Weddings, Funerals and Life Event Marketing
On January 7, 2015 I published a post titled "Ruining Life Event Marketing in FinServ." I expressed a concern that regulators would eventually apply restrictions to social selling as they have for cold calling and email.
I did not offer a specific suggestion for follow up. If compliance professionals sound warnings, we should offer alternatives. Now that I have had some time to consider the problem, I would like to offer a few thoughts for your consideration.
Too often we treat social media as a marketing platform. While there is a place for social marketing done right, the primary use of social and business networking platforms like LinkedIn is to maintain relationships. Unfortunately we treat people on these platforms like distant family - we only bother making contact at weddings and funerals - or other life events. When people matter, actually matter, we work to maintain real relationships.
The alternative to wealth / life event marketing is simple.
- Build the relationship, know your customer and actually care about your customers as people. If you have to put a name on the process, call it stage of life marketing.
- Change your message based on your awareness of the customer's needs at each stage of life and provide appropriate information well ahead of life events. As we age, our interests and needs change.
If I have a relationship with my customers, I will understand how and when those changes are occurring. I do not need to tie my messages to customers to life events. I will anticipate needs - perhaps by years. It's the difference between building relationships and opportunism.
I keep seeing the same lesson play out - that building strong relationships almost automatically provides a firm basis for both good marketing and good compliance practices. When the financial services industry is at our best, we develop long term relationships and help families prepare for both the expected and the untimely. When we are at our networking worst, we show up to weddings and funerals with marketing material.
Then we agree. I do think however that social data will be integrated into the broader digital transformation. The concern I do have for advisers is the ability to adapt to a changing "buying" process. People want to speak to a person, all the evidence backs that up, but at what stage of the process? One challenge is to maintain a relationship, but the other is establishing one.in the first place. How does a millennial buy? At what stage are they ready to reach out to a person? How many advisers have been eliminated already? What can an adviser do to gain initial consideration?
Strategy, Marketing, & Technology
9 年Great points, Stephen. Virtual relationships have to be nurtured with the same consideration we used before social media emerged.
I agree to an extent but most customers see no need of a relationship (on social media) with a brand and that is not just for financial services. Social is fast becoming a marketing option and much of the strategy is managed by marketers. That is not to say social is dead, far from it but it dying from a brand interaction perspective. It is a good ad tool, but that's not social it is advertising. People connect with people on social but they pay attention to ads, its what we do. Where I do agree is that individual advisers can develop long term personal relationships but I see the trend towards life event sales as a horrible development. Life events can work as advertising options (Amazon does this all the time) but an adviser that connects only at the time of a birth or death deserves nothing.