Marketing and Growing Your Estate Planning Offering in a Challenging Economy

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Marketing and Growing Your Estate Planning Offering in a Challenging Economy

It is no surprise that we are entering into murky times.  While the economy is still moving along, we are all waiting for the floor to drop.  Whether or not the floor actually drops, you may be feeling clients and prospects tightening up on spending.  It has been published everywhere that companies have been laying off here and there. For professionals, business growth may get challenging in the months ahead. We understand the challenges of growth and have a few simple but useful ideas to grow your estate planning practice in a challenging economy.

Fear is a Great Motivator

Fear is one of the greatest motivators.  But creating a “fake” fear turns people off and lets them know that you are trying to sell them something.  When using fear as a motivator, story telling is the best method of motivation through fear.  When people can relate to the story, they are more likely to act. For example, a loved one who died without a Will or plan and the toll it took on the family may motivate someone to move forward.  In the same token, a family fighting over inheritance may make someone change their estate plan.  Fear and story telling combined is a great motivator to move people along or get them to make adjustments to a current plan.

Differentiation

Everyone is marketing and using a variety of methods to do it.  There are many estate planning professionals right around the corner that do the same thing that you do and make the same claims as you do.  Being a “seasoned veteran” with years of experience, creating a “custom plan tailored for you” are all cliches. Think about what you provide and how it differentiates from others.  Then, think about what you can do that would stand out from the others.  View it from your prospect’s point of view.  Interview clients, prospects and friends and see what it is that they would differentiate to make them act.  Then strengthen and market your stronger value proposition.

Centers of Influence

The best businesses grow through centers of influence and contacts.  Networking with new centers of influence can be beneficial. There is no better client than the one that comes through a center of influence.  In order for the relationship to be successful, you will have to provide a benefit to them that they are not currently getting from another relationship. Centers of influence are motivated by what you can do for them.  If they are providing you with referrals, what are you giving back?  Is it possible that you both can benefit from the referral? Is there a piece of estate planning software or estate planning technology that you can offer them so they can grow?  There are many ways to benefit centers of influence, and your offering needs to stand out to get the benefits from them.

Free Offerings

It is certainly difficult to survive from free offerings but businesses do it all the time and make money from it.  If you have a free offer and it is strong, people will listen.  Even in the end, if you don’t make money from it, it will come back down the road.  That may be from a referral, a service that cost them something or additional work at another time.  Getting the prospect in the door and showing them what you can do goes a long way.  A free offer is certainly a good hook to the introduction.

Clients and Prospects You Haven’t Connected With in a While

Time to dig up those old contacts and email lists.  These are the perfect clients to market to at this time. You already have built some rapport and they will know the name. The time is right to market to these prospects first.  You may try to connect with them on LinkedIn or other social media platforms. The best form of marketing with little effort is still email marketing that comes directly from your email and not a platform.  When marketing, the subject line is the most important line.  You have three seconds to catch their attention, make it a good one.  Also, it is important to remember that while your first message may not resonate, you have to try again. It may take two or three messages to get someone to react.

Amerilist and Other Email Marketing Companies

Using email marketing companies is an inexpensive and excellent way to get your message out.  How do you think we market to you.  Lists are everywhere and Amerilist is one of the most prominent names in the business.  There is no shame in email marketing someone and announcing that you are open for business. If they don’t like it, they can just delete the email or unsubscribe.  We get emails everyday and all day, it is just like junk mail.  Marketing through targeted lists can be an excellent way to grow in a challenging economy.

Consistency

Marketing isn’t a spicket you turn on and it works immediately.  You must be consistent and expect results to come over time.  The good news is once the spicket starts turning out leads, they keep coming if you keep marketing.  The effort becomes less and the results become more. You should spend 10 hours per week on your marketing plan and keep doing it each week. Marketing is a part of business operations no matter how many referrals you get.  Those referrals may dry up and if you market, your pipeline will always be filled.  Consistent marketing also creates brand awareness and creates trustworthiness. When a prospect cannot find an online presence, they will be less likely to work with you.  Online presence, Google search and SEO are created through consistent marketing.

Automated Systems

Believe it or not, there are systems that help you automate your marketing throughout the month.  These systems are relatively inexpensive and can save you hundreds of hours.  They are very effective and can help build those automated marketing campaigns.  A few we use here are Buffer.com and Constant Contact.  Buffer is used for your social media posts and Constant Contact can be used for your email marketing campaigns. There are a variety of options out there, and it is good to take some time to research a better way to scale and automate your marketing efforts.

Leverage Your Technology

Use your technology to scale.  If you cannot scale your offering through your estate planning technology or your estate planning software, then it may be time to re-evaluate your tech stack. Your technology should have links which you can leverage as a call to action.  Technology is a beautiful way to market your differentiation.  Most professionals are using paper and pens for their estate planning.  Your technology is a different client experience.  It is part of your value proposition, marketing, scaling, time saving and efficiencies.

Website

This is probably the most important aspect of your marketing.  A client or prospect will visit your website 80% of the time before contacting you or doing business with you.  Your online presence is absolutely essential nowadays in business. If you haven’t put anytime into your website, you must start there. When you market, your traffic will go to your website.  It is crucial for your search engine optimization and getting noticed in searches.  Everything you do in marketing is focused on your offering which is advertised on your website.

Yourefolio

It wouldn’t be a good blog without describing how we can help you in your marketing efforts. Of course, we try to keep our blogs neutral, but Yourefolio’s estate planning software and estate planning technology has some distinct modules which other software platforms do not.  Our call-to-action modules really drive business and get prospects to move forward.  First, our Stress Test tool is a great way to show prospects what their family would incur if they were not here today.  What a great motivator to move forward with an estate plan or make changes to their current one.  The tool is designed to take them through a series of weighted questions which make them assimilate current situations with their current estate plan.  It gives them a score and you a notification to contact them and help them take whatever score it is to a zero.

Our Estate Organizer tool is another perfect call to action.  Coupled with a story of how one person’s estate was a nightmare to probate because no one could find their stuff.  It takes no work on your part to use this tool with marketing for prospects but you get all the benefits.  Even if they print it out, you get notification that they used the tool.  You can reach out and offer the information to be stored on your portal, and they subsequently get access to our mobile app.  This tool is priceless when something happens to a person.

Our Interactive Estate Planning module allows individuals with no estate plan to start one anytime, without you being around.  Sixty percent of adults do not have a plan.  This is a great way to scale or prospect with little effort.  The best part is once they complete the module, the documents can be completed in less than five minutes.  This is a great way to offer estate planning to the masses.  It is also a very low intrusive way for prospects to spend little effort and get what they need. 

Tired of building content?  Our resource center is full of content that you can redistribute to your clients and prospects.  It is simple, easy to understand and great for marketing and prospecting.  Like our other tools, it is easy to use and powerful with little work on your part.  Our resource center has additional marketing tips, resources for legacy planning and tailored content.

In this challenging economy, finding ways to grow your business can be challenging.  Following our simple tips from our blog, being patient while a strategy is implemented, and measuring and managing the results will lead to success.  The key is to put some work in whatever the strategy and be consistent in your efforts.  With all that, the growth will come no matter how challenging the environment becomes.

https://yourefolio.com/form/request-a-demo

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