Money Saving Ideas - Keys To Successful Marketing : I know times are tight for everyone right now, but don't let that cause you to make some big mistakes with your marketing. It seems that everyone is looking for ways to save money and some of those savings will be a good thing while others will kill your ROI. Five Money Saving Ideas That Will Cost You in the Long Run
1. Stop your marketing expense and just wait for things to change.
Sure this approach will reduce your outgoing costs initially, but what will you be gaining by sitting on the sidelines. Your competitors know that there is a tremendous amount of money in motion right now, and the aggressive top producers are out there stealing clients from you and others in your market.
2. Try to do a seminar without a meal to save on costs.
The average cost of a meal is about $17.00 including tax and tips. Let's say you get 75 people to respond to your invite. That is a food cost of $1,275. One sale or asset transfer would more than pay for this. With no meal, expect a dramatically lower response. I have seen people try this and get as few as three people to show up for the seminar.
3. Reduce the number of seminars you are holding.
This is similar to #1 but there is one key point to remember. To close a prospect and transfer the assets usually takes eight to ten weeks. As an advisor, you are at your best when you have a lot of appointments scheduled every day. Don't put yourself in a position of having nothing in your pipeline to work. Once there, it will take at least thirty days to get another seminar going and start the pipeline again. Trust me, those thirty days will feel like a year.
4. Replace the invitation that you know works well with a cheaper or scaled down version.
I have always believed that if it aint broke don't fix it. Eliminating a known entity to try a different product should only be done in a test mode. By that I mean, send half of the one that works with half that you want to test. If the test mail bombs, you still have the other half to pick up new clients.
5. Abandon what has made you successful to try other Marketing ideas.
If you are an advisor or agent that has spent years perfecting your seminar and closing techniques, don't discount this experience. It takes a while to get good at anything. I have a client that stopped doing seminars and decided to concentrate on referrals. After three months of trying everything to get referrals, he picked up three new clients. He was averaging ten new clients a month with seminars. It is pretty simple math if you think about how he should spend his time and money.