March, 2010 archive

Advising on Group Pension Schemes, is seen within the outside world as a high risk area and naturally those looking within the market looking for advice, are willing to pay your fees for your quality of advice, information and guidance…now the majority of advisors are looking at the front end of the transaction and purely at the front end fees or commission, however you really need to focus on the on-going client relationship, as this determines repeat sales, which ultimately establishes the profitability and value of your business.

The smart ones of you recognise that the key focus is to build on the longer term relationship build, and to not be drawn into the pure short term focus of marketing for the fixation of short term cash-flow

Do you agree with this statement? I would be interested to get your feedback on this…

In this article, I’m going to share a few of my own thoughts on obtaining a healthy balance between immediate cash-flow and long term client value especially when one thinks about the implications of Retail Distribution Review coming into play in January 2013

We’re going to discuss Client Acquisition and Segmentation, which is the process of accurately identifying the best possible clients to attract at the top end of your sales inquiry system and then look to develop further business with.

We’re going to discuss the process of making a positive and profound connection with those clients looking for a pension scheme for their employees and prospects once they enter the sales channel….so you can develop a methodology for them to have a serial buying offer and so ascend to ever higher levels and frequency of spending.

We’re going to talk about the proper management and segmentation of your lists, in order to maximize your productivity, sales conversion, and profitability.

And finally we’re going to discuss what I call the product development feedback loop – a proven process for leveraging your lists as a source of ongoing market research, thus ensuring the most profitable product development and joint venture partnership opportunities.

So let’s get started…

What do I mean by Ideal Client Acquisition and Segmentation?

There are two sides to making a sale. There is the immediate monetary return. And there is the long term value that you can reasonably expect to accrue from the customer over the lifetime of the relationship, think it through if you have a client that you work with and increase the transaction period by another, what difference would that make to your commission levels, and the factor that across your current client base..the returns become almost exponential. So the real mindset is look at the sale at the front end not being the immediate one of transaction,but the prospect converting and becoming a client.

In my humble opinion, the initial sale is nothing more than a way of financing the acquisition. The real profits result from our ability to develop those Group Pension Clients further, maybe you can then go on and offer advice to all the employees etc..the list is quite endless.

And there are a couple of key factors that impact the client relationship before it even begins. And therefore the value of that client over the long term…

I call them “progression” and “alignment”.

With any lead source, there is a natural – or not-so-natural – progression from initial sale to repeat sales. The more natural and intuitive that progression, the better…

When you are developing your marketing to clients looking for Group Pension Advice, to build a prospect list, it is key that you think the forward steps in the process.

It makes absolutely no sense to develop a information marketing campaign for a market that is not going to aligned to purchasing additional products, based on the relationship and authority set up by that first sale.

The relationship you have with your clients is all important. But if you’ve got nothing to sell them that “makes sense” after the initial purchase, then the value attributable to that relationship is minimal.

When considering entering a new business – or pursuing new leads pools for an existing business – you need to be asking yourself, “Is there a logical progression of customer need here? And if so, am I practically positioned to meet it?”

“Alignment” on the other hand refers the long term compatibility of the target market with you and your business…

It is entirely possible to target a market with a product and create a very successful initial result, only to discover the long term sales to those client will be negligible.

This happens because there is a weak natural alignment between the target market and your business.

You can affordably twist the promise of your product enough to make an initial sale. But don’t expect to be able to make continued sales without ongoing segmentation, twisting and customization of your messaging. Realizing such things come at a cost.

I’m not talking about misrepresentation here, but simply the added effort required to fit a somewhat square peg into a somewhat round hole. Do it once to make an initial sale and you’re probably going to have to do it for the life of the relationship. Will it be worth the added expense?

So let’s assume you’re building lists with positive progression and alignment…

What can you do to foster the most profitable relationships with those new prospects and clients that are streaming into your business?

Invariably, you will have several lead generation offers. And while each offer brings you a qualified prospect for your front end offer, this may not be true for every back end offer you wish to promote. That’s why you should never dump leads generated by different offers into a single list.

Segment them as they come into the top end of your funnel. And put together a little file for each list.

At the very least keep track of the lead and sales pages that you used to develop each one. And use those pages as a quick reference when you’re developing new campaigns.

Without such reference, it is very easy to begin mailing offers that are less than ideally targeted. If you’re doing physical mail the consequences are obvious…

You’re going to be comparing your returns with your costs. And ill-targeted lists are going to perform poorly. You’re going to suffer an immediate hit in your pocket book. So this kind of careless list management is less common in the world of direct mail.

But online it’s rampant. People think that once they’ve built an e-mail list they can e-mail that list without cost. And so they get downright sloppy about what they send to whom.

But make no mistake: when you send a prospect an e-mail that’s poorly targeted, it costs you big time in terms of future attention and relationship.

People will become less inclined to open your e-mails and their level of trust deteriorates. And while you may not feel an immediate and measurable pain in your pocketbook as a result of this, rest assured you are pissing money away just the same.

The difference between relationship and branding…

In the general business world we think about the client/supplier relationship in terms of branding. Brand X fits the personality and style of the client much better than brand Y. Or brand X has the trust of the buying public to a much greater degree than brand Y.

In the solution marketing world, these values are equally applicable, but they exist on a much more personal level.

As a solution marketer, you position yourself as an expert in the eyes of your clients through your experience and how you educate them. One time you started out yourself in the same position, looking for help and guidance to build your business and then you got your first Group Pension Scheme Prospect and the world started to take off.

And if you want deep, enduring, and supremely profitable client relationships, you have to pro-actively select prospects with whom you have the most natural affinity.

Beyond the functional considerations of having a unique solution to a problem shared by a given target audience, it’s equally important that you share similar values, belief systems, and ideals.

This might sound a little touchy feely, but if you want to create the kind of long term client relationships that will sustain you in style for years to come, you need to fall in love with your target audience. And avoid selling to people that you don’t admire, appreciate and want to interact with.

This is one of the key secrets to generating repeat sales in solution marketing. It’s what keeps people buying from you, despite there being other excellent practical alternatives for them to consider.

Perhaps the most over-looked benefit to creating this kind of deep enduring bond with your list is that it creates an easy and enthusiastic dialog…

Imagine your best customers raving among one another about you and your products.

They talk about you and your company as the way business ought to be done by everyone. And they actively seek your opinion on how they can improve every relevant area of their lives.

Do you think that kind of dialog might help you to answer that all-consuming question: What’s next?

There’s no need to guess what kind of products to develop. Your people will tell you.