The Professional′s Guide to Financial Services Marketing

Preface.
<p>Foreward.</p>
<p>Introduction.</p>
<p>The Professional′s Guide to Financial Services Marketing offers a different perspective on some basic marketing approaches and explores marketing concepts that are often overlooked by financial services practitioners.</p>
<p>Section I. Creating An Extraordinarily Effective Marketing Organization.</p>
<p>1. Getting Started.</p>
<p>Marketing is integral to almost every activity that takes place both before and after the sale is made. Therefore, it is important to recognize the differences between sales &amp; marketing, as well as those between marketing strategy and marketing tactics.</p>
<p>2. A Marketing Pop Quiz</p>
<p>To keep pace in today′s highly competitive financial services environment, firms must abandon the status quo and transform their organizations.</p>
<p>3. A Marketing Compass.</p>
<p>The most successful financial firms will be those who become early adopters of sophisticated marketing approaches.</p>
<p>4. Seeking the Outstanding Marketing Director.</p>
<p>As a voice of opportunity and the champion of the unconventional, the Marketing Director′s position has grown in corporate importance and stature.</p>
<p>SectionII. Strategic Planning.</p>
<p>5. Strategic Strategy.</p>
<p>Properly conceived and executed, marketing strategy can provide the framework that can help an organization focus its organizational capabilities, talent and energy on those initiatives that will create competitive advantage.</p>
<p>6. The Starting Point.</p>
<p>A clear business definition facilitates the planning process by guiding corporate decisions concerning target markets, product offerings and appropriate marketing activities.</p>
<p>7. You Can Plan on It.</p>
<p>The marketing planning process provides an organization with the opportunity to set goals and plot a course that will help it achieve a differentiated market leadership position.</p>
<p>8. The Best Laid Plans.</p>
<p>A well–crafted marketing plan can serve as a roadmap for management′s efforts to favorably position the organization and its product/service offerings.</p>
<p>9. A Mission Possible.</p>
<p>"What businesses are we in?" How management answers this question can have a significant impact on the company′s ultimate success.</p>
<p>10. What′s The Big Idea.</p>
<p>Every now and then a major marketing idea comes along that revolutionizes the way that marketers approach their craft. The most influential have a significant impact that lasts for decades.</p>
<p>11. New and Improved.</p>
<p>Success, in the form of rapid growth and high margins, comes most often to those organizations that understand the value of innovation and look beyond current competitive practices.</p>
<p>12. In the Beginning.</p>
<p>A knowledge and understanding of common product launch pitfalls can help marketers prevent financial product and service failures.</p>
<p>13. I Have An Idea.</p>
<p>Financial services organizations are increasingly dependent on creative marketing ideas to achieve visibility and competitive differentiation in a cluttered marketplace.</p>
<p>14. Become A Marketing Hero.</p>
<p>It′s not difficult to be a marketing hero when offerings are well received in the marketplace. The real challenge for most marketers is to find a way to save the day when there is a difficult sales situation.</p>
<p>Section III. Tactical Implementation.</p>
<p>15. Brand Aid.</p>
<p>A strong brand communicates a corporate value proposition that helps a company create relevant marketplace differentiation and competitive advantage. It can also help to significantly accelerate the sales process.</p>
<p>16. Branding: Step One.</p>
<p>Naming is the important first step in the branding process. The right name can play an important role in creating a strong emotional connection with the target market.</p>
<p>17. Write Right.</p>
<p>Hard working copy should get attention, relate to the target market, intrigue the reader, focus on the product or services′ superiority, create a desire and provide a call to action.</p>
<p>18. The Color of Marketing.</p>
<p>Astute marketers understand that color can play an extremely important role in helping a company both express its positioning and corporate purpose, and influence market perceptions and attitudes.</p>
<p>19. Did You Get My Message?</p>
<p>Shaping marketplace perceptions through effective messaging can provide differentiation to largely undifferentiated products.</p>
<p>20. Big Bucks.</p>
<p>The HNW market holds untapped opportunities for those financial services marketers who are ready to abandon long–held misconceptions about the affluent and focus resources on under–prospected niche segments.</p>
<p>21. Unite and Conquer: Strength in Collaboration.</p>
<p>Since traditional organizational structures often lack the resources to support expanded business models, companies must devise creative new solutions.</p>
<p>22. A Tale of Two Categories.</p>
<p>The Pareto Principle stands as a continual reminder to focus eighty percent of your efforts on the twenty percent of issues that will achieve eighty percent of your results.</p>
<p>23. How Do You Measure Up?</p>
<p>Effective marketing measurement like marketing itself is an ongoing process that is both an art and a science. This area is in its formative stages, but promises to be a significant future trend.</p>
<p>Section IV. Promotion.</p>
<p>24. The Secret of Successful Advertising.</p>
<p>While most advertising messages get lost in the clutter and fail to accomplish their objectives, astute marketers know the secrets to creating advertising that attracts attention and gets results.</p>
<p>25. Us vs. Them.</p>
<p>In the proper situation, targeted comparative advertising can provide a powerful centerpiece for a financial services organization s marketing campaign.</p>
<p>26. Speak Up.</p>
<p>Creatively conceived and effectively executed, campaigns utilizing a corporate spokesperson can take an organization one step further in its quest to effectively deliver its marketing messages.</p>
<p>27. Let Your Fingers Do the Walking.</p>
