Participants:
Steve Wershing
Julie Littlechild
Steve Wershing:
Welcome to Becoming Referable. The podcast that shows you how to become the kind of advisor people can’t stop talking about. I’m Steve Wershing, you’re exposed to lots of marketing ideas and if you’re like most advisors, you commit to implementing some number of them each year, but one of the most common mistakes advisors make is that the marketing activities don’t comprise an annual plan, but are more of a collection of one off events; an email blast, an article, a blog post, a client event. They communicate different messages. They’re more like individual standalone projects, and that misses an enormous opportunity. In this episode Julie and I discuss the benefits of coordinating your marketing into campaigns. Organizing activities around a theme reinforces the message and creates multiple impressions that can systematically raise interest in a group of clients, or prospects. And a specific idea that ultimately inspires them to take action.
Steve Wershing:
We discuss how organizing your marketing and communication efforts into just a few campaigns per year can produce a lot more results from the same number of marketing activities, because of the cumulative effect of reinforcing and building on a message. It’s a valuable conversation about how to get a lot more return on the same marketing investment. So here’s my conversation with Julie about organizing your marketing activity into campaigns.
Julie Littlechild:
So Steve, one of the things that we’ve been talking about lately is how we can take concepts that feel really big for advisors and try to make them simpler.
Steve Wershing:
Okay.
Julie Littlechild:
Because there’s so many good ideas out there that can be overwhelming, and one of those I think is really mapping out the communications plan in a way that isn’t just engaging for clients, but also helps to attract… add value for centers of influence, or attract new business. One of the things that I’ve observed that really got me thinking about this is that we hear so many different ideas, right? Here’s a great-
Steve Wershing:
Sure.
Julie Littlechild:
Agent’s idea. Do this webinar, send this, do that and you can feel… first of all, overwhelmed, but you can also feel like you’re just throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks-
Steve Wershing:
Yeah.
Julie Littlechild:
Without ever really giving it the time to work.
Steve Wershing:
Okay.
Julie Littlechild:
So one of the things that we’ve been recommending to a few advisors that I’ve talked to lately, who’ve really been experiencing this is rather than thinking about tactics that I can put in place, think more about a few key themes that you’ll focus on over the course of the year, and then integrate the tactics so it’s more of a longer term, in depth message that you’re delivering. I mean, I think… I can give you a couple examples, but would you agree that you-
Steve Wershing:
Yeah.
Julie Littlechild:
See this with a lot of advisors?
Steve Wershing:
Oh sure, and I think one of the challenges in terms of broadcasting messages, and as a way on enhancing your public presence, I think one of the challenges is that I see a lot of advisors will just… they’ll just send all kinds of ideas out there that don’t really have relationship to each other, or any organizations. So oh, this one’s about cash management and this one’s about investments and this one’s about tax strategy. One of the challenges there is that people can’t get to know you for anything. So I think organizing it like you’re suggesting makes an awful lot of sense. Tell me how you would approach that.
Julie Littlechild:
Sure. So I’ll give you a real life example. There’s a lot of different ways to do this, but I think about this as thinking in terms of campaigns instead of tactics.
Steve Wershing:
Okay.
Julie Littlechild:
So for this particular advisor that I’m thinking about, deals with a lot of high net worth clients, which we both know is not a niche. It’s an amount of money.
Steve Wershing:
Right.
Julie Littlechild:
But did. But as a result, we talked about the needs of those clients, there were a few things that came up. One was around philanthropic giving. A lot of them were having conversations about legacy, and so that was a big part of what he wanted to help them think about. There were also a lot of conversations in his case, about family owned businesses. Just happened to be part of who he dealt with. So rather than too many things, we said, “Okay, let’s define what a campaign looks like and do it twice-”
Steve Wershing:
Okay.
Julie Littlechild:
“Over the next year with different topics.” So philanthropic giving, it really looked like this. We sat down for about an hour, Googled the topic, and identified three articles that were credible, that were focused on that theme and would really resonate with his clients. That was step one.
Steve Wershing:
Okay.
Julie Littlechild:
Step two, take one of those articles, email it out to clients, summarize the key points. Found this article, thought you’d find it of interest. Here’s what I learned from it, and then provide a link to that article. At the bottom, always love the idea of making it shareable. So making it easily shareable with anyone else. So that went out.
Steve Wershing:
Okay.
Julie Littlechild:
Two weeks later, another article on the same topic goes out. I’ve been continuing to look at this issue, I know you find this of particular interest, thought you’d find this article of interest. Now, rather than just sending the article to the client’s, we were thinking about all of the different ways that that could be leveraged. So the same article went on social media-
Steve Wershing:
Okay.
