The consequences of this have already been widely discussed in the media last night and today.

VAT will become more and more of an issue for financial adviser businesses post RDR and for anyone making a transition between taking commissions and charging fees in the interim period as VAT is chargeable on fees but not on commissions.  Advisers should consider how this will affect their remuneration models.

2. Capital Gains Tax (CGT) is to increase for Higher Rate taxpayers.

Basic rate taxpayers will continue to pay CGT at the rate of 18% on chargeable gains.  Higher Rate taxpayers will pay 28%.  The threshold for paying tax on gains remains at £10,100.

The 10% capital gains tax rate for entrepreneurial business activities will be extended from the first £2 million to the first £5 million of qualifying gains made over a lifetime.

Advisers need to be aware of how this changes the relative tax efficiency between different investment vehicles for different clients.  The value will vary depending on whether the clients are Higher or Basic rate tax-payers when they divest the asset.

Advisers will want to consider where they recommend vehicles such as OEICs, insurance company onshore bonds and offshore bonds.

Any increase in CGT means any tax shelters, such as ISAs, pensions (SIPPs) and, for more adventurous investors, VCTs, become more valuable.  Within an ISA or SIPP all gains are tax-free.

3. Annuitisation at Age 75 – no longer an obligation from April 2011

The rules that create an obligation to purchase an annuity by age 75 will end from April 2011. A consultation on the detail of this change will be launched shortly. Legislation for transitional arrangements will be in the Finance Bill introduced after the Budget for those yet to secure

an income who will reach 75 in the meantime.  Which means in effect it will take place immediately.

This is an important change for advisers active in the both the at-retirement and post-retirement markets.  This means that active advice and financial planning can take place beyond age 75 for many more wealth management clients.

4. Pension Annual allowance – restriction of pensions tax relief

The government has said it will review the taper on pension relief for higher rate taxpayers, saying an annual allowance of up to £45,000 could be a more workable solution.

There will be no immediate repeal of the taper for those earning over £130,000 but the Government  will review the changes, which were implemented in the Finance Act 2010.

The Government estimate the taper on relief for those earning over £130,000 would raise £3.5 billion but is complicated.  They will consult further on introducing a reduction in the annual allowance, as an alternative money saving measure.  According to the Treasury’s Budget Document an annual allowance of£30,000 to £45,000 would deliver the same amount of money to Treasury coffers as a taper on relief.

The eventual full effect on higher earners depends on the rate of marginal relief.  That may be lowered from 50% to 40%.

Yesterday’s announcement on annual allowance is only the first step before the Comprehensive Spending Review in the autumn and further consultation with the pensions industry on the allowance.

5. Personal tax and benefits

The income tax changes were largely pre-announced and in line with expectations and for many people the impact will be felt through the changes in the tax credit system and other benefits.  The 50p rate of income tax took effect from April 2010 and will remain in place for the time being.  A good summary of changes and Income Tax and National Insurance rates can be found here http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/Budget/Budget2010/DG_188500.

6. Corporation Tax and National Insurance

The Government will reduce the main rate of corporation tax from 28 per cent to 24 per cent over the course of four financial years from April 2011.

The Chancellor also announced that there would be a cut in National Insurance making it cheaper for companies to employ people.  The rate at which employers will pay National Insurance will be raised by £21 per week above indexation in April 2011.

The plans inherited from the previous government for National Insurance rates to increase by 1 per cent in April 2011 will be largely reversed by this increase in the threshold for employer National Insurance Contributions.

All staff earning above roughly £20,000 a year will be affected by the increase in National Insurance.

Advisers should also be aware of a three year new employers’ National Insurance contributions exemption – available in targeted areas outside of the South East.  New businesses will be exempted from up to £5,000 of employer contributions for each of their first 10 employees hired.

Advisers should discuss with employers how they can take advantage of tax saving by adjusting remuneration packages.  This means employers should relook at using salary sacrifice options which takes advantage of savings in corporation and income tax, and in National Insurance.

7. Auto-enrolment

The Government state specifically in the Budget Document that they are ‘supportive of auto-enrolment’.  They have also committed to reviewing private pension reforms and will be announcing details of a review shortly.

Labour’s John Hutton will also be leading a structural review of public sector pensions.

For those adviser businesses active in corporate and employee benefits markets auto-enrolment therefore remains very much on the agenda.  Other aspects of pension reform may change.

Some spending cuts have already been announced (all ministers are taking a 5% pay cut) but the scale of the national debt means much tougher measures are needed to balance the books.

We’ve been told capital gains tax will rise. An emergency Budget is scheduled for 22 June when further tax rises could be announced. Here’s what we know so far.

Capital gains tax

The CGT rate might rise from the current flat rate of 18% and the annual £10,100 exemption could be reduced.

The Times has been reporting that anxious investors are preparing to offload second homes and shares in an attempt to avoid the tax.  They report Savills seeing a 40 percent increase in valuation enquiries in the last 10 days.

This means any tax shelters, such as ISAs, pensions (including SIPPs) and, for more adventurous investors, VCTs will become even more valuable. Within an ISA or SIPP all gains are tax-free.

Income tax

It looks likely the tax free personal allowance for those earning less than £100,000 will rise to £10,000 over time, but the 50% tax rate for those earning over £150,000 will remain.

Tax relief on pensions

The Tories are happy with the current system, whilst the Lib Dems want to abolish higher rate tax relief. It may be that higher rate taxpayers who are considering making a pension contribution this tax year might want to bring forward contributions.

Act now – secure your tax shelters

We believe it is vital that investors organise their affairs as tax-efficiently as possible – and do so now. Changes in tax are rarely retrospective. No one can say for certain what will happen, but investors might want to play it safe by making use of your ISA and pension allowances sooner rather than later. (for investors worried about CGT using their SIPP as part of their tax planning may prove particularly attractive at this time)

Innovator

Team Leaders

We have introduced a new role of team leader.

We have split the sales team and appointed two team leaders.

This means there will be a point of contact that gives increased focus to client care and dealing with clients’ issues .

They will also focus on team management ensuring the best practices are adopted for each client, and also take responsibility for the training, personal development and sales performance of each member of the team.

This added focus along client lines should mean an even more responsive experience for T4 clients and meet the needs of each client.

Our team leaders will still be active sales agents and will still spend the majority of their time responsible for personal production.

Dedicated teams

We have also created two teams – dedicated teams for each client and their campaign. This will further enhance an improved customer experience for T4 clients and align us to focus on client needs.

This will give us pooled resource which means we can plan for contingencies such as covering for holidays and illness, and provide extra resource on a campaign if needed. We can also provide a pool of excellence, up to speed on clients’ messages and individual requirements.

Invested in online training facilities which means that

We have also invested further in our own online training facilities and developed a new range of training modules covering financial planning, pensions and employee benefits for our staff.

Our structured training programme allows our staff to stay up to date with the latest changes in the market and have credible business conversations with decision makers at director level.

Career paths

Amongst our own team, putting themselves forward for our new roles, we had a high calibre of candidate reinforcing the fact that we have some really professional, intelligent and articulate people working for T4.

We are therefore developing career paths to offer career development and maintain an experienced and motivated team which is to the benefit of all our clients, looking for able people to develop business meetings with senior corporate decision makers and high net worthy individuals.

