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Marketing Is A Contact Sport
John H. Melchinger
Although a wide array of impressive software programs exist to manage multiple
contacts using various media, with a multitude of prospects in several target markets,
few practitioners have taken to using them, especially for building productive relationships
with existing clients and potential new buyers. Those who have rarely tap more than
twenty percent of the software's power.
Why?
- lack of knowledge--especially about the marketing process and how to attract,
penetrate and develop certain market segments with systematic, continuous dialogue
promoted by delivering meaningful messages with various media
- lack of computing skill--using current technology to perform complex tasks
simply and continuously, on demand
- lack of focus on specific, long-term results--the tactical myopia of salespeople
preoccupied with short-term transactions and cashflow at the expense of long-term
growth and profitability; chasing commissions from sales rather than income from
a growing, appreciative clientele
- avoidance of making the capital investment in hardware and software-- more
tactical myopia
- desire not to change--the Willie Loman syndrome, which proves that if
you are not growing, you are dying
- fear of computing in general--plus the false pride of salespeople who
"believe" that salespeople should not work computers; that their job is
relating with people, not machines
- too complex programs--especially difficult for on the go practitioners
to learn, load, set up and utilize
We fear most what we do not understand
Let's forget the actual technology for a minute or two. Focus instead on the compelling
reasons for employing electronic efficiency and effectiveness in your business. Here
are a few factoids that should move you to think through why electronically based
contact management using market-specific intelligence should be a routine aspect
of your practice.
The Rule of Nine-- On the average, people will begin to really understand
what you do after nine unique exposures to your name, themes and ideas. A decade
ago this number was about six. With all the information hrown at people these days
in the noise and clutter of advertising and solicitation-- including the Internet
and still more
voluminous mass mail--name recognition alone is not enough to attract business. To
help raise your voice and messages above the din of the crowd so you can be heard,
you need name plus idea recognition, or the crowd will pass you by.
The Rule of Seven-- Clients of practitioners providing their financial counsel
and advice want to hear from their advisor about seven times each year on average:
two telephone calls (Hi, how are you?), four pieces of personally meaningful mail
(not necessarily newsletters), and one face to face meeting (an agreed planned, periodic
review).
The Rule of Three-- Three messages, delivered on three separate occasions,
using
three different media create a message delivery stream that can penetrate even the
most difficult consumer resistance patterns. If you are in practice for the long
haul, this is the way to go, whether with prospects, clients or centers.
Relationship development realities -- Broadcast media and mass mail send communications;
addressable media send and receive. Relationships are developed through dialogue,
not monologues and soliloquies. This is why advertising tends to solicit for reactions
and purchases, and public relations efforts tend to initiate and foster dialogue
and relationships between buyers and sellers-in this case, practitioners.
How can you manage these types of market development activities patterns without
software? You can't. The consumer has changed dramatically in the past decade or
two, and the practitioner who relies on yellow file cards and paper records will
miss opportunities that larger firms and other financial institutions are capitalizing
on handily. By systematizing and computerizing they make timely approaches to increasingly
diverse market segments. This is why the banks are so feared by the insurance business:
the banks are expert at marketing--getting to the buyer with the right messages at
the right times; insurers only at selling and product development-- leaving the acquisition
of new business to the old hunt, guess and cuss methodology. Insurers tend to fear
what they have not yet learned to do.
Banks tend to identify themselves by the customers they understand best. Most insurers
and insurance practitioners have yet to tap the power of intelligence-based marketing
that spots and rides groups in trends while the trends remain current. Smart marketers
understand that a database of personal preferences based on transaction histories
and attitudes should be the practitioner's primary market development resource. With
such a database, you can successfully (efficiently and profitably) develop target
markets of even one, based on creating individual relationships, and
serving each in its own unique stage of development. Wouldn't you like the ability
to
develop interactive relationships with individual customers and turn them into long-
term, highly profitable professional-client relationships? Are you ready to accept
that
your reputation as a practitioner is more important than product or even insurer
reputation? If so, read on.
Weed or wither
Unless you weed your garden, you soon won't be able to see the flowers for the
weeds. As time goes on, you will even come to think of the more colorful weeds as
flowers. But dandelions are still weeds by any other name; all that glitters is not
gold; not all sales are profitable.
