CRM 2 and the Rise of Content Marketing

I’ll start this post with a response from a financial advisor customer of ours (the name is hidden though for privacy reasons) in one of the surveys we performed.

Question: How can having a website with Digital Agent help you achieve your long term business goals?

Response:  “There will be a thinning of the herd for advisors in the coming years as the regulators will require everyone to disclose their fees.  I’ll need to prove to clients even more that I am worth their money. ”

The “thinning of the herd” is what this advisor is referring to as the CRM 2 bill. The  CRM 2 bill, recently passed, is generating a fair bit of uncertainty and fear within the advisor community. This is for a variety of reasons but one of those reasons is centred around how this will change and affect an advisor’s relationship with their customers.

By no stretch am I an expert on this subject but from I’ve read, the bill is essentially legislation, providing the requirement that advisors provide complete transparency into the amount of money they make through their clients. The question is, why does this matter? Why do advisors care that they need to do this?

In the end, in any business, the only time I can think of where this would be an issue really comes down to a question of value. Advisors worry that their clients will focus more on price than value. If I became fully transparent as to the amount of profit I made from a customer, I would only ever have a problem releasing this information, if I believed there to be a mismatch between the perceived value of my product vs the actual price I charge for that product or if I had difficulty articulating the price and value discussion (or proving it for that matter).

CRM II raises the question of perceived value over price. In theory, Advisors who have strong and trusted relationships and who are undoubtedly confident about the value they provide to their clients should have nothing to fear. Advisors who have been reaping the benefits otherwise, should be, and rightfully wondering how to close the value and price gap and in my opinion, this is where Content Marketing should become such a critical part to any advisors’ business looking to overcome the ensuing difficult conversations they are about to have with their customers. Content marketing provides an opportunity for advisors to show how much value they can provide and take the conversation beyond the price level.

If you don’t have a website yet, I implore you, please, get one. It’s no longer an option and you’re one of very few who are still holding out. If you’re not convinced that you need one, read this article and then come back to this one to solidify the business case.

Content marketing is a relatively new term and previously associated with things like Email Marketing. In actual fact, there’s a growing movement around content marketing attempting to redefine and transform the entire Digital Marketing space. Content marketing is a method that individuals, groups, companies and/or organizations use to build trust with possibly buyers of their product or service. It is most associated with blogging and should be core to any small to large business’ marketing strategy.

Here’s a key fact for anyone in marketing: 70% of all shoppers, do their research online before making a purchase decision. What does this mean? This means that before this group of 70% pick up the phone, they’re already doing all of their research online. This means that before picking up the phone and calling you, they’ve already decided what they want to do with you and your business. If I picked up the phone today and attempted to cold call a random sample of 10 possible buyers, the only scenario that ends up with a purchase is the one where they’ve already decided to buy my product or service. The question for you the advisor is, have they made a decision on buy a product or service through you? And if not, why?

Ultimately, and especially in today’s digital age, purchase decisions undoubtedly and ultimately come down to one thing: TRUST. That shouldn’t surprise you. But then, how do you build trust, when 70% of shoppers do all of their research online before making a buying decision. This is the  question that still baffles many business owners today. Traditional marketing tells you that advertising eventually leads to a conversation that you can have with a prospect or buyer. The problem with traditional marketing is that the buyer is already having the conversation with anything they can find online about the product or service they are planning to purchase. Content marketing attempts to address this exact “problem”.

Content marketing is fundamentally about building trust with potential or existing customers and doing it on a platform that can be viewable by everyone. It’s about answering questions that are typically asked by customers in the financial services industry. While so simple, building trust starts with just that fundamental principle: answering customer questions.

Have a question about content marketing and how it can improve and enhance your business? Get in touch with us by using our contact us form.