Our career paths include three new roles:

• Taking responsibility for developing our
  training personal development programmes
• Running our sales and incentive programmes.
• A programme to develop future IFAs.

After T4 our best sales people will want to graduate to becoming professional advisers. We are therefore sponsoring two people through the Diploma in Financial Planning and a programme based on developing presentation skills, and outplacement with a product provider and adviser firms.

In this way we will retain and develop two very high level sales agents who will, in time, graduate from our IFA Academy and move on to a new career when they have completed their exams.

T4 is committed to remaining a team of financial services specialists offering outsourced marketing services to financial advisers.

We’ve always been able to bring together a highly motivated and talented team of young sales people. These changes aim to enhance that service and bring an ever improving and dedicated customer experience for our clients.

Innovator

Increasingly we will struggle to think in linear terms, we will think more by concept association. Even now generation x, or y – or is it z – wrestle with the digital struggle to tell structured stories but what they are very good at is managing lots of different thoughts and not worrying about how everything connects. They use their right brain to make sure it feels alright rather than worrying whether something is watertight. Mr Logic has been allowed to put his feet up.

So going back to presentations and presenting information I suspect the new way to illustrate complex ideas will be increasingly be via images, video and pictures; documents will not be structured in a linear order but the different sections will be hyperlinked. Clients may ask for a 3 minute video pitch rather than charts.

I am sure this ‘rewiring’ has big social and educational implications but for the moment the thought of less powerpoint is a pretty good one.”

What do you think for your business?

If you need any help with this, T4 consult financial advisers on digital strategy and the use of rich media like video blogs and slide share, and effective presentations and pitches.

Innovator

We picked this up from a useful web site called econsultancy.com.  They have been monitoring the development of digital media world-wide.  Here they give us 20 mind blowing stats about the way electronic media is developing and how it is changing the way we live and work!

• Facebook claims that 50% of active users log into the site each day. This would mean at least 175m users every 24 hours… A considerable increase from the previous 120m.
• Twitter now has 75m user accounts, but only around 15m are active users on a regular basis. It’s still a fair increase from the estimated 6-10m global users from a few months ago.
• LinkedIn has over 50m members worldwide. This means an increase of around 1m members month-on-month since July/August last year.
• Facebook currently has in excess of 350 million active users on global basis. Six months ago, this was 250m… meaning around a 40% increase of users in less than half a year.
• Flickr now hosts more than 4bn images. A massive jump from the previous 3.6bn I wrote about.
• More than 35m Facebook users update their status each day. This is 5m more than towards the end of July, 2009.
• Wikipedia currently has in excess of 14m articles, meaning that it’s 85,000 contributors have written nearly a million new posts in six months.
• Photo uploads to Facebook have increased by more than 100%. Currently, there are around 2.5bn uploads to the site each month – this was around a billion last time I covered this.
• There are more than 70 translations available on Facebook. Last time around, this was only 50.
• Back in 2009, the average user had 120 friends within Facebook. This is now around 130.
• Mobile is even bigger than before for Facebook, with more than 65m users accessing the site through mobile-based devices. In six months, this is over 100% increase. (Previously 30m). As before, it’s no secret that users who access Facebook through mobile devices are almost 50% more active than those who don’t.

Some other stuff econsultancy.com consider worth noting…

Impressive stuff, but as always, take these stats with a pinch of salt. As before, no single piece of information can be used to base an online strategy upon, or be used as a forecast as to the direction a specific media channel may take in the future – you need to fully understand your marketing and business objectives before launching off into this apparently vast space.

Innovator

 Who knows whether this will happen or not but we will highlight any marketing opportunities for financial adviser firms that arise as a result of what is said this week.

 Remember, the government is seeking to halve the national debt in only four years.  To do this it will have to put in place plans to raise enough cash to meet this target.

 Spending cuts, reducing the number of senior civil servants by 20% and selling off government property are all on the agenda. Will there be a further erosion of tax exemptions on pensions?

 You only have to look at this year’s Budget to see this is a real possibility. The April Budget, broke the link between income tax rates and marginal pension tax relief for those with income over £150,000. There remains a suspicion the Government is intending to do something else to unravel the pension deal – particularly aimed at the richest segments of society.

• Could it be reducing the tax relief threshold for pension contributions from £150,000 to £100,000 and bringing it forward a year?
• Could it be limiting tax relief on investment income for either very large pots or for high earners?
• Could it be capping tax-free cash sums at £100,000 and increasing national insurance contributions for high earners? 

It all brings in uncertainty as people begin to think, ‘what will the Government do next to my pensions and investments savings? Particularly for:

• company directors,
• professional connections,
• high earners,
• anyone with a large pension pot or
• other high net worth individuals.

 Commentators are saying this is dismantling the A-day principle’ of ‘simplification’. Complication dilutes the savings message at a time when, as we’re all living longer, we need to do something about it.  

 This creates a need for good quality advice. We’ll be covering the PBR later this week and suggesting some marketing, lead generation and communications ideas for adviser firms as they arise.

 PS

T4 has access to a marketing database of all of the high net worth individuals in the UK. If you would like to gain access to this list, free of charge for your area, please contact T4.

Remarkably little comment has been made about the generosity of the MPs’ pension scheme, but then duckhouses and moats make for better copy.

We’re told the annual cost to UK taxpayers of an MP’s pension is £13,000, but the real cost is more like £30,000, according to pensions economist, John Ralfe – who is a regular contributor on the economics of company pensions and reform of pension regulation to the BBC and Financial Times.  The £17,000 difference is yet another hidden perk that MPs have managed to keep largely under wraps until now.

An MP has an index linked pension of £30,000 after just 20 years in Parliament.  This means an MP can expect roughly £1,500 worth of pension for every year they are an MP, compared to only £1,000 for each year worked by public sector workers earning £60,000.

So will anything be done about MPs’ pensions, once the furore over their expenses dies down?

Possibly, says pensions expert, Dr Ros Altmann – the well known pensions campaigner and twice winner of Professional Pensions Pensions Personality of the Year . After all, David Cameron has said he wants MPs to move to a defined contribution scheme, whereby MPs would receive a pension based on the level of their contributions, investment returns and prevailing annuity rates at the time they retire – just like most of the rest of us.

Dr Altmann says: “If policymakers don’t face the same issues as ordinary people, how can they make coherent and fair pensions policy?”

Meanwhile, the costs associated with public sector pensions continue to soar as increasing longevity has forced a number of the public sector schemes to update their assumptions about how long their employees will live.

The NHS scheme now assumes that today’s employees will live beyond 90 and draw their pension for more than 30 years, costing the taxpayer an extra £12.5bn. Similarly, armed forces officers are expected to live until age 90.

Civil servants, the most feather bedded of the lot, and who contribute nothing to their own pensions (they only have to make contributions for spouses’ pensions), are now expected to spend a third of their life in retirement.

Clearly, a pension scheme which has to pay out for 30 years or more to former employees who have worked for 40 years is unsustainable. To date, reform to public sector pensions has consisted of mere tinkering at the edges, such an increase in the retirement age from 60 to 65 (but only for new recruits) and cost sharing mechanisms which will cap taxpayers’ costs if life expectancy continues to improve.

Given the furore over MPs’ expenses and the parlous state of the public finances, now could be the time root and branch reform begins to be introduced to the public sector in general and MPs’ pensions in particular.