Are you equipped to quickly offer income replacement packages to trial lawyers
who you've just learned are interested? Or segment linear decisionmakers from non-
linear thinkers among the ranks of doctors, and then offer unique services that appeal
to each unique group? And examine your own client base for demographic and
psychographic patterns you can develop efficiently into profitable market segments?
Have you dared to divide the affluent into workable segments that will respond better
to messages and media suited to the segments, rather than take one or two pot shots
at the affluent as a whole? Let's take this last example one step further, examine
the possibilities, and see what I mean.
The "Affluent" are a marketplace, not a target market
Most people think of the affluent as people with income and/or net worth above
certain arbitrary minimums. This is limited thinking. The affluent are really not
so much a market as much as they are a marketplace with several definable segments,
each with its own set of distinguishing characteristics. To see this, draw a matrix
to cross-reference typeof wealth or affluencewith sourceof wealth or affluence. You
can easily see what I mean.
Here's how.
- Draw a matrix with three columns and four rows.
- Label the three columns HNW, HNW&HI, and HI respectively. (HNW=high net worth;
HI=high income)
- Label the four rows NFBO, FBO, NOE, EBW. (NFBO=non-family business owner; FBO=family
business owner; NOE=non- owner executive; EBW=event-based wealth.
| |
HNW
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HNW&HI
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HI
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| NFBO |
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| FBO |
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| NOE |
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| EBW |
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Now think about the characteristics of each segment. Don't you find a dramatic difference
between the segments? For example, the family business owner is certainly different
in many respects when compared to the non-family owner. The high income affluent
owner without high net worth is marketably different than the high net worth owner
who no longer derives high income from the business. The very nature of the affluence
varies from one segment to another, as does each segment's attitudes towards their
money and their concerns about what to do with it.
This simple matrix to make my point about worthwhile segmentation only scratches
the surface of myriad underlying opportunities to market to these and other profitable
segments, if only practitioners would organize to think segmentation. With
today's computer hardware and software, thinking and marketing this way is like having
a treasure map, a shovel and great transportation...all you have to do is beat the
competition to the chests of gold, because they also have every advantage you do
to strike it rich by tapping the new-found veins of today's evolving market segments.
Client Management or Relationship Development?
Many practitioners think only about client management when they think about so-
called client databases. In fact, many of the software programs are named accordingly,
e.g., Client Data Systems for Windows[TM][E-Z Data, Inc., Monterey Park, CA, (818)
585-3505]. But there's a lot more to get from databases than just client management.
Relationship developmentwith clients, suspects, prospects or centers is equally important,
if you are to use these comprehensive software packages for modern day marketing.
The DOS versions of contact management and client database programs are primitive
compared to the newer Windows[TM] versions, but even the newest programs still
suffer from a limited range of market segmentation features that would facilitate
modern target marketing and creative contact management. I believe this is the result
of the insurance and financial planning businesses' continued preoccupation with
one-on-one prospecting, individual transactions and client information management
for compliance purposes, to which marketing--and the subsequent improvements in selling
and clientele development that marketing produces--still take a second seat. Although
this form of tactical myopia still prevails, segmentation marketing continues to
grow in popularity, balancing tactical selling with long- term relationship development
and trend riding.
Many programs to choose from
There are over 500 database programs commercially available. A few are great
general tools; many are focused on special needs, such as mailing, recordkeeping,
investment tracking, etcetera. For general use, the most popular is Symantec's Act!
for Windows[TM], available at almost any major computer store that sells software.
If I had an active insurance and investment advisory business, I would use FDP Corp.'s
Agency Database for Windows[TM], one of the continuously evolving great database
software programs for managing a practice or an agency. [FDP Corp., 2140 South Dixie
Highway, Miami, FL 33133, (305) 858-8200] FDP calls it a "full- featured client
management system" (it is impressively expansive) and offers a convincing range
of expandability, from individual client information tracking through daily scheduling
of appointments and activities, to commission tracking and other office management
functions, should you want them. It interacts smoothly with Windows[TM] programs
and Word 6.0 or 7.0 word processing software, which allows you to make all your written
communications look really high class and professional. Of course, you must understand
Windows[TM] and Microsoft standards to use any of these programs, but that's just
a fact of life. Bottom line: you can run your practice almost entirely off FDP's
integrated systems. It is, however, complex, as are all similar database programs.
