What do you do when the flow of new clients dries up?

With fewer face to face meetings happening these days, the challenge of attracting new clients has been raised with me a number of times by advisers.

Most advisers have adjusted quickly to servicing existing clients, however attracting new clients has been more challenging in this virtual world. The issue has been particularly challenging for advisers whose main source of new clients traditionally has been by referral, particularly where the adviser had an effective way of asking for referrals. Because client conversations are not quite as smooth when using MS Teams or Zoom etc, advisers are finding it more difficult to have effective referral conversations.

My advice? While referrals were and will always be a rich source of new clients, they can’t be your only approach. It’s time to go back to the first principles of marketing and to consider in particular the concepts of Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning (STP).

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Some definitions

So we’ll start with a 30-second marketing lesson. Here is a definition of each, as set out by Philip Kotler, the grandfather of marketing education.?

• Market Segmentation: Dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers with different needs, characteristics or behaviour, who might require separate products or marketing mixes.
• Market Targeting: The process of evaluating each market segment’s attractiveness and selecting one or more segments to enter.
• Market Positioning: Arranging for a product (or service) to occupy a clear, distinctive and desirable place relative to competing products (or services) in the minds of target consumers.

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What’s happening in the financial adviser market in Ireland?

Many financial advisers realise that a “one size fits all” proposition just doesn’t cut it any more. Either for the client who is looking for more than a generic service, or for the adviser who cannot profitably or successfully deliver the same service to all clients irrespective of their value, characteristics, needs etc.

As a result, many advisers are undertaking segmentation exercises by analysing both potential customers and their existing client bases. The goal is to identify all of the different groups of customers, possibly by sector, by business potential metrics, or by demographic factors.

Once the segmentation exercise is completed, the next task is to identify the segment(s) that you are going to target. These may for example be SME business owners within your county and surrounding counties, or corporate executives aged over 50. It’s quite possible that you will also decide to target another group such as newlyweds – they might offer lower value today, but offer growth potential in the future. You will decide your target groups based on your access to those people, the segment potential, your areas of expertise and specialism, the capability of your advisers etc.

Most advisers are relatively comfortable with these first two steps, it’s the third step of positioning that challenges people more. This is where you aim your proposition, your services and your communications at the groups you have identified to target. The reason people are uncomfortable with this is because through targeting specific groups, there is a risk of not appealing to others outside of your target groups – of leaving people out.

Of course the alternative is to try and talk to everybody, but the significant risk with this is that you end up appealing to no-one.

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Why STP is so important for financial advisers today

It’s this final step of having the courage to position yourself within a specific target market (or even a niche) that is a step too far for many advisers. They struggle with the idea that while attracting new clients might be quite tough today, that it might actually be easier if you narrow your focus! How does this make sense?

If you offer a generic service to clients, they will recognise this. They won’t feel any particular connection with what you do, as it is not targeted at them. Instead if you have a clear target market and all of your communications are aimed with that group specifically in mind, the customers within that group will connect with your messages and are more likely to view you as a specialist who is out to serve their specific needs.

There are lots of very good financial advisers operating in the Irish market. At the end of the day, how are you going to stand apart from the crowd if you offer a very generic service? Instead the answer may lie in identifying your ideal clients, and then developing your proposition and communication approaches to target them in a very structured way.

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