Time will tell…

Any last words dear...?

Investment News – a specialist trade publication for Financial Advisers in the US has been doing some research on advisers use of social networking and blogs as part of their marketing strategy.  This is interesting because the structure of the financial advice industry in the US is similar to ours and what happens in America tends to predict what will happen in the UK 5 years down the line.

More and more advisers we talk to want to integrate social media into their marketing plans. They realise making the most of web marketing is an effective way to reach niche markets. Social media allows advisers to communicate with prospective clients who may not be open to traditional marketing campaigns like seminars or advertising. All financial adviser firms should be building social media into their marketing strategy no matter what their target market. Social media is no longer just for the kids.

The Internet is playing a larger role in the lives of financial advisers. Many rely on customer relationship management systems, blogs or postings on social networking sites to attract prospects and keep their names in front of clients.

Investment News found 43% of advisers reported using “social media/online networking sites,” according to “Online Marketing Methods: Planner Best Practices,” a white paper from the Denver-based Financial Planning Association that was released in May.

In addition, 32% of advisers reported that they relied on audiocasts and podcasts, while 17% reported that they used blogs in their practices. The results were based on survey responses from 331 members of the FPA.

The Internet holds great potential for financial advisers. Rather than avoiding the online challenge, perhaps it is time to consider how best to embrace it – not to demonstrate a trendy devotion to technology, but because it’s good for business.

Fully 60% of advisers who relied on social media generated at least 16 leads per year, according to the FPA survey.

How was your day?

Investment News – a trade journal for financial advisers in the US published a great article on how blogging works to the good for financial advisers – it is full of practical examples.

They account for only a minuscule fraction of the world’s estimated 100 million bloggers, but financial advisers who maintain their own commentary-oriented websites are finding that blogging can pay.

Blogs can be an inexpensive way to attract prospects, market a practice and communicate with clients. They’re also a way to get in front of investors without spending large amounts of cash or time.

“My Internet presence is probably second to word of mouth in terms of attracting clients,” said Rick Kahler, a certified financial planner and president of Kahler Financial Group of Rapid City, S.D., which manages $90 million in assets.

“The blog is fast, efficient, and it allows me to cut costs. I also just think I can do a far better job for my clients in delivering news to them in this manner,” he said, noting that his blog has replaced the 2,000 newsletters he once regularly mailed to clients.

However, a blog should be more than merely an online brochure; it should be an educational platform to reach clients and potential clients, said Roger Streit, a CFP and principal of the fee-only firm Key Financial Solutions LLC of Livingston, N.J.

“It’s kind of a labour of love for me, but I can definitely say that my ranking in search engines has gone way up since I started blogging,” he said.

To be sure, blogs have made it possible for advisers to share videos and charts that provide insight to the market, said Milo Benningfield, a fee-only Securities and Exchange Commission-registered investment adviser and CFP based in San Francisco who manages $34 million in assets.

Litman/Gregory Asset Management LLC of Larkspur, Calif., uses its blogs, some of which generate revenue, to communicate with advisers, said Elissa Crowther-Pal, director of the marketing and adviser intelligence unit of the firm, which manages $900 million in assets.

Litman/Gregory distributes its research to one- and two-person advisery shops that don’t have their own research departments and want to use the resources of a larger firm.

A handful of advisers have begun to enliven their blogs with a mix of technologies.

For instance, Bill Schultheis, principal of Soundmark Wealth Management LLC of Kirkland, Wash., hosts an investment show with Carl Richards, a fee-only CFP in Las Vegas, on a talk radio blog.

The free online service they used, BlogTalkRadio, requires no downloads and allows subscribers to use their telephone and a computer to host live, call-in talk shows that are archived automatically and made available as podcasts.

The three programs hosted by Mr. Schultheis and Mr. Richards were played 800 times, though the broadcasts weren’t advertised.

Robert Klosterman, president and chief executive of White Oaks Wealth Advisors Inc. of Minneapolis, thinks that his blog has counteracted news reports that scared clients away from investing.

“During the time when the news and investor sentiment were at their worst, we found it particularly helpful to share our thoughts on the blog,” said Mr. Klosterman, whose firm manages $200 million in assets.

“It’s my voice, it’s my presentation,” he said, adding that the presentations he creates provide a good way to explain very complex concepts. The commentaries are left on the blog for investors to play at their leisure. Mr. Schultheis acknowledges the need to present an alternative to the media pundits who were scaring clients.

“We feel there is a tremendous gap – no one is there to introduce an intelligent alternative to Jim Cramer – there needs to be a John Bogle morphed into a Suze Orman, and we’re trying to fill that gap,” Mr. Schultheis said.

A spokesman for CNBC wrote in an e-mail that Mr. Cramer’s advice to investors “was 100% spot on.”

Although neither the Securities and Exchange Commission nor the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. of New York and Washington have regulations specific to blogging, advisers need to be aware of the range of regulations concerning sales, advertising, fraud and other issues, said Daniel Bernstein, director of professional services with the compliance consulting firm MarketCounsel LLC of Englewood, N.J.

“The two biggest things an adviser must consider when blogging is to know what hat you are wearing [whether broker or adviser] at any given time and to think before you type,” he said.

“People are always careful before they speak and careful before they type a letter and sign it on letterhead, but there’s just something about the web that makes people forget their inhibitions,” Mr. Bernstein said.

Social Networking Map

A legion of intrepid financial advisers are twittering, linking in and in many other ways harnessing the power of the Internet to network socially in a bid to expand their practices.

They are making use of social-networking websites to attract clients, to develop relationships with accountants, attorneys and other advisers, and also to display their expertise.

For example, advisers’ responses to questions that are posted on the LinkedIn site can be read by thousands of members who can in turn contact them for more information.

There has been an uptick of late in interest among advisers in social networking, said Kristen Luke, a marketing consultant to independent advisers for Wealth Management Marketing of San Diego.

For instance, this past Monday, 40 advisers participated in her online webinar on social marketing.

LinkedIn is “probably the best site because there are so many people on it [just fewer than 40 million, with 1.5 million of them in "financial services"], and you can really find your target demographic,” Ms. Luke said.

The site’s single best feature of which advisers can take advantage is its easy-to-search and simple-to-join groups function that allows easy access to like-minded advisers and other professionals.

Joining LinkedIn and similar groups is one thing, but making full use of them is often another. Increasingly, in meetings with advisers, a majority of hands go up when asking who uses LinkedIn, though few post regularly, said Kip Gregory, a consultant and principal with The Gregory Group, a Washington-based firm that helps advisers apply technology.

LinkedIn can be accessed at linkedin.com.

Mr. Gregory encourages advisers to join groups that are related to their practices, such as RIA Marketplace, which has 1,325 members, and 401K, which has 1,599 members. There are other groups in that include UK advisers or British based groups like IFA Life.

“To be able to plug into a group and then be able to start seeing who the movers and shakers are, what keeps them up at night, what they are reading, that’s really invaluable business intelligence,” said Mr. Gregory, the author of “Winning Clients in a Wired World” (John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2004). “If you are looking at units of time, I would encourage advisers to spend the bulk of what they allocate to social networking to LinkedIn, hands down, right now.”

