SMART ADVISOR MARKETING

“Taxable Payouts on Many Funds Are Set to Surge” was the Wall Street Journal headline. The article goes on to say that “Some fund experts predict this year’s mutual fund distributions will be the highest ever, despite the summer market turmoil.” They say, “Last year, mutual funds paid out $250 billion in capital-gains distributions, the highest level since 2000.”

Investors who own mutual funds in taxable accounts must pay tax on the funds’ reported gains, even if they never received them. Many funds reinvest their gains which leaves the investor paying taxes on income they have not received.

Now is the time to data mine for clients and prospects who have large mutual fund accounts. Take time to educate them about this news. Use your expertise to help them plan.

Looking for tools to help generate new business from this news? At BuildYourMarket.com, there are postcards that address the ‘capital gains’ surprise.

This quarter is the perfect time for business development. Don’t let the holidays distract you from your marketing efforts because many advisors generate 1/3 of their annual income in these three months. Here are just a few concepts to help you focus:

1. CD Rollovers - the chaos in the sub-prime mortgage market has spilled over into money markets, prompting many recent articles concerning money market funds that invested in speculative derivatives based on mortgages. When these funds ‘reached’ for higher yields they also introduced more risk. Many CDs mature in October and November. The Investment Company Institute said this week that banks and thrifts now hold over $320 billion in IRA funds. Action Step: data mine your clients and prospects for those who hold CDs. BYM has postcards you can use to raise awareness about the taxability of CDs, which is another good theme to use in your marketing.

[Read more →]

November 12-16 marks the sixth annual National Retirement Planning Week. As part of the National Retirement Planning Coalition (NRPC), FPA invites you to join in our efforts to help Americans prepare for a financially secure retirement.

Established by NRPC in 2002, National Retirement Planning Week is an annual campaign to build awareness of the need for retirement planning and provide Americans with the information and tools necessary to develop effective retirement planning strategies. Economist, author and actor/Hollywood personality Ben Stein will again serve as the NPRC’s honorary chairperson and principal spokesperson.

If you don’t ask, they can’t become clients

We had an advisor ask us about incorporating more “calls to action” on his website. “Of course we can do that - who are your customers and what would you like the visitors to do?” we asked? “I don’t know - you’re the marketing people, you tell me what to do next,” the advisor said.

Here’s the thing about the advisor’s question: the answer depends on many different factors. Unfortunately, we can’t answer the question the same way for every advisor because every advisor’s practice is a little bit different. The way we approach the website is a process called ”persuasion architecture.” Bryan and Jeff Eisenberg are really the innovators of this concept. We had the privilege of studying with them at a web marketing academy and it was eye opening. Bryan was recently interviewed by Netconcepts:

[Read more →]

For the past several months we have been surveying advisors about their marketing programs. When we ask them which marketing tools they use, it amazes us that only about 21% use a client newsletter.

We heard leading advisors from a recent conference podium say:

“I had an existing client transfer an additional $700,000 IRA account to me after reading an article in my newsletter this spring about the charitable IRA strategy allowed by the Pension Protection Act.”

“We have a top prospect who received our monthly newsletter for almost 18 months before they moved their accounts to us.”

We heard from another advisor, “I started with about 100 newsletters a month and now I’m up to over 250. It’s my primary means of marketing. I am averaging over 3 new accounts a month and each new account is over $300,000.”

[Read more →]