You’re between client meetings when the phone rings. It’s a new enquiry.

Introductions over, they get straight to the point.

“I’ve done my research,” they tell you. “I need a VCT.”

You wouldn’t say, “Excellent choice, sir”, reach for the paperwork, and ask which provider they prefer. You’d say: “Tell me what you’re trying to achieve.”

Are they looking to reduce a tax bill? Generate income? Take on higher-risk investments? How does this fit with everything else they have in place? What’s the timescale? What’s their attitude to risk?

You don’t make decisions on products without a plan.

And yet, when it comes to marketing, I have versions of this conversation with financial advisers and planners every week:

• “We need to post more on LinkedIn.”
• “We’re thinking about launching a podcast.”
• “We want to invest in SEO, and maybe paid ads.”

Maybe you do.

But before you commit time, energy, and money to any marketing activity, you need to ask yourself two key questions.

“What’s my business goal?”

When we work with firms on a marketing strategy, their goal usually sits in one (or a combination) of three areas: lead generation, acquisition, or recruitment.

Until that goal is clear, every marketing decision is guesswork.

Over the next 12 to 24 months, you might want to become the local go-to firm for your specialism or generate more existing client referrals. Maybe you’d like to grow the team, acquire other businesses, or increase your AUM by a certain amount.

Once you know your goal, you can turn it into an objective. For example:

Goal: £10 million additional AUM in 18 months.

• Average AUM of new clients: £250,000
• Number of new clients needed: 40
• Current conversion rate: 23.75%
• Total new enquiries required: 168
• Enquiries required per month: 9.33
• Current run rate of new enquiries: 3
• Shortfall: 6.33.

Objective: Generate 6-7 additional new enquiries every month.

That £10 million suddenly looks far more achievable, and a granular objective gives you something tangible and realistic to work towards every month.

It also forces you to take a closer look at your processes and identify areas for improvement.

• Are we losing prospects after the first meeting?
• Do we lack enquiries, conversion, or both?
• Are we attracting the right people?
• Do we even track this properly?

You might find you don’t need as much marketing activity as you thought. A more robust referral and recommendation strategy or a new, effective website might be all you need to hit your objective. Right now, you could be wasting time and energy on things that don’t move the needle.

This exercise will give you the confidence to make those decisions.

“Who are my ideal clients?”

If you don’t define the people you love working with, you default to broad messaging, which will naturally attract broad enquiries. That wastes your time and reduces in-house capacity.

As the saying goes: “When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one.”

Knowing who you do (and don’t) want to work with means fewer unsuitable first meetings, higher conversion rates, and better long-term relationships. It also makes marketing decisions easier, because you can find out where your ideal clients hang out online and have a better grasp on the type of content they’ll resonate with.

So, you need to create detailed client personas, including:

• Demographics – gender, location, occupation
• Aspirations – what do they want to achieve?
• Pain points – what challenges do they face?
• Behaviour – where do they spend time online?
• Personal interests – find some common ground
• Need for service – where can you add value?

If you don’t deeply understand the people you want to work with, you can’t market to them.

When you do, your marketing becomes sharper, more relevant, and a lot more persuasive.

The marketing equivalent of “I need a VCT”

With your clients, you fact-find, research, plan, and then implement.

Why should it be any different for your marketing?

Once the strategy is clear, the tactics and timing fall into place.

That’s why we offer the Ignition Marketing Strategy, which intentionally mirrors the financial planning process. Over three meetings, we’ll go from a blank sheet of paper to a comprehensive marketing plan aligned with your business goals.

You’ll work directly with our founder, Phil Bray, who started his career at the coal face as a financial adviser himself. He’s been in your shoes and has spent the last three decades working in or alongside financial services firms.

And, if you don’t have the time, skill, or inclination to implement the plan in-house, we can do that once the strategy is complete. We can also hold monthly On Track meetings to maintain momentum and measure performance against the KPIs that matter.

If you want to move from “we don’t do much marketing” to a clear, measurable strategy designed to reach your objectives, email abi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300 and we’ll find time for a chat.