Rich Krasney, principal of RJK Wealth Management LLC in Parsippany, N.J., said that social networking is helpful to independent advisers who are building their practices.

“It’s not just about the online connection itself, either,” he said. “It’s about the act of connecting, of finding a common area of interest, and then taking that to the next step, taking it offline and developing a real relationship from there.”

Social networking is an inexpensive way to market an advisory business.

“To the extent that you can use all the social-networking technology for that purpose, that’s where you get the real bang for not necessarily spending any bucks. I’ve connected with people I never would have connected with [in terms of professionals and client leads] through e-mail or a phone call or even a blog, but I did so with ease on LinkedIn and Twitter,” Mr. Krasney said.

Although attracting clients might be the goal, be careful not to self-promote too much, said Chuck Rylant, a principal at C.J. Rylant Wealth Management, a fee-only adviser in Santa Maria, Calif.

“I’m like everyone else when it comes to Twitter and Facebook, and get sick of seeing people who constantly promote themselves,” he said, referring to either outright advertising or thinly veiled references to marketing. “What I’ve found is that when you just sincerely interact with folks and show a real interest, then when you least expect it you’ll hear from them for business.”

Mr. Rylant is an avid user of LinkedIn; Twitter, a personal-updates site from Twitter Inc. of San Francisco (twitter.com); and Facebook, a social-networking site (facebook.com); but he cautions that participation requires him to keep his profile updated, to answer questions promptly and to maintain his blogs on LinkedIn.

In addition, he makes an effort to keep his Facebook content more personal with photos and less focus on financial planning than on other sites. On Twitter, he mixes business and personal content.

In the United States, to ensure that they are compliant with Securities and Exchange Commission and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. regulations, advisers need to be diligent about saving everything they post in a compliance file, said Bill Winterberg, who maintains the technology blog fppad.com and who is an operations and efficiency consultant to advisory firms in Portland, Ore.

Advisers should treat such online content just as they do postcards used in their e-mail and snail mail campaigns that their prospects receive.

“In most instances, registered representatives are going to have to get prior approval for anything they might want to post on any of these sites,” Mr. Winterberg said.

In the US Finra of New York and Washington, and the SEC, consider anything posted on the Internet an advertisement, he said.

UK advisers should act in the same way to stay compliant.

Marketing Plan

It is more important than ever to market your business. However, your dilemma is that revenue is down, so you don’t have much money to spend on marketing. Don’t worry! There are many low cost options that can still have great impact on your business. For all of you out there looking for an effective strategy that requires very little money, you can develop a great marketing plan for as little as £2,000. Read on to see what you can do to grow your business for just over £150 per month.

Webinars – £792
If you haven’t integrated webinars into your marketing plan yet, this is the year to do so! For as little as £66 ($99) per month using GoToWebinar.com, you can conduct as many webinars as you wish. You can use this service from the UK.  This strategy can help you reach hundreds of people all at once. Start a monthly webinar series for your clients and prospects. Remind your clients to forward the invitation to their friends and family members. If you want to reach a larger audience, list your webinar on free calendar of events websites and social networking sites like LinkedIn. Conduct webinars for your professional connections and introducers as well and consider inviting outside panelists to present with you. Invite professional connections to become panelists for your client webinars and extend the invitation to their clients as well. You can further the reach of your webinars if you record the session and post them to your website or email them to people who couldn’t make the event. As you can see, a couple hours of work and around £66 each month can make a big difference in your marketing.

Email Marketing – £120
If you are still using print newsletters, it’s time to upgrade to electronic newsletters. Not only are print newsletters not environmentally friendly, they are expensive. For as little as £10 per month, you can subscribe to a good email marketing service to reach your clients, prospects and COIs via email. The monthly fee allows you to send marketing emails to your list (up to 500 contacts) an unlimited number of times. This means you can send as many weekly market wraps, quarterly newsletters, invitations to special events and client surveys as you want for only $180 per year. To best utilize email marketing, continue to build your list of clients, prospects and professional connections and send relevant information pertinent to each group. There are dozens of different ways to reach out to people through email marketing. All you have to do is be creative!

Networking Events – £792
People either love or hate networking events. To continually build your list of prospects and professional connections, you should regularly be collecting cards at events and adding them to your email and webinar campaigns. For purposes of the £2,000 budget, you should probably be attending two events per month at an average cost of £66 per month. If you can go to more, great! Just remember to collect contact information and get the people you meet on the two ‘drip’ campaigns mentioned above.

In-Office Round Table Discussions – £200
Twice a year, hold an economic round table discussion in your office. Invite other advisers who have varying perspectives on the economy such as local bankers, solicitors, accountants and commercial estate and property agents or property developers  to name a few. Alternatively you  could invite good spokespeople from one of the investment houses or life offices.  Invite a select group of people (prospects, clients, professional connections) so that the event feels exclusive. The event should be held in the evening hours with wine and cheese served. For 25 people, you can get away with 12 bottles of wine at £5 each and a £40 cheese and fruit platter from your local deli or supermarket deli counter. That comes out to approximately £100 for each event. Such a deal for such a great relationship building event!

Cards – £100
Good old fashioned note and greeting cards go a long way. At a minimum, you should be sending holiday cards to all of your clients. You should also send thank you cards to clients who provide you with a referral and greeting cards on special occasions. Include a hand written note and your gesture will go a long with your clients and your word of mouth marketing.

The marketing plan described gives you a lot of flexibility and most likely provides you with enough activity to last you the entire year. The total cost of this plan? £2,004! With this budget, here is what you can accomplish in just one year:

• 52 weekly market wrap emails
• 4 quarterly email newsletters
• 12 client/prospect webinars
• 12 professional connection webinars
• 2 round table discussions

The most successful firms will tell you that it is in economic times like these that their business grows the most. Why? Because they focus on marketing when other firms do not. As we move into the second half of a challenging year, make sure you don’t neglect your marketing. Take advantage of the low cost marketing options available to you and watch your business thrive!

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a consulting firm specialising in marketing solutions for independent financial advisors. Read her blog on http://www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net/ for more information.

Hungry Piggy Bank

The increases to tax and national insurance announced in the pre budget report last autumn greatly increased the opportunities for using  salary sacrifice as a tax and national insurance planning tool. Just under half of UK employers have now put a salary sacrifice scheme in place*.

Salary sacrifice deflects affects of NI rise – FT

NI set to boost employer interest in salary sacrifice – Employee Benefits magazine

Helping advisers find quality leads is key

How can financial advisers approach this market? Finding good quality leads is the key.

One different way you can find leads is by using the services of T4 Marketing. T4 offers a variety of outsourced services for financial advisers using a range of approaches and technology.

T4 Marketing offer innovative strategies to provide good quality leads on any topic – not just salary sacrifice:
- business to business marketing,
- sourcing good quality lead generation data,
- latest thinking on integration of web and telemarketing,

Remember T4 operate exclusively for financial advisers and our people have the skills and experience to gain appointments with decision makers for corporate financial planning.  Furthermore, we are unrivalled  sourcing data for quality and targetted lead generation.

Know your story

The benefits with salary sacrifice you, as a corporate adviser, can offer clients are saving money on payroll costs and improving employee engagement with the overall benefits package salary sacrifice can support.