Julie Littlechild:
And the same article went out to centers of influence and to prospects where this would be relevant.
Steve Wershing:
Okay.
Julie Littlechild:
Not to every prospect, but where it was relevant. So a single article was getting leveraged in a lot of different ways.
Steve Wershing:
Now when you say article-
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah.
Steve Wershing:
When they were posting it to social media, tell me a little bit more about how they did that.
Julie Littlechild:
So in this case, it was just a simple link. So really, they were curating content-
Steve Wershing:
Okay.
Julie Littlechild:
At this phase of the campaign.
Steve Wershing:
Okay great.
Julie Littlechild:
Identifying three great articles, just went out, just as we might say, “Say a great article in the New York Times,” or what have you now. There’s firewall issues we need to think about by the way, if we want to get into their real tactics. There are organizations like Advisor Stream who have found great ways to get past that, but really, that’s all it was. Just sending out articles on the same topic, so it was reinforcing what you were seeing on social-
Steve Wershing:
Right.
Julie Littlechild:
Was the same thing that you were seeing in your inbox.
Steve Wershing:
And I like that. I like.. there are two things that you’re saying that I really like. One is that utilizing it multiple ways and coming up with multiple ideas so that you can stretch the idea a bit, and I also love the idea of curating content. So that you can broadcast messages of value, and you’re not necessarily responsible for having to dream all of it up yourself.
Julie Littlechild:
That’s exactly right, and this is… when you start thinking in terms of campaigns, I’m also interested at how client communications and new business development start to become one in the same. You’re just leveraging it different ways.
Steve Wershing:
Right. Right.
Julie Littlechild:
So what he had done is he found these three articles. So the first two went out in that way being leveraged, the third one again, went out about a month later, continuing to add some value. The only difference with the third article is he just included a PS on the email that said, “I’m going to be inviting someone into the office to do a small round table conversation on…” it was a particular charitable organization is what they had invited. So it was just a way of talking about legacy and highlighting some need. I’ll be sending you an invitation shortly. Next communication was an invitation to the round table. We got this individual coming out. Again, went to centers of influence, went to prospects. You’re welcome to invite anyone who is really thinking about legacy in this time in their lives, which of course, most of their friends were.
Julie Littlechild:
Then the event was held. It was small. It was just again, boardroom style workshop, but… and we’ve talked about this idea of leverage. Leveraged everything, so they asked if they could videotape it. The speaker said yes. So they videotaped it. They took some clips of the video that they could then post online. They had someone in the office just listen in and write down the three or four, maybe could have been five key points, and they used that as another takeaway. So they’ve got all these little pieces of information. They sent a follow up at that point to clients, so if you couldn’t come. Here’s what we learned. Here’s maybe a clip of what you missed on that day, but still continually reinforcing and continually looking at ways to leverage to drive growth at the same time as engaging clients.
Julie Littlechild:
Then of course, the last step was pretty obvious, they had some new relationships to follow up with at that point.
Steve Wershing:
Sure.
Julie Littlechild:
So there’s center of influence and it was just inviting them in for a conversation. So this whole campaign was about eight weeks in total, and the thinking is if you can define what a campaign looks like. Now, I talked about articles and in live session. That could have been sending links to TED talks. It could have been a workshop. It could have been no live part of it, just a webinar. It’s just picking the tactics that makes sense for you, but you start to create some efficiency, because a campaign is clear.
Steve Wershing:
Right.
Julie Littlechild:
Now, in that second half of the year, they could replicate that entire campaign, but in that case, they were focused on transitioning family owned businesses. Looked up three articles, sent it-
Steve Wershing:
Yeah.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah.
Julie Littlechild:
On and on it went. That felt to me like a more efficient and better use of time.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah, well you know, there’s a whole lot that I really like about that, that idea. First is that we’ve spoken before about the challenge of coming up with message after message-
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah.
Steve Wershing:
To keep your name in front of people, and this way, you can come up with one idea-
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah.
Steve Wershing:
But address it a lot of different ways. I’ve seen advisors who they’ll write into article, or they’ll go in for an interview some place, and they want to cover every point.
Julie Littlechild:
Yep.
Steve Wershing:
So it’s jus packed with information, and that… there are two problems with that obviously. One is that you give so much that nobody can remember all of it afterwards. It’s too much and you don’t have the opportunity to go into any of them-
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah.
