Financial advisers know that strategy is difficult enough when you understand how to do it. It’s even harder if you don’t.
IFA marketing services hinge heavily upon a robust, well-informed strategy in order to work effectively. It involves multiple moving parts, all of which need to work in tandem to produce a meaningful return on investment.
We love strategy here at MarketingAdviser. We get an academic kick out of it, certainly. However, the main satisfaction comes from devising strategies which work for our clients.
Below are some of the things we’ve learned over the years as we’ve been providing IFA marketing services. To represent this, we’re going to be using the analogy of the periodic table.
Might sound strange, but it’s an analogy that works!
1. IFA Marketing Services: The Elements
Picture the periodic table for a moment. An array of elements lies before you.
Think of these elements as marketing tactics like pay-per-click, email marketing or Facebook ads. These are the essential “building blocks” of your marketing strategy.
One mistake many people make is to think of these as strategies. They are not. If we ask you: “What’s your marketing strategy?” and you answer: “Email marketing”, expect our consultants to do a face-palm.
Email marketing is a great marketing tactic, but it isn’t a strategy. It forms part of the “What” in your overall strategy; it is not the answer to the “How” question.
2. IFA Marketing Services: The Compounds
Taking the periodic table analogy further, elements can be joined together to make compounds.
It’s important that your marketing tactics (i.e. “elements”) work together. For instance, your content marketing should work cohesively with your social media. If you publish an article on your blog, it’s vital that the content is pushed out to your target audience on the appropriate social channels.
However, this is where IFA marketing services can begin to blur tactics with strategy. Many people make a big mistake here (although this is more forgivable). Your strategy is not a set of tactics. Again, it sits under the “what” category, not the “how.”
3. IFA Marketing Services: The Method
What is strategy then, if it isn’t a tactic or a set of tactics?
To take the periodic table analogy one step further, a strategy cannot be found on the table at all. It isn’t an element or a combination of two or more of them.
Rather a strategy, in this case, can be thought of as the “scientific method.” In other words, it asks: “How can we discover more elements?” Or “How can we combine different elements?”
When it comes to IFA marketing services then, your strategy asks questions such as: “How will we use our marketing channels to engage our target audience, and increase conversions?” The key word is “how.”
What’s left then?
4. IFA Marketing Services: The Goal
This final question relates to the “Why.”
Why do we have a periodic table? Why discover new elements or look to combine them in different ways? Different scientists have different goals. For some, the goal is to discover a medical breakthrough. For others, it is to advance human knowledge.
When it comes to IFA marketing services, what is the purpose or goal of your financial marketing? Is it to increase brand awareness? Is it to bring on new clients from a new demographic? Is it some combination of the two?
With the “What,” “How” and “Why” of your financial marketing determined, you will be far greater results than simply engaging in marketing activities just because you feel you should.