Employers told why salary sacrifice is worthwhile – Employee Benefits magazine

Get the admin issues right

Getting the admin issues right is also really important for salary sacrifice and any related benefits package – both in terms of supporting your expertise and getting your service right for clients. Your client company needs to work closely with their tax advisers and product providers from initial set up. You can help them do this easily and cost effectively.  It is a worthwhile investment of time and money because the savings that this represents long term more than make up for any implementation costs of flex.

Here is the HMRC factsheet on Salary Sacrifice

What’s in it for the employer?

Does salary sacrifice make enough difference to profits to make it worth a company considering?

One group of employers recently made an annual saving of £7m across 39,000 employees after putting a salary sacrifice scheme in place. Also, HR Directors are often impressed that salary sacrifice and related voluntary benefits can provide a positive ‘no-cost’ employee benefits package especially when remuneration strategies may be under pressure in the current climate.

Benefits of salary sacrifice explained – Employee Benefits magazine*

There’s a lot in it for the employer and the employee, and with increased pension contributions there are plenty of benefits for their advisers as well.

Solidata Salsac calculator

If you want to know more about innovative ways to run a campaign on a financial planning topic like salary sacrifice or other ways you can use T4’s services to benefit your clients and increase your bottom line call or email us

Bloggers Map

Blogs are worth doing for financial adviser firms.  They are easy to do and you don’t require an IT PHD to run one.  Tools such as WordPress and Google’s Blogger allow anyone to keep one.  If you integrate your blog with your website it is a great way of keeping your website updated with fresh material.  Keeping a blog and updating regularly also helps with your Search Engine Optimisation and is one of the key ways to push you up those search engines searches – important in today’s world of digital marketing.  Personalise your website as well.  A lot of websites do what they do but are drab, drab, drab.  A blog giving useful information, sign-posting other interesting sites or giving some views or news about your firm adds a little colour to your website – without having to be a web-design guru.

Promoting your blog is essential if you want to bring in readers. Many times, I have seen links in the signature to someone’s blog.  While this is a great way to get your blog out there, there is a more obvious way of doing this.

One of the ways to get traffic via your signature is to put a link to a new post in your blog and to include the title of the blog with the link. Say for instance you just published a new post titled “How To Grow Big Tomatoes”. Try using this as the title with your signature with the link to this page in your blog.  It is more explicit what are you doing rather than the link in the signature which hides your light somewhat.

Below, I’ve listed a few proven ways to driving traffic to your blog.

1. Social Networking – Social network sites like LinkedIn allows just about any type of self promotion. You can easily promote your blog this way. On LinkedIn you have many options, such as bulletins, classifieds, groups, forum and let’s not forget your signature. Other sites such as Facebook and Twitter also available. A rule of thumb on all social networks is, interact with the members of the site. Don’t just sign up and do a hit and run post, as it’s considered spamming.

2. Newsletters which highlight your blog and feature a link to it are another great way.

3. Leave a Comment.  Spend time reading other peoples’ blogs. Leave a comment and they are likely to check out your blog and do the same.

4. Get linked to other blogs.

5. Follow-up Posts – Have a post or two that will allow for a Part 2, or 3.  This will bring inquiring minds back for more.

6. Social Bookmarking- If you don’t belong to Digg then it would be wise to check them out and perhaps join. You can get a ton of traffic by adding a post from your blog to this site. There are other sites like this as well.

7. Advertise- There are some low cost sites out here in cyber-space where you can get cheap advertising. Some places like MyBouva allow you to list your link for only $10 a year.

Although this just touches the surface on ways to promote your blog. The reality is, there’s thousands of ways to drive traffic to your blog. Be creative when thinking of new ways to promote yourself. Soon and hopefully traffic will be finding it’s way to your blog.

Innovator

British Budget

The Budget -
What does it mean for Financial Advisers?

A big increase in ISA limits, a dramatic hike in income tax for the highest earners and and a radical revision of macro-economic forecasts are probably the key points from today’s budget.

The Chancellor is billing it as targeted support for the economy while continuing sustained fiscal consolidation from 2010-11 when the government forecast the economy will be recovering and able to support a reduction in borrowing.

Here are the main points and some first thoughts:

ISA limits increased
An increase in the annual investment limit for Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) to £10,200, up to £5,100 of which can be saved in cash.  This will make ISAs more attractive – tax free roll up and accessibility.

Income Tax increase for very highest earners
From April 2010, an additional rate of income tax of 50 per cent will apply to income over £150,000, and the income tax personal allowance will be restricted for those with income over £100,000. So a year earlier than originally announced and 50% not 45% with the announcement on personal allowances an extra sting in the tail.

Pensions
From April 2011, tax relief on pensions contributions will be restricted for those with incomes of £150,000 and over, and tapered down until it is 20 per cent.  This means salary sacrifice becomes more attractive for high earners. Firstly, the rises in National Insurance announced in the Pre Budget Report are not being postponed.  Secondly, using salary sacrifice to increase pensions and bring income levels below either the £150,000 or the £100,000 limit must now be an attractive feature of tax planning.

Business
The Chancellor announced he was extending the enhanced loss relief for an additional year and expanding HMRC’s Business Payment Support Service, increasing capital allowances for new investment to 40 per cent for one year, and establishing a £750 million Strategic Investment Fund to support advanced industrial projects of strategic importance.

For one year the rate at which capital allowances can be claimed on plant & machinery will be increased from 20% to 40%. There will also be an extension for one further year to the ability to carry back trading losses against profits of the previous three years.

Homeowners and homebuyers,
The Chancellor announced a £600 million funding package of measures to build more homes through unlocking sites currently sitting as dormant, and an extension of the stamp duty holiday for all houses costing up to £175,000 until the end of the year.

VAT
It was confirmed that the reduction in VAT to 15% would continue to the end of the year. The rate will return to 17.5% on 1 June 2010.

Alcohol and cigarettes
The Government targeted alcohol and cigarettes putting around 7p on a packet of cigarettes and 6p on a pint of beer.

Fuel
Fuel duty will increase by 2 pence per litre on 1 September 2009, and by 1 penny per litre in real terms each year from 2010 to 2013;

Car scrapping bounty
Car buyers will get a £2,000 bounty for scrapping vehicles more than 10 years old.

The environment
The government announced a range of measures to encourage energy efficiency and low-carbon growth.

We will send out a further email with one or two marketing ideas for adviser businesses off the back of this in a few days.

2009 Budget

What will be in the Budget
for financial advisers?

This is the first of a series of posts about this year’s Budget. What might happen? What does happen? What it means for financial adviser businesses and how you might market your services to support clients afterwards.

The Chancellor’s budget takes place on Wednesday 22 April in what are unprecedented times for the UK economy. It is always hard to second guess what a Chancellor will do but we have been trawling the internet and here are some of the predictions from within the financial services industry as to what might happen.

In November the Chancellor announced a fiscal stimulus for 2009 with tax rises taking effect from April 2010 but this was based on a return to growth by mid 2009. The Chancellor no longer expects a return to growth this early.

The Treasury is now talking about growth in 2010 which is likely to be unsteady for a while. In these circumstances the tax rises already announced for 2010 and 2011 will take money out of the economy. In these conditions it is possible the government could defer several of the tax rises announced for 2010 and 2011. The Chancellor could therefore do something like defer tax rises but announce steeper tax rates at a later date as money is still required to finance government borrowing. This is the balancing act Alistair Darling has to perform.

