John Melchinger The Marketing Coach

Relationship Marketing

John Melchinger--The Marketing Coach™

The nature of relationships correlates precisely to the development of trust between consumer and provider. The psychology of relationships - as opposed to the psychology of selling - has more to do with the success of marketing and selling than any other factor in marketing a private professional practice. This is where you'll get the good stuff. Values based marketing spoken here.

A Contact Sport

Client-specific information used in computer-based contact management should be a routine activity in your practice. If you devote one day per week for marketing (recommended), this is a cinch.

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. The marketplace is crazy with hawkers touting their products and themselves. Large financial institutions want name and brand recognition. Some are getting it through savvy marketing. As an advisor, you want more than name recognition…you want name plus idea recognition (your brand) that compels people to single you out from the noise and the crowd, and expect that something more from you. If people cannot distinguish you above the din of the crowd, they will pass you by.

The Rule of Seven –– Clients want to hear from their financial advisor about seven times each year on average:

two telephone calls (Hi, how are you?),
four pieces of personally meaningful mail (not necessarily formula newsletters),
one opportunity for a face to face meeting (such as a planned, periodic review).

The Rule of Three –– Three messages, each delivered on three separate occasions, using three different media to deliver each message, create a communication pattern that can penetrate even the most difficult consumer resistance patterns.

Smart marketers understand—a database of personal preferences such as transaction histories and client attitudes is the key to developing the best sales. Banks have mastered this. With today’s software, you can too. With a good database and some organization, you too can successfully develop target markets of even one, create individual relationships and serve each in its own unique stages of development. This is the first instance that marketing (to many), prospecting (for one) and selling (exchanging product for the buyer’s cash) have ever coincided and joined forces. The effect is phenomenal.

Develop interactive relationships. Start with your individual customers, then add prospects, and turn them into long-term, highly profitable professional–client relationships! Nurture your relationships with reliable, highly targeted contact management.