn group rich in content, you need to find people to join your group.  The first place to start is to go to the group “Manage” tab and “Send Invitations.”  This will enable you to invite your existing LinkedIn connections to join your group.  If you have a large number of connections in your target market, you will quickly grow your group this way.

The next thing to do is to invite people from your CRM system or database. Go to the group “Manage” tab and “Send Invitations.”  This time click the “Upload File” link under the Connections box and follow the instructions.  You will be able to upload a .CSV file with your contacts’ first name, last name and email address. Some or many of the people you are inviting may not have a LinkedIn account, so explain LinkedIn, the purpose of the group and include a link to join in the Welcome Message.  You can find the “Group Join Link” at the bottom right hand corner of the page.

These first two methods allow you to invite your existing contacts to your group.  If you want to invite people you don’t know, you’ll need to take another approach.  First, you will need to find out which groups your target market already belongs to.  For example, if you are specializing in the healthcare industry, you will want to research which groups these professionals join.  You can do this by searching keywords in the “Search Groups” box or look at the groups your current connections belong to.  Join groups comprised of your target market whenever possible.  Sometimes a group has membership requirements precluding you from joining, but other times no one is monitoring membership.  The more groups you join the better as you will soon discover.

Once you have thoroughly researched and have been accepted into the groups, the next step is to find people to invite to your group.  LinkedIn allows you to contact group members directly without an upgraded account.  The more groups you belong to, the more people you will be able to directly access.  You may want to send an invitation to every member of the other groups you have joined.  However, you may end up with people that don’t fit your target market this way, so I suggest a different strategy.  If your target market tends to work for similar companies, use the “Companies” page to search for current employees.  You won’t be able to see everyone who works for the company you searched, but you will be able to see those who are 1st, 2nd or 3rd connections or are members of a group that you belong to.  You should have already invited your 1st connections to your group by now and you won’t be able to invite your 2nd or 3rd connections without an upgraded account, so ignore these people.  The people you will want to invite are the group members.  You can send an invitation to everyone with “group” next to their name.  Do this by clicking “Send a message”.  Briefly describe why you are inviting them, state the purpose of the group and include a link for them to join.  Since you will have to invite each person separately, this can take hours to complete.  I recommend you have an administrative assistant, intern or virtual assistant do this for you.  Continue to do this with different companies until you have either exhausted all of the possible invitees or have a solid membership base.  From then on you can rely on the LinkedIn group directory to continue to organically grow your group memberhip.

Weekly Maintenance

A group needs regular activity to be successful.  Monitor the group discussions and answer any questions you can – either publically or privately.  Discussions and news articles will eventually disappear if there is no activity so make sure that there is at least one new discussion or news article each week.  Eventually group members will begin participating on their own which will provide for richer content and will spur more participation.  In the meantime, it is up to you to keep the group alive.

If you ever have something of particular importance to share with your group such as a new study or white paper, use the “Send an Announcement” feature to email the entire group.  This provides another outlet to contact your target market but use this feature sparingly since you don’t want to be perceived as spamming your members.

Conclusion

As you can deduce from the article, this is an advanced LinkedIn marketing strategy.  Make sure you are comfortable with LinkedIn before initiating this strategy or seek assistance to ensure that it is done correctly.  Be clear on the purpose of your group, who you are targeting and what their needs are and focus your communication to meet their needs.   Finally, let your group know that you are available to answer any questions they may have and provide them the opportunity to contact you so you can measure your results.

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies. For more information visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.

This past week I attended Schwab’s IMPACT conference here in my hometown of San Diego.  The three days offered a vast amount of information, but what most interested me was the marketing information.  Here are my five favorite marketing lessons from IMPACT this year.  

Lesson #1: The more channels a client uses to interact with his or her advisor, the higher his or her satisfaction with that advisor.

We all understand the importance of regularly communicating with clients throughout the year.  But this doesn’t necessarily require picking up the phone each month to check in with your clients.  According to Gabriel Garcia, Managing Director of Schwab Advisor Services, the more channels your clients interact with you through, the higher their satisfaction level.  The different channels he mentioned include in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, newsletters, websites, direct mail, webinar, events, instant messages and social media.  The Takeaway: Use multiple channels in your communication plan to more fully engage your clients.

Lesson #2:  100% of High Net Worth individuals ask their CPA for a referral to a financial advisor.

Alliance Bernstein conducted a study of 800 people with a minimum net worth of $25 million and found that 100% of respondents asked their CPA for a referral when searching for a financial advisor.  Now, obviously not every HNW individual will ask for a referral when looking for an advisor, but it does highlight the importance of developing new relationships with CPAs and nurturing your existing relationships for referrals.  The Takeaway: Integrate a COI strategy into your marketing plan. 

Lesson #3: Become better at dating your prospects.

Seth Godin, Marketing Guru and Best Selling Author, explained that acquiring a client is a lot like proposing marriage.  You wouldn’t go up to every man or woman in the bar and ask if they will marry you until someone says “yes.”  You want to get to know a person and evaluate whether or not they are a good fit.  Acquiring clients is a similar process.  You want to take the time to get to know or “date” your prospects before bringing them onboard as a client.  The result is a higher quality client relationship.   The Takeaway: Develop a plan to cultivate your prospects.

Lesson #4: Web 2.0 helps with organic search engine optimization. 

John Stone, CEO of Revenue Architects , explained the importance of Web 2.0 (aka social media) on search engine optimization.  He explained that organic search results are the best since they are free, longer lasting and provide more traffic than paid search results.  Many people think that manipulating a website’s keywords, page titles and tags will solely affect a site’s search engine visibility.  John pointed out that off-page SEO factors are a vital part of a search engine optimization strategy.  Social media sites provide the opportunity to link back to your site to help with your off-page SEO strategy and, as a result, your page ranking.  Sites that can help with off-page SEO  are social networking sites, blogs, directories, online press releases and discussion forums.  Takeaway: Integrate social media tactics into your online marketing plan.     

Lesson #5: There are tools available to make it easier for social media to comply with SEC and FINRA rules.

Not all of the lessons learned came from the educational sessions.  Some came from the expo.  With social media being a hot topic among advisors, compliance is always a concern.  Smarsh now offers social media archiving that not only records activity but also red flags potentially harmful messages.  My hope is that the development of social media compliance products like Smarsh’s will lead to a wider acceptance by compliance departments of social media tools.   Takeaway: Work with your compliance department on creating compliant solutions for innovative marketing campaigns.

These are the marketing lessons I found most intriguing at the conference, but all five fall in line with the strategies I always advocate: Create a communication plan for your clients; Develop a strategy to create and nurture COI relationships; Have a plan for staying in touch with your prospects; Engage in social media marketing if appropriate; and Contact your compliance department before engaging in any marketing strategy.  Take these factors into consideration as you develop your own marketing plan.

If you are interested in further information about the sessions I attend or others and the conference, session materials are available online at http://www.softconference.com/Schwab/slist.asp?C=3083#TID9819.  You can download the handouts for free or listen to the mp3s of the various sessions for a nominal fee.

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for financial advisors. Kristen works with independent advisors to develop effective marketing plans and provides the back office support required to implement the strategies.  For more information visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.