Here are some of the measures he may introduce:

NI rate – delay in planned rise of employer’s NI rate?
The Chancellor has already announced a planned rise in employers’ National Insurance contributions from 12.8% to 13.3% from 2011. A lot of commentators are predicting this will be delayed to reduce financial pressure on businesses. A delay could also act as an incentive for employers to take on new staff at a time of rising unemployment. Some commentators are even speculating whether the Chancellor will actually announce a temporary reduction in NI.

Retraining schemes to receive tax breaks?
There may be tax breaks introduced for the cost of retraining schemes. This will help companies pick activity up when the recession begins to subside and help businesses adapt as they remodel themselves for the future.

Annual ISA investment limits to increase?
There needs to be more incentives for people to save with interest rates at historic lows. An increase in the ISA limits seems a real possibility. The Chancellor may also allow increases to the limits people may invest in cash to help re-capitalise the banking system.

Increase in stamp duty limits?
The housing market is currently showing tentative signs of reaching the bottom of the downward trend. Some analysts are predicting a further increase in stamp duty limits to help encourage the housing market which is so important to the UK economy.

Increase in small company rate of Corporation Tax postponed ?
The increase in the rate of Corporation Tax for small companies was to have increased from 21% to 22% from this month. This has already been deferred for a year. A few commentators have speculated that this could be abandoned altogether.

Other technical issues
Analysts expect the budget as a whole to be about short-term fixes and improving cash flow within the tax and benefits system. Tax receipts are down by £7 billion, the government has committed itself to massive public spending to support the banking system and there is little room for announcing tax increases to fill the gaps.

If improving cash flow is key expect to see some technical changes which may include changes such as these:

- Inheritance Tax and lifetime gifts – may see new rules about record keeping and life-time gifts.
- HMRC’s new Business Payment Support Service announced last autumn has helped businesses manage tax payments using structured payment plans. We may see more done in this area.
- New draft of an HMRC charter to set out HMRC service standards and make taxpayers rights and responsibilities clear is a possibility.

The big question?
Although this has come up many times and never seems to happen, the big question is will higher rate tax relief on pensions be affected? The saga of Fred Goodwin’s pension has put high pension contributions under the spotlight. Will the Chancellor do anything this time?

There will be further postings on the Budget – on any news, the speech itself and soon after on business opportunities for firms giving financial advice.

Innovator

Budget Pig

The world economy is under the spotlight again this week with the G20 meeting in London. Many economists say we need a Bretton Woods agreement for the 21st century although few expect to get one. Clients have never been more cautious, and many financial advisers I come across are a little at a loss as to how to develop business in the current market. Trust in old investment paradigms is shaken and people are spooked.

I read about the rather strangely named Oechsli Institute in the States doing some research that suggested only 13.4 percent of advisers have increased their personal “face time” with clients in this climate. And that’s very bad news indeed when you consider this sobering statistic: Following the 2002-2003 market decline, according to research by the Spectrem Group, it took up to four years before investors were happy with their advisers again. Ok this data is from the US but I reckon the principle stands in the UK.

There’s a huge lag between market recovery and relationship recovery. Research from the US shows clients wanted to hear from their advisers much more often and it took many years before they were comfortable again.

Difficult markets can be the best time to win new assets. Investors are starving for good advice and compelling propositions combining solutions with close communications. When the dust finally settles, there could well be a very large group of winners and losers as the financial advisery market shakes out.
It seems clearer than ever before that it’s about the relationship. In the most part, investments have been commoditised. It seems clients are cautious about financial markets and trusting their advisers – with this in mind what advisers do over the next year to be proactive will define the rest of their careers. The stakes are high…

Here are 10 thoughts to help make you a winner

1. Communicate.
It’s such a basic, but many advisers don’t do as well on this as they could do. A recent survey suggested that failure to return phone calls is the most common reason for high-net-worth clients to part with their financial advisers.
Don’t go into take cover mode because the news is bad. People are upset and worried . To put yourself in front of clients in an environment like this is to open yourself up to a lot of negativity but a little human outreach goes a long way.
It is all about communication. If you’re not communicating with your clients, you’re going to lose money. There is plenty of research to show that how advisers deal with problems, difficult times or complaints can really make or break a relationship.

2. Set up reviews with your clients.
Re-profiling your top clients and asking such questions as: What is most important to you about your finances at the moment? Are we meeting your requirements? Is there anything else we can do to improve communication between us?

The client you’re working with today is not the same client they were before last September. here isn’t a normal anymore. You are likely to find changes in what’s important to them in terms of risk tolerance and what they want out of their relationship with a financial adviser. This has to be formalised. You can’t make assumptions.

3. Focus on referral marketing.
In a difficult market, nothing carries more weight than a referral from a trusted source. This could be the most critical thing a financial adviser could do at the moment. Hand out business cards and brochures to your clients and other connections in your network, asking them for referrals. Put the things in place for your clients to talk about you and your firm. Create the mechanics.

4. Get your story right.
How easy have you made it for your clients to talk about you and what you have to offer? Think of it as a refined elevator speech or one-minute commercial: Explain in a way that clients can understand what it is you do, who you do it for, and how you help your clients achieve their goals. “A lot of advisers don’t see value in something like this, but it can be extremely important.

5. Maximise your reach.
There are plenty of advisers rushing from call to call. There are ways to work smarter on this one. One thing you can do is to take advantage of conference calls and webinars as a way to reach clients. This sort of technology helps you reach clients in an organised fashion and they are accessible and very affordable.

6. Develop client loyalty.
There are many things that affect client loyalty. Probably the biggest factor for strengthening loyalty is solving a problem and communicating the solution clearly to your client. If you can do this well you could cement things with clients big-time..
Ask for feedback – you can do this in a quite formal way with email questionnaires – after inter-actions or as a matter of course. You could be surprised at what you will learn and how it will build relationships, improve your approach or nip problems in the bud.

Clients don’t actually leave financial advisers due to poor performance they leave because of lack of communication and lack of attention. In times like these everywhere clients look, they see a leadership void. This is your time to shine. Your actions over the next 12 months could define your business over the next 10 years.

7. Go after all of a client’s assets.
There is no better time than in a difficult environment like this one to press this key point. Set up an appointment and pursue this tack: ‘I can’t be a full solution provider unless I have all of your assets.

This is a great opportunity to talk to clients you have partial relationships with. The clear message here is that you can’t truly protect the downside or manage risk if you only have a slice of their net worth.

8. Reassess your business model.
Take a hard, honest look at your business model and your own state of mind. What’s working? What’s not?

In my experience what some savez advisers are doing at the moment is taking a hard look at their current business and making any necessary changes. If they haven’t used back office systems or business technology properly they are now. If they haven’t been investing in lead generation programmes they’re doing it now..
Think outside the box. What other things can you do or offer to demonstrate added value? It could be as simple as a conference call where people can call in and participate. It will take some time, some preparation and there are some expenses associated with anything. But what will people remember when they get through this crisis? The guy who took the extra step.

Consider also updating some of your marketing approaches. Do you make use of blogs and email marketing? Are you using social networking sites like LinkedIn and Twitter? Are you connecting with all the business groups and networks in your area you could do?