Steve Wershing:
Deep enough, deeply enough to really explore that and help people understand how it may have relevance to them, but the other thing is it’s wasteful, because if you have eight talking points in an interview, well that could actually be eight different things. So there’s a big opportunity that you’re missing in there. And I also really like how the way that you set that up, leverages all kinds of different media, and a number of different kinds of marketing opportunities by leveraging that same idea.
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah, and you say this, right? You get known for something.
Steve Wershing:
Right. Right.
Julie Littlechild:
So I do think that helps. Now, I think that’s also the concern that many advisors have with this kind of approach, because the natural objection is but I do so many different things, and I can help in so many different ways, and I can’t possibly not explain all of those things. I get that. I think it’s natural, but I just think that if you can truly go deep on a few key things, it’s much better than just going lightly at everything that you can think about.
Steve Wershing:
Right. I agree. It’s that ability to go deep that really proves your expertise, you know? Experts are not people who know all kinds of things about all kinds of things, experts are people who know everything about a specific kind of thing.
Julie Littlechild:
Right, and so I think this is part of… I was going to say this is part of a trend, but really, what I think it is I think it’s part of a trend I hope we see.
Steve Wershing:
Okay.
Julie Littlechild:
Which is thinking about client communications and marketing, or new business development as largely a single activity, maybe not completely, but largely looking for ways to leverage what you’re doing with clients to drive growth. I do think that if we start thinking along these lines, it’s pushing advisors or maybe someone on their team to start thinking more about some of the tools that we might need to understand. So just getting Martech is a big deal right now, so understanding more about do you have an email distribution system to track what you’re sending out to clients. Understand who’s read it, and understanding what’s really resonating. Do you have a way to easily video tape things and edit, you know? I think it can make your head spin around-
Steve Wershing:
Sure.
Julie Littlechild:
But you don’t need to understand all of those things right away, but I think this is going to be one of the differentiators for some firms going forward.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah, and so where would… if you were going to recommend an advisor, pursue this, how would you recommend that they get started on this kind of thing?
Julie Littlechild:
Well I mean, you could… you can start simple both in terms of picking a them, you know? So pick one theme, just think about something that’s important. And then identify the specific tactics that you think would make sense for you. So if I were starting simply, I would focus on curated content like you say, why not? So find some articles and send those out, and then maybe do a webinar, instead of a live presentation. I mean, pick things with… or the path of least resistance, but you’re still generating some significant value. But then as I got used to that, I would begin to think about some of the tools to make that a little more effective.
Julie Littlechild:
So I would be looking at having either the function of my current email distribution system, which may have a lot of this built in, but just understanding what’s going out. Can you track opens? Can you really understand what’s resonating with clients? I think we’ve got to look to technology to do this.
Steve Wershing:
Well I know you’ve also read a lot of Jeff Walker’s work with product launch strategy and things, and you’re reminding of how he goes about developing a webinar that people will come to. Can you tell us a little bit about that approach? If you remember about how to develop a topic by soliciting feedback from people?
Julie Littlechild:
I mean, there was… I’m remembering a couple of different things in terms of what he said, so you may have a different recollection of this. But there was simply the method of talking to clients and asking them what are the three big things on their mind, and then using that as the basis. So you ask people what their biggest challenges are. You turn those results into a simple webinar that you deliver that answers the question. You use that webinar as the basis to ask additional questions, learn more and that becomes the second webinar.
Julie Littlechild:
So yeah, there are a number of different people out there who have some pretty tried and true methods of building campaigns, which I think are interesting. But when you think about it, the basics are pretty simple, right?
Steve Wershing:
Yeah right, exactly.
Julie Littlechild:
That’s what people care about and then don’t try to do something huge, just jump online, invite a few people, share the link and before you know it, you got 10, 15 and then it grows from there.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah.
Julie Littlechild:
That’s all you need to start.
Steve Wershing:
Exactly, and I like the idea that you bring up about having a theme behind it. About their exploring themes from a couple different angles. It reminded me of somebody else that you and I have bumped into, that’s Tamsen Webster, who is a speaking coach that we’ve both had contact with and she has… her concept is the red thread. So when she talks about giving your presentation and things, there’s always that one storyline that runs through everything. That ties it all together that you come back, and if you can organize the campaigns, or organize campaigns around whatever that single concept or single stream of concept is for you.
Steve Wershing:
Then again, it’s a way to become known for something. It’s a way to be associated with a particular kind of client, or particular problem that you can solve and clarify in people’s minds, or remind them when they should be referring you or mentioning to you, or mentioning you to people, or calling you if they come across that problem themselves.
Julie Littlechild:
It’s right, we need to make it easier for clients I think-
Steve Wershing:
Right.