One short-fall is about to be conquered
One serious problem with any of these complex database programs is their inability
to
work using a practitioner's on the flymanner of thinking. Specifically, in order
to set a series of tags to identify various characteristics of contacts in the database
and then sort contacts into groups by these characteristics to then communicate certain
ideas to them, the user must first plan every tag and combination of tags s/he wants
to use beforehand, then set up the system to do this. Example: to identify n a typical
database the various segments of affluents explained earlier in this article requires
foresight of future possibilities, planning, knowledge of how the database works,
and the ability to set it up that way and for future flexibility as markets change
and you must improvise, adapt, overcome. Even good strategic planners cannot predict
or plan ahead well enough to be good at this taxing marketing and software planning
task. But help is almost at hand in the form of a very simple Windows[TM] based program
that allows you to tag anyone, anyway you want, on the fly, and go back and undo
or change the tags later, if you wish. It's called Client Trakand is in its final
stages of development by a programmer working closely with a very successful investment
advisor who wanted a simple, efficient and very effective on the fly program to broadcast
very specific messages to only certain segments of his clientele, prospects and non-investment
advisors such as attorneys and accountants, but all according to
their individual interests and specialties. [Developer: David W. Groft, 50 East Green
Valley Circle, Newark, DE 19711, (302) 368- 3877]. The beauty of Client Trakis that
you can tell almost any administrative person to "send this paragraph as a bulletin
to all married couples with pre-college children who are invested in "X"
mutual fund," and it can be done quickly, accurately and without cursing the
computer in frustration. It could be an add-on program to the complex client databases
for those who want both, or it could stand alone as a contact manager extraordinaire
for practitioners who want to keep all things simple...and working. Regardless of
your motivation, situation or knowledge of computing, Client Traksaves tears, sweat
and the eternal aggravation of a deep learning curve that the "do everything"
programs often require.
Customer bonding makes clients
There are progressive levels of bonding between customers and practitioners.
- Customers recognize your name. You hope they remember it!
- Customers develop a modest desire for your product. Resistance lessens.
- As the seller-buyer dyad develops, the buyer begins to feel that the seller
recognizes the buyer as an individual. The buyer certainly wants to, anyway.
- The marketer "joins in" with the buyer's community and actively fosters
similar- values interaction with the buyer.
- Ultimately, advocacy becomes the bond; the buyer is so sold on the practitioner
that s/he is willing to become an informal salesperson for that practitioner, advocating
that others join the ranks of the practitioner's clientele. And we all know the power
of word-of-mouth endorsements, even though so few practitioners systematically develop
this special power to its peak in their practices.
To find, you must seek; to seek, ask yourself questions.
Do you regularly examine your clientele for groupings you could develop as
market segments? Think about different decisionmaking styles segments might
employ? Survey your clients and centers for their attitudes, interests and preferences?
Analyze where your most significant business really comes from? Or do you just assume
you know what you need to know? If you don't know your business statistically and
thoughtfully, then heed the advice of Will Rogers:
It isn't what you don't know that hurts you; it's what you know for sure...that
just ain't so (anymore).
Use a database that suits your practice now and into the future. Look for software
that you can test drive without risk, and support services that can really help you
when
you need it, in a friendly, professional manner.
I never cared much for toll-free telephone support if it took too much time to get
through and I had to explain my problem to three or four "helpers" before
I could get an answer. Personally, I like the (900) numbers and the instant, right
the first time responses I get from them. Regardless of your own preferences, the
software's support is paramount, for the software is more important an investment
in your practice than the hardware you will replace in a few years anyway.
Bottom line
For those readers who skipped ahead to this ending (or even those who slugged
through to here), this is the bottom line. Customers do not care how you do business
unless you do business the way they care to. They will get what they want, either
from you or your competitors. Database management to achieve marketing objectives
is no longer a yes or no choice for private practice financial advisors. The choice
is between software programs that do what you want, and for you to think as much
in terms of marketing to groups as selling to individual prospects. There are so
many database programs available that I cannot review them in this co |