9.Show leadership.
Don’t let the pundits on TV become your clients’ de facto adviser. It’s important that you represent the voice of reassurance and reason – not them.
I read about one American adviser who at the peak of the financial panic last year sent his first e-mail blast to clients in spite of the fact that he had always prided himself on individual communication. His message? “We want to talk to each of you. We’ve put together a plan. Turn your TV off. We’ve got this under control.” Translation: leadership.

Again, make use of regular newsletters and a calendar of contact strategies throughout the year. Use email, webinars/telephone conferences and ordinary cheese and wine or full seminar events to communicate – whatever you can make work for you.

10. Use your skills of empathy.
No one knows how long the volatile markets will last so it is extremely important to guard against becoming emotionally drained yourself. Clients and prospects right now have a lot of fears – fear of change, fear of the markets – and the only way you can connect with that person is to have quite an emotional conversation – which can be difficult for us Brits. If you don’t have that capacity, you can’t be effective. We always think we deal with inanimate things: stocks, gilts & bonds, and pension funds. We sometimes forget how much of an emotional business this is.

Lead Generation

There are basic parts to any lead generation programme, and if you get any one of these wrong it could cause your programme to fail.

To get a lead generation programme working effectively all of these components must work together seamlessly.

The main 5 reasons that get in the way of lead generation campaigns working as well as they could – or fail altogether are these:

The lead generator (sales consultant or sales agent) isn’t right.

The sales agent and how they come over on the phone will make or break your campaign. The sales agent’s style professionalism, attitude and procedures are important. Even things like the agent’s tone of voice are crucially important for lead generation success. If you are worried that this may be a problem listen to the agent – or get a second opinion if you are making the calls yourself. It is vital you make the pitch as effective as possible. Things to look out for in particular are sounding; robotic, over enthusiastic, dull, sleepy, or a lack of confidence. You are looking for a sales agents to have a natural sound that comes off like real one to one communication.

The contact list isn’t right

Your contact data is crucial for the success of a lead generation campaign. Segmentation of data into a target group who may be interested to buy your services is central to success. If your message is hitting the wrong crowd then you are wasting your time. If you are selling advice about employee benefits packages for companies you need a list of Finance Directors and / or HR Directors of small and medium sized companies because they are the decision makers on this subject. You may also be scuppered if the companies are too big or too small. All can be solved by effective sourcing and segmentation of contact data. The data should also be cleansed to increase success. This means some sort of check on contact names, numbers and addresses should be done to maximise the usefulness of your contact list and thereby the effectiveness of the lead generation campaign.

The pitch on the phone isn’t right

Your pitch script is the basis of your conversation with the sales prospect. For this to be right involves the content pulled together into a logical, short and concise presentation. If the data is good and you are not having much success the chances are that what you are saying is missing the mark. It could be your delivery, the pace at which you talk, the order you make your key points, trying to just spew out your whole pitch without asking for feedback, or asking any good open questions of the prospect or listening to what the prospect has to say, or maybe just the words themselves aren’t right.

You don’t get to speak with a decision maker

With business to business lead generation calls it is essential you have the name of the decision maker when you call. This is another make or break piece of information. Dialling without a name will produce low contact rates as PAs, receptionists and other gatekeepers refuse to put your call through. If you don’t have the name or you need to ask the gatekeeper who is responsible for the service you are promoting this signals it is a sales call and the gatekeeper, who’s job it is to protect their employer’s valuable time will probably shut you down right there. You can get around this by good data cleansing beforehand to research and check that you have decision makers’ names or if the data you start with is un-cleansed and you don’t have the name a little research is worth doing to make sure you have a name.

You get shut down at the start of your pitch

If you manage to get past the gatekeeper the next most common reason for failing with a lead generation pitch is getting shut down at the beginning of your script. This is most likely to occur when you sound like you are staged, forced or reading a script. Take the time to learn your script and practice reciting it so it sounds natural. This can also happen because your introduction (where you state who you are, what you do and why you are calling) is way to long. Early termination happens early because you have around 12 seconds in the beginning of your call where the decision maker is deciding whether they are going to stay on the line. Therefore, think of your introduction as the headline of a news article or ad; you have one breath’s worth of speech to engage your audience or you’ve lost them.

In any of these scenarios the problem could be with any or all of these reasons. The trick is identifying the weak link in your programme. Once you can do that, fixing the problem usually requires some trial and error. Replace and repair one part in question at a time and then some experimentation.

If you want any further advice on putting together an effective lead generation campaign or data sourcing; or if you are interested in outsourcing a lead generation programme then please give us at T4 Marketing a call.

Email Marketing

As companies cut budgets to streamline operations in these tough economic times, e-mail marketing is coming into its own to deliver cost effective results. In many instances, direct mail budgets are being slashed, with some of those funds diverted to e-mail.

The people making the budget decisions have high expectations that e-mail will make up for the sales they expected from direct marketing.

Sharpening your company’s e-mail subscriber list is a key factor in improving results of online marketing campaigns. Look at these tips to help make that happen:

1. Relevance is more critical than ever before. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes and make sure you understand your potential customers. You may need greater segmentation of your list. What you send an older customer approaching retirement could be very different to what you send a younger customer whose financial options are less sophisticated and more limited.

2. Build relationships. Spend time understanding what information is critical to readers on your email list The more you can do to show potential customers you understand their needs in email communications, the more likely they are to buy from you in due course.

3. Cleanse your data. It’s worthwhile going through your contact lists and update its accuracy or eliminate those who won’t respond. The more the data is cleansed the higher response rate will be achieved.

4. Test. It is worthwhile using maybe 10% of your budget on testing to learn more about what triggers people to action and to respond to your emails. You could well increase your response rate by 1% or more, which may not sound much, but consistently, over all campaigns this can amount to a very large increase in business.

For small and medium sized businesses there seems little doubt that email marketing is one of the ways to go with recessionary pressures on marketing budgets. The T4 Group has the products and can provide you with the technology to implement solutions for all aspects of email marketing.

• Database sourcing and cleansing;
• customer segmentation and targeting;
• message formulation and testing;
• emailing programmes with complete analytics and functionality to call back those who open the email or who click on links to your website.

Please get in touch if you wish us to run an email campaign for you or help you with any aspect of setting up email campaigns yourselves.

21st Century marketing

How to step up your marketing in a recession

There is a 21st century shift in marketing that is affecting small and medium sized businesses – and it is affecting financial adviser businesses as much as  other industries.

What are the traditional methods of marketing your services?

• Networking – referrals, golf club, business club, round table…
• Direct mail
• Telemarketing – phoning up prospects and potential prospects
• Local press advertising – national press and trade press as well for larger IFAs.
• Seminars

These methods are still valid but in the modern world and in a tough economic climate there are new ways you should not be ignoring. You should also be looking at:

• Internet marketing
• Email marketing
• Social networking.
• Lead generation and lead nurturing

And most importantly you should be looking at integrating all these techniques into an overall strategy.

Website – you probably know all about this one already. You’ve built one, it looks good and presents your business well. But do you get calls from it?

Email marketing – email marketing is beginning to mature. It is not just about sending bulk emails out. It is about a total strategic well planned approach to explore new customers and retain old customers. It is about good data and segmentation of your client base. It is also about real time reporting and audit tools, integration with databases, delivery scheduling, and other capabilities of a good email marketing platform.

