Your Home Is Now Protected

Communication is your best offense for client retention.

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Issue 19 | September 29, 2017 | Your Home Is Now Protected

Every two weeks, I come home to a little flier on the front doorknob of my D.C. rowhouse: “Your Home Is Now Protected.” That’s how I know a workman came by to spray some magical potion meant to keep mosquitos at bay. Even if I didn’t see him, I am reminded that he exists, he didn’t forget about me, and my mosquito problem is his mosquito problem.

I’m not actually sure if the potion does anything to the mosquito population of my tiny yard. But I know for sure that this company does what I paid them to do – show up every two weeks and spray. They’ve done an excellent job of reminding me of their value, vastly increasing the chance they’ll retain me as a client in future years.

Show Your Value
Client retention is a top goal for financial marketing teams. But they face an acute problem of invisibility – the nature of investing is such that, a lot of the time, the best action to take for a client is to do nothing at all…virtually guaranteeing that you’re not on the clients’ radar.

Perhaps that explains why it’s hard for financial clients to sense the value they are gaining, and why it’s so easy for them to jump ship. In a client project this month, I came across the point that only 31% of employers believe their retirement plan advisor is very good at proving their value to their employees’ plan. That means 69% of employers have no idea if retaining their plan advisor did anything for them. It sounds to me like no one is leaving a flier on the door to highlight the services being provided.

Content marketing is one the most effective tools to communicate to clients that you are worth the money – there’s someone who is on duty monitoring and evaluating things, who hasn’t forgotten them, and who shares responsibility for their goals and problems.

Insight, Action, Reassurance
Is your content getting the job done? You can’t hit clients over the head with a direct notice of services provided. But, you can highlight the value you are adding by ensuring that every piece of content hits on three pillars: insight, action, and reassurance.

Insight. Your central braintrust pieces – market views, thematic discussions, roundtables, outlooks – show clients that you’re on duty monitoring the daily issues.

Go the extra mile: Most firms are publishing insight materials. But few zero in on the gap between market consensus and how they differ. Consider how you can work that into content regularly.

Action. There may be very little action to highlight – but you can put emphasis on when and why you actively choose to stay put.

How to lead your peers: Demonstrate action in every piece, either by calling out investment positioning changes, or even by referring to your active information-gathering process. Encourage bylined authors to talk about what they’ve read, who they’ve met, how they came around to their viewpoint.

Reassurance. Between the last two market crashes and the modern-day constant media environment, it’s no surprise that anxiety in all forms is on the rise – including anxiety about finances. Make sure your materials offer reassurance.

Beat the phone call: Don’t wait for clients to bring their worries to you. Aim to use reassuring language, even if presenting a problematic issue.

[Sidenote: year-end is coming up. Are you proactively messaging your department’s value to higher-ups with these tools? They need to know your value, too!]

Looking for a freelance financial writer to power up the client retention value of your content? Reach out and let’s talk about your project needs.