Marketing Financial Services - Do Seminars Work?

When it comes to marketing financial services there is no shortage of options. From cold calling to direct mail, to attending local networking events, advisors have lots of choices in their ongoing pursuit of new prospective clients.

Among all of the options, hosting marketing seminars remain a key method for getting known to prospective clients. Which raises the question, "When marketing financial services-Do seminars still work?"

Recently I had the opportunity to attend a seminar hosted by a well-known financial advisor. Lets take a look at what went well, as well as where the missed opportunities were that perhaps would have made it an even more successful event.

Location. At first glance the venue for the location was great. A private meeting room in an upscale golf club in a wealthy community was "pitch perfect". Unfortunately no one checked what would be going on next door. As a result, the first 30 minutes of the presentation were overwhelmed by a terrifically loud movie that involved much shooting and screaming.

So what's the lesson? Although it seems obvious, a quick check on who your neighbor is going to be and what they're going to be presenting, can help avoid these situations from occurring. I realize that this sounds basic, but as they say, "the Devil's in the details".

The seating arrangement was theater style with about 150 chairs, most of which were filled. While it's a great testimonial to the sponsoring organization's ability to fill the room, we did feel a bit like sardines. Now was this necessarily a bad thing? Not really when one considers who the intended audience was.

According to the firm's marketing materials, they were seeking investors with a minimum of $15,000 to invest. That's really not a lot of money. Thus the program was primarily directed to new investors or those with relatively modest amounts of capital. So the seating was probably not viewed as a negative. (However there is a psychological disconnect between having the event take place in a very elegant setting, but having the seats jammed so close together.)

However, if the firm were focusing on affluent and ultra-affluent prospective clients, the seating arrangement would definitely be a turn-off. Upscale programs I've attended usually cap the guest list at 30-35. And I use the word "guest" deliberately. The event I attended recently had "attendees". Programs targeting the affluent have "guests". That's a true distinction in everything from the invitations, to the room arrangement, to the content of the presentation.

In this particular instance the content of the presentation matched up well with the audience. Not surprisingly, a seminar targeted at investors with $15,000 to invest, attracts a wide diversity of prospects. Since it's virtually impossible to customize a talk to such a group of modest-investors, there's no real point in trying.

However if one were targeting the affluent market, one would want to take a different approach. Remember that they key to marketing to the affluent is to make sure they feel that you are catering specifically to them. Open with the issues of commonality that this affluent group faces. This would be even better if you sub-niched your marketing to "affluent women business owners" or some other more targeted segment. This would enable you to open your presentation with specifics that make the guests feel that they we truly listening to an advisor who understood their unique needs. So overall I'd give this presentation a good solid "B".

However it does beg one important issue. These financial advisors are expending a great amount of effort to attract very small investors. At the $15,000 investment level (and yes I realize that some-but probably not a lot-have more than $15,000 to invest) you would need to get 34 of them to equal one investor with $500,000.

There's an old saying in marketing that unless one can automate and remove the human labor element from the process, it takes just as much effort to attract a small fish as it does a big whale. Unfortunately, hosting marketing seminars are highly labor-intensive endeavors. Focusing on the small investor isn't necessarily the best use of money time and effort. Granted they "small fish" is easier to attract, but you have to get a lot of them to equal one affluent investor.

When one contrasts the results that come from events that cater to the mid-market compared to the affluent, there is no doubt that the latter yields much more substantive results. Granted, attracting the affluent requires a different message and approach. The reality is that many advisors are less comfortable approaching the affluent, although they all verbalize a desire to get more of them as clients. If one is serious about marketing to the affluent one needs to be willing to create events that are different than those that cater to the mid-market.

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