Social media networking – this isn’t just about kids anymore. They used to be used for socialising but social media has business value now. This is the new networking. LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are probably the most useful but they must be part of an integrated strategy.

Lead generation – nothing new here you say but finding good quality leads for financial advisers is the cornerstone of any marketing campaign. This is 21st century because of the great leap forward in data sourcing and database marketing. This includes the ability to fully integrate email marketing, web marketing and contacting prospects. Good segmentation and data sourcing will produce very high conversion rates and outsourcing will allow you to let someone else do this while you concentrate on sales.

…at the same time you should think about

Video – what the blazes does YouTube have to do with my business? Did you know that over 50% of YouTube videos are instructional or for business use. Having some video clips on your website or blog helps drive traffic there and helps make them more intereting.

PR – generate some buzz locally and help drive traffic to your website.
Content – good content for your web and blog is vital. It also helps with appearing on Google searches.

Blog – an important feature to integrate into your website. Helps make your website more user-friendly and helps drive traffic to your website.

Three thoughts to finish…

1. “Is all this social media, social networking hype really for my business? I thought Bebo and Facebook were for teens and young adults”. YES! If your business does not form some type of internet marketing strategy today then you will not be in business tomorrow. There will be one or two social media sites or social networking sites for business that will be beneficial in some way to growing your business.

2. Sign up and start using twitter right now! The best business social networking tool there’s been in the last 5 years! If you have not signed up on twitter, heard of twitter, or been active on twitter, then you are already behind. If you are a true business person, then you already know the importance of first mover advantage so we suggest you get on board. Just Google “twitter” and get going.

3. What Social Media / Social Networking sites will help a financial adviser business lay the proper foundation for their business to start gaining a better presence online?
a) Twitter
b) Linked-in
c) Facebook
d) Friend feed – a platform that allows you to tie in all your blogs, picture web sites, and YouTube information and share it with the world
e) Word Press or Blog Spot – for building your blog which you can link to your website

None of this need be complicated to set up. Get in touch with us at T4 Marketing. We’re specialists in 21st century outsourced marketing for financial adviser businesses and we can show you how.

Hhhmmm.... recession?

Change creates opportunities

A lot of businesses will tell you they are making big changes to get through this recession …cutting back, changing processes, off-loading stock… . But more than anything, whenever a business is facing big changes in their market – good or bad – it is time for lots of sales activity. Sales opportunities are always created as a result of change and the challenges that creates. Challenge and change are the greatest sales lead generators of all.

Here are 5 things you can do as a financial adviser business (for corporate and individual clients) to use hard times for business development:

1. Adapt your sales message to the recession
Most decision makers at your client companies still have important business objectives despite having to make big cuts and lose people.

Reassess your pitch or message. If it costs a company £2,000 to make a widget they have to find a way to do it for $1,500. Make sure you have adapted your story so your solutions help save money or make dramatic process improvements to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their operation.

Often these selling points are sitting in the middle or back end of your sales pitch and moving these key
selling points to your opening will increase your success rates. Topics you might include are:

• Tax efficiency

making the most of changes to tax and national insurance in the recent Chancellor’s Pre-budget report.

• Managing costs

potential strategies to drive unnecessary cost and risk out of the business through efficient employee benefits policies and HR practices.

• Total reward strategies

looking at a range of options for running effective reward and remuneration packages in a recession.

2. Look for obvious changes
Ever made a sale with a company that most people would stay away from? Consider a company on its last legs which is suddenly acquired by a larger firm because of falling business in their chosen market. The news of such a deal would probably be all over the media – local or national. The merged company could be a new entity with a new name and this “change” could create a sales opportunity.

In this scenario you get a clean slate and all the services it has to buy start from scratch. The opportunity could include setting a new pension scheme and putting employee benefits in place, dealing with the old pension assets, talking to the directors’ about share or partnership protection and dealing with the directors’ own pension, tax planning and investment needs.

Change creates need and it may be a great opportunity for you. Any previous financial advisers may no longer be on the scene or may not offer the right services to deal with all the needs of the restructured business.

3. Look For Companies Who Are downsizing
Staff reductions may mean a greater reliance on outsourcing services. Companies try to spread their workload across their remaining staff and often this just doesn’t work.

Serve up your services as a solution to get more done with less people. Emphasise your expertise in employee benefits. Show how you can add value to support the HR function and make it work better. Showcase strategies like absence management, salary sacrifice schemes on a flex menu programme and show how you can provide the tools to run these schemes as well as how they can make a difference to the bottom line. As a consultant show you understand HR and their issues. You can relieve the pressure on their small and over worked HR team.

4. Cross Sell & Up sell
Pitching cost reduction is only half the story in a down market.

Don’t forget your most lucrative markets are always existing clients. Now is the time to stay close to these people and turn customers into clients. If you sold them a pension can you look at their employee benefits package? What about looking at their directors’ own needs? They may have a SSAS which needs attention or there may be opportunities to explore SIPP investment and investment portfolio planning. There are a whole load of protected and low risk investment products on the market now that weren’t available a couple of years ago. What about looking at their investment wrappers – should they review anything, rebase bonds or consider whether the tax situation is better in a collective investment like an OEIC or unit trust rather than an insurance bond? Is it worth considering gross roll-up and offshore investment if they haven’t done it before?

Clients always need to review and a changing economy creates talking points. Since everything is changing you may have a one off open door to discuss something you hadn’t had the chance to advise on before.

Now may be a good time to serve up a new service to clients. A fresh pitch gets you in front
of your new and existing clients and that means you are creating sales opportunities.

5. Adjust Your Target Market:
Not all markets are sensitive to the economy in the same way.

The housing market, for example, experiences the economic cycle sooner than other markets. Economists call these “leading indicators” because they are an economic cycle ahead of the average. There are lagging industries as well. The point is, not everyone is experiencing the same economy at the same time. Determine who is doing well and match your service to their needs.

• DB schemes continue to be in decline – plenty of advice is needed there as companies move from trust based to contract schemes or deal to manage costs and financial risk with their legacy pensions.

• Baby boomers continue to retire, all needing to dis-invest a lifetime’s saving and re-invest for retirement. Plenty of advice is needed there.

• Investment for protection. High net worth and affluent individuals need to reassess their investments for the new economic realities. Plenty of business is to be done reviewing and re-basing investments for tax mitigation and to maximise investments in today’s economy.

• Employee benefits – businesses need to look at cost reduction and maximising efficiency. They need holistic advice on a package of strategies that will help them do this and make their reward and remuneration approach work well going forward. There is plenty of advice to give, and, believe it or not new services to sell.

• 2012 – help businesses get their pension houses in order ahead of 2012 and the introduction of Personal Accounts.

The goal is to target markets that are weathering the economic slow down better than others.

Over the past 50 years, the average recession has lasted 11 months – shorter than people often expect. Who knows what will happen this time but we have faced recession and severe recession before. They all end and if you keep this in mind it makes the storm easier to weather. Certainly there are economic realities to face, but smart sales professionals will adjust their strategies and keep their sales pipelines healthy.

If you want help to target some of these markets T4 can support financial advisers with

A recession often makes outsourcing services worth its weight in gold. Why not outsource some marketing services to target opportunities and keep YOUR sales pipeline healthy.