Resource Library

This page will be dedicated to describing some of the tools available to you to market your business. I will also include recommendations for products and service providers to help you get started. This page will be a work in progress so check back regularly.  If you have a tool, product or service you would like to recommend, please leave a comment and I will add it to the list.

Articles
Writing original articles from scratch can be a real headache but they are crucial for your client newsletters.  If you don’t outsource your newsletter all together, consider purchasing pre-written articles.  Here are some resources I recommend:

• Financial Planning Perspectives eNewsletter Subscription -  The Financial Planning Association sells a subsciption service that gives members access to a year’s worth of articles for only $99 ($199 for non-members)
• Integrated Concepts Group – I’m not sure that you can buy individual articles from this site since they seem to sell templated newsletters but you can sign up to recieve a free article once a month to use as you wish. 

Client Advisor Boards
Interested in conducting a Client Advisory Board?  Contact:

•  CABHQ

Copy Writers
If you need help with any type of financial writing and don’t want to purchase prewritten content, consider hiring a copy writer.  Here are the two I recommend: 

• Front Page Media – Mike Dubes develops and writes content for published articles, brochures, newsletters, websites, books, biographies, press releases, speeches, video scripts and related marketing collateral.
• Susan B. Weiner Investment Writing - Susan helps financial professionals increase the impact of their writing on clients and prospects. She writes and edits investment commentary, white papers, articles, web pages, and other communications for leading investment and wealth management firms.

Greeting Cards
Sending birthday, holiday, sympathy, greeting and anniversary cards  is a quick and simple way to maintain your relationships with clients.  There is a service available that makes this process even easier:

• SendOutCards.com – SendOutCards allows you to send a printed greeting card with your message in less than 60 seconds. You choose your card, write your message and click send. SendOutCards prints it, stuffs it and mails it, all for less than a greeting card at the store. 

Stock Photos
Are you ever looking for images to use in a PowerPoint presentation or on marketing collateral and not sure where to go?  Try this site to download legal images for just a few dollars an image:

• iStockphoto - Professional photos, illustrations, videos and sounds available in different sizes and resolutions to meet your needs and budget.

Surveys
Looking to outsource your annual client survey to a company who will gather and analyze data?  Try  this vendor:

• Advisor Impact - The company’s flagship program, the Client Audit is an outsourced client feedback program. It helps financial advisors and accountants enhance loyalty and increase client revenue, by gathering on-going feedback from clients, turning that into a clear action plan and providing the support and tools to help leverage those results.

Webinars
Why spend all of that money on a traditional seminar when you can host a webinar?  Webinars can be great tools alone or integrated into a larger social media marketing strategy.  Here are a couple of providers to consider:

• GoToWebinar – An easy to use webinar service that only costs $99 per month. 
• Webex – A more robust service for firms that require branded pages and webinar archvies.