<p>Even in this age of information and advanced communications, the Yellow Pages continue to be an important initial touch point for marketing financial products and services.</p>
<p>28. What It Takes to be Well Connected.</p>
<p>Creative use of new IVR technology has the potential to significantly and cost–effectively improve communications in brokerage, insurance, mutual fund and banking arenas.</p>
<p>29. Start Spreading the News.</p>
<p>A well planned and effectively orchestrated Public Relations program can help establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between a financial services organization and its constituencies.</p>
<p>30. Best In Show.</p>
<p>Trade shows can be a meaningful part of a company′s marketing efforts or a significant waste of time and money the difference lies in careful planning and judicious resource management.</p>
<p>31. Just Cause.</p>
<p>Cause Marketing offers an excellent opportunity to generate awareness and goodwill while enhancing corporate image and promoting a sense of corporate integrity.</p>
<p>32. Go Ahead, Judge That Book By Its Cover.</p>
<p>Naming a new venture, product or service can be one of an organization′s most important marketing decisions.</p>
<p>Section V. Effective Sales Support.</p>
<p>33. Experience Counts.</p>
<p>By creating a customized interactive marketing program that is meaningful to prospects and customers, a firm can create relevant differentiation and strong competitive advantage.</p>
<p>34. Going Up.</p>
<p>With a little planning and creative marketing, you can prepare your entire organization to effectively represent your organization and provide unconventional sales support.</p>
<p>35. Mobilizing an Effective Sales Force.</p>
<p>A well structured referral program can help an organization cut through marketplace clutter and accelerate prospects′ decision–making.</p>
<p>Section VI. Supporting Strategic Decision Making.</p>
<p>36. Slice and Dice.</p>
<p>An effective market segmentation strategy can also significantly help increase sales and improve overall market performance.</p>
<p>37. Turning Marketing Information into Marketing Insights.</p>
<p>Focused market intelligence can help marketers deliver the right products and services to the right target markets using the right messaging.</p>
<p>38. I Know Where You′re Coming From.</p>
<p>Influences that occur in individuals′ formative years establish a common generational value system that can be more meaningful than mere demographics.</p>
<p>39. Getting the Right Marketing Answers.</p>
<p>The right research approaches enable you to get meaningful answers to marketing research inquiries by working smarter rather than harder.</p>
<p>40. Giving Them What They Want.</p>
<p>Organizations need to make effective use of market research applications in order to become attuned to needs of the marketplace.</p>
<p>41. Some Trendy Thoughts.</p>
<p>Effective planning enables an organization to anticipate trends and make decisions based on an understanding of future circumstances, rather than those of the past or present.</p>
<p>42. Check It Out.</p>
<p>An effective benchmarking program can make valuable contributions and trigger ongoing improvements throughout an organization.</p>
<p>43. Know Thy Neighbor.</p>
<p>Financial services organizations that are tuned in to the competition can avoid unpleasant surprises.</p>
<p>44. Focus Groups: Is There a Financial Fit?</p>
<p>While focus groups are quite applicable in the retail sector, financial marketers need a more sensitive, personalized approach.</p>
<p>Section VII. Promotion In The Internet Age.</p>
<p>45. A Brave New World.</p>
<p>The internet has drastically changed the face of financial services marketing, introducing new communications opportunities and challenges alike.</p>
<p>46. Searching for the Answer? Maybe the Answer Is Search.</p>
<p>Any financial services organization that wants to drive traffic to its web site must ensure that it appears in the first few pages of search results.</p>
<p>47. Cashing in on Clicks.</p>
<p>Paid search can revolutionize your marketing effort, but careful program design and planning are prerequisites for search engine success.</p>
<p>48. The Domain Name Game.</p>
<p>A domain name that reflects a company′s brand attributes and value propositions is an important corporate asset that should be carefully chosen and protected.</p>
<p>49. Plug into Directed Marketing.</p>
<p>Directed Marketing combines tried and true direct mail principals with new techniques that enable marketers to interrelate with an electronically connected world.</p>
<p>Section VIII. Strategies For Long–Term Success.</p>
<p>50. Follow Me.</p>
<p>In the commoditized financial services business, a company′s future can depend on management′s willingness to invest resources to conceive and implement an effective strategy to achieve market leadership.</p>
<p>51. Good Better Best.</p>
<p>A program structured to share corporate knowledge can be one of the fastest and most effective ways to achieve organizational improvements.</p>
<p>52. Be Prepared.</p>
<p>It is critical that every financial services organization be constantly prepared to respond to a crisis in a way that will preserve credibility.</p>
<p>53. An Older Subject.</p>
<p>To achieve success in the senior marketplace an organization must be willing to make seniors a meaningful part of the its focus.</p>
<p>54. Bringing Order to the Meeting.</p>
<p>An organization should encourage key inter–functional representatives to work as an effective team in order to foster productive communications and solid decision–making.</p>
<p>55. And They Lived Happily Ever After.</p>
<p>Effective post–merger integration focuses on ensuring that newly formed companies are not only bigger, but better, than before.</p>
<p>56. Putting Humpty Together Again</p>
<p>Companies that respond appropriately to challenges will survive. Companies that anticipate change and develop appropriate strategies to manage will thrive.</p>
<p>57. Counting Dollars and Making Dollars Count.</p>
<p>Focused research and well–crafted marketed marketing messages enable a company to communicate value propositions commensurate with their pricing.</p>
<p>Afterword.</p>
<p>Some Parting Words.</p>
<p>About the Author.</p>