Lockdown is perfect for working on your business, not in it. But which projects should you prioritise? This week, we bring you our top five.

You might have a little more time right now than normal. Clients have been reassured. Markets have stabilised. Enquiry levels are down on normal levels (although they will return to normal) and holidays are being cancelled.

You might also feel happy to invest in your business if you’ve successfully applied for a Bounce Back Loan. Finally, you could become very busy, very quickly, when lockdown eases and face-to-face meetings restart.

All of the above make now the perfect time to work on some key marketing projects. Here are five that we’re seeing your peers tackle during lockdown:

1. Strategy

We know many financial advisers and planners often struggle to think strategically. Instead, they employ disjointed tactics pursuing the same clients they always have.

Now’s the perfect time step back and think strategically:

• Who do you want to work with? (If you don’t know this, you will never successfully market your business)
• Are your pricing and proposition right?
• How will you engage more of the right type of clients?

Investing time (and if you need some help, money) developing a marketing strategy will be rewarded many times over. Without a strategy, you’re marketing your business through trial and error. That’s expensive and frustrating.

Instead, take time out. Force yourself to develop a strategy. If you don’t know where to start, click here to enquire about our Ignition Marketing Strategy days.

2. Developing social proof

You know financial planning changes lives. Your clients know financial planning changed their life. But those who haven’t experienced it don’t. That might be why a recent survey revealed that only 9% of people have a financial adviser (Source: Boring Money). That’s a lot of people who aren’t benefiting from what you do.

Social proof is one of the key ways to build trust and demonstrate the benefits of financial planning.

Now’s the perfect time to top yours up.

You could:

• Run a one-off project to request Google and VouchedFor reviews (although when it comes to Google you might want to wait a while for reasons explained here)
• Interview your clients for case studies and add them to your website
• Run a client survey

You can be forgiven for worrying that now isn’t the right time to build social proof. The evidence suggests otherwise. For example, we recently ran a project for a client and helped them collect over 100 VouchedFor reviews in just 10 days. If you’d like to know how we did it, click here to arrange a chat.

3. Your website

An effective website is essential for effectively marketing your business. Why? Sat between someone becoming aware of your services and taking action is Google. That means you need to be both visible and impressive online. Your website helps you do both.

There’s a problem though; too many financial advisers’ and planners’ websites are rubbish.

They don’t talk about people, they focus too much on product, the only social proof is old-style testimonials (which no one looks at) and the user experience is awful.

So, if you’re embarrassed by your website, or it’s been neglected for too long, now is the perfect time to sort the problem out by making changes or investing in a new site.

4. Rebranding

Changing your name or branding is a huge undertaking. It takes time, money and the space to reflect. It means changes to everything from your office signs to your website, your stationery to your newsletters.

But if you don’t love your branding, now’s the perfect time to do something about it. If you want to know where to start, try these 10 ideas from Dan Campbell, our head of branding.

5. Developing an online proposition

No, I’m not talking about robo advice. Instead, an efficient way of working online while coronavirus is still a threat.

Even when lockdown eases and face-to-face meetings are possible, many of your more elderly clients will remain in isolation. That means developing resources and processes to support a remote proposition. These could/should include:

• Secure online communications and document storage/transfer using a system such as Filehaven
• Documents which are compatible with online completion and electronic signatures
• Reassuring your clients about the security of your video conferencing software

Necessity is the mother of invention. Investing in these will help you while clients are self-isolating and beyond.

Carpe diem

Lockdown is creating some spare capacity for many financial advisers and planners.

If you’re one of them and growth is on your agenda during the rest of 2020 and into 2021, now is the time to take on some big projects.

We might never get another ‘opportunity’ like this. In fact, I hope we never do!

If we’ve got you thinking and you believe we can help, please email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300.