Julie Littlechild:
I think that is what the red thread does. We can put a link to Tamsen’s work. She does some great stuff. If you’re looking at developing content, or presentations in particular, she’s the content person. She doesn’t do the presentation coaching, so much as the content-
Steve Wershing:
Oh okay.
Julie Littlechild:
And you’re right, it’s that theme that runs throughout everything that you do. So if I find you online, it should feel consistent with what I see on your website. If it’d different, it creates this… it’s incongruous and that is confusing to people. So the more that we can make it easy to refer, and the more that you can become known for a couple of different things doesn’t mean you don’t do other kinds of work. We’re really talking about marketing, but I would also say that this is… I think this is more valuable for your clients, because we’re dealing with topics that are big often. So if it’s philanthropic giving, or defining your legacy, or transition family based businesses, this doesn’t happen in an article. I haven’t figured it out-
Steve Wershing:
Right.
Julie Littlechild:
Because you sent me something from HBR, but if over a period of time, you’ve actually pulled me through and helped me understand, that’s different. That’s value and that’s what I’ll talk to friends and family about.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah, and also, I think it can clarify who you are if it projects… if you have a particular way of looking at the world, or if you have a particular system that you’ve developed for clients to help them make decisions, or to organize their finances that projecting that and reinforcing that. If people come to understand how you approach problems, or that disciplined way of approaching things, all these things can reinforce that. That’s another way of helping remind people of having you come to mind when people say, “Well maybe we should call Julie about this, because I know that she has this way of approaching that.”
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah.
Steve Wershing:
And that would be… maybe this is a good time to ask her about this.
Julie Littlechild:
Yeah, and that doesn’t happen if you’ve just mentioned it once-
Steve Wershing:
Right.
Julie Littlechild:
Or sent me an article. It’s… I think we hope our clients understand what we stand for, but I think we need to be more intentional about this.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah.
Julie Littlechild:
But… and so as much as this is about delivering value, I think it’s about efficiencies where we started. This is about taking big concepts and saying, “Okay, how can we break this down and just make it easier?”
Steve Wershing:
Right.
Julie Littlechild:
How can I dip my toe in the water? Well looking out over the next 12 months and saying, “I’m going to do two clear campaigns, each is eight weeks. One’s in the first half, one’s in the second half.” If that’s all you did frankly, you’d have done a lot and probably a lot more than many advisors.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s great. I think that’s a great way to approach it.
Julie Littlechild:
Excellent, so if you were talking to a client about this, and we’ve talked about content generally and I think some of the next steps for leveraging content generally apply in this case. So it’s a bit of an overarching theme in some of the conversations that you and I are having these days, but I’m thinking that just figuring out what that theme is, is probably the first step and then not making it too grand. Just mapping out… I have a visual that I can post just in the show notes as well that just shows the flow of a campaign. So that might be the kind of thing where you could start-
Steve Wershing:
Yeah.
Julie Littlechild:
And try to fill in the blanks.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah, that would be great. That would be great, and I think if you’re going to sit down to think about what kinds of things you can send out, to think about your communication strategy or those things, I think it makes a lot… I think it’s a lot more productive to think about major themes, as opposed to individual tactical messages, because every time you send one of those out, you’ve got to come up with a new one tomorrow. If you think about a theme, which I don’t think is any harder than coming up with a particular tactic.
Julie Littlechild:
Right.
Steve Wershing:
Then it gives you an opportunity to… like you’re saying, organize a whole campaign around it. So you have multiple messages, multiple media and so you can get way more mileage out of it. You come up with… as you said, two good ideas and you can… you can do that… that can be your whole year.
Julie Littlechild:
It could be. Yeah, and then maybe you go quarterly after that, but look, I think we need to give ourselves a break with some of this stuff. There’s so much coming at advisors. There’s so much we can do, so let’s just… I like where you and I have been chatting lately about how do we just break this down and try to make it a little simpler? So in this case, it’s the campaign.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah, that’s great. That’s a brilliant idea. Well thank you for that Julie, that’s an excellent idea. I think it fits in with a lot of other stuff that we’ve been talking about and always a pleasure to talk with you, and I’m hoping to explore more of these with you very soon.
Julie Littlechild:
Absolutely. Take care.
Steve Wershing:
You too, bye-bye.
Julie Littlechild:
Hi, it’s Julie again. It was great to have you with us on Becoming Referable. If you like what you’ve been hearing, please do us a favor and rate us on iTunes, it really does help. You can get all the links, show notes, and other tidbits from these episodes at becomingreferable.com. You can also get our free report, three referral myths that limit your growth and connect with our blogs and other resources. Thanks so much for joining us.