When talking to an independent financial adviser or an employee benefit consultant, the topic of new...
When talking to an independent financial adviser or an employee benefit consultant, the topic of newsletters usually comes up. You are either for them or against them. But there is no simple answer to the question: do they work or not? Because, of course, they work in some situations but not in others.
A newsletter is no more than a way of communicating with various classes of people in a structured way, with a consistently high quality of presentation. There are four basic potential audiences for newsletters:
l Individual consumers.
l Groups of people.
l Corporate clients.
l Professional introducers.
Many IFAs already produce or buy
in newsletters for their individual clients. This offers a number of benefits, including the regular opportunity to reinforce existing relationships with clients you may not often see and the chance to raise issues in a general way, which will be addressed at the next review meeting.
The majority of newsletters are directed towards individual clients and there are a number of good newsletters available which can be overprinted to include your details. These are relatively cost-effective, since the cost of writing and design is spread across a large number of IFAs. The downside is that you have little, if any, control over the content and you might find yourself following someone else's agenda. Particularly for those IFAs concentrating on the protection market this can be inappropriate at times when the market generally is looking at investments.
In-house newsletters
It is, however, possible to produce a newsletter in-house, or by using the services of a professional consultancy. The advantage of this is that you have control over editorial content and design, so they can be more accurately matched to the interests of your clients.
While most newsletters are aimed at individual consumers, they can also have a significant impact with specific and identifiable groups of people. This can be particularly interesting for an employee benefit consultant. After all, if you are able to circulate a newsletter to those employees covered by a group sick pay scheme, or group life plan, which you have arranged, you can ensure that the articles included are appropriate to that particular readership. What is more, you can raise topics which are related to the benefits you already offer, so that the progression to recommending additional covers to individuals is both natural and reasonable.
An example of this might be to write about the benefits of death-in-service cover under an existing pension scheme, but point out that there may be a need for additional protection which can be provided by a free-standing additional voluntary contribution life policy.
Newsletters present the opportunity to offer new products to existing clients, with whom you may currently have only a limited relationship. This is what marketing people call cross-selling.
Corporate communication
Closely allied to this use of newsletters is communicating with corporate clients. These are the companies for whom the previous group will be working, but their interests will be completely different. As a result, not only will the design values take on a more professional look and the writing style become more business-like, but the content will be targeted at their particular needs. For example, articles are far more likely to revolve around keyperson assurance, directors' loan accounts and partnership protection than products that benefit the individual.
Building relationships
But newsletters are also a highly effective tool in creating and maintaining working relationships with professional introducers, such as solicitors and accountants. After all, these are people who have existing business relationships with companies to which you could offer financial planning advice. But few of them have the time or in many cases the desire to become involved in the work required to make individual recommendations. As a result, many business opportunities are lost and companies are left unprotected. This is in the interest of no-one.
As part of a structured approach to professional introducers, which may include briefing meetings and other forms of contact, a regular series of technical newsletters can be a highly productive marketing tool. At least, it reinforces the message about your own professional service. At best, it can directly result in business enquiries, as articles spark recognition of unsatisfied needs among the readers' own clients.
Production
Newsletters can be produced in several ways. The most traditional is a printed leaflet, which can be circulated to any number of existing and potential clients on a regular basis. Once a quarter is generally considered often enough to provide a regular but unobtrusive level of contact. The cost will vary according to quantity and quality. The greater the number produced, the lower the unit cost, because the paper and ink used comprises a limited proportion of the total cost. The remainder of the costs relate to design, copywriting and setting up the print itself. All these are largely fixed, so a print run of 1,000 will cost little more than one of 500. Conversely, the cost of distribution, often missed when looking at overall budgets, is almost directly proportional to the number issued.
For small quantities, usually up to about 100 copies, it can be cheaper to produce individually lasered copies. These can be in full colour and have the added advantage of allowing personalisation, within the body copy, just as if it were a mail-merged letter. Once your database is set up to allow for this, the additional work involved is negligible.
Production values are a key issue in producing a newsletter. There is no point in investing time and money on writing copy for your clients to read if the paper it comes on is unsuitable, or the design makes it difficult to read. Vast expanses of dense text are off-putting and readers will quickly move on to the next item of post if what you are offering is not visually attractive. There are a number of guidelines, which can help:
l Keep articles short and do not be afraid to leave space between them.
l Make sure it is easy for the reader to see when one article ends and another begins. This is a common fault in printed literature.
l Use as many illustrations as possible, but do not let them get in the way of the text or they will cause visual confusion.
l Use good quality paper and try to print in two colours rather than four on inside pages.
l Ask your local printer for help. If they do not feel up to the job themselves, they will know a local company you can use.
Associated fears
Sometimes people are reluctant to start issuing newsletters in case they run out of things to write about after the first one or two issues.
In general these fears are unfounded for two reasons. First, our business is cyclical and relevant topics have a habit of reappearing every year. We need not worry that having addressed an issue last year we cannot do so again. After all, the reader is unlikely to remember what was in last year's newsletter, unless they acted upon the information. And if they did, your article this year is a reaffirmation of the buying decision they have already made.
Second, there is always something changing in the financial services industry and, therefore, something which your clients and contacts need to know about. Product providers are continually issuing technical bulletins about almost every conceivable topic and borrowing information from these can be an almost endless source of copy for newsletters. Of course, you will need to convert the technical jargon into plain English for your readers.
This is all good in theory. But time devoted to writing a newsletter and
co-ordinating its production, is time not spent doing what you are best at: talking to clients, assessing their needs, and making recommendations for financial solutions. Even buying in a newsletter produced by one of the specialists in the market will involve some work, for example, ensuring the content is relevant.
One solution is to use a specialist financial services marketing consultancy. This is by no means the cheap option but, then, neither is anything else which is likely to make a positive contribution towards the success of your business.
Innovations
If you want to be truly innovative, why not think about an internet newsletter? For a surprisingly low cost, certainly considerably less than the price of printing 500 copies of a paper-based newsletter four times a year, you could produce a regularly updated website. This might include articles of interest to all your clients, with the added advantage that they can access quickly the articles which interest them most and you can even e-mail them with 'hot-links' to the appropriate pages.
Think this is too futuristic? Well, not everyone is on the internet, but an increasing proportion of those over 50 with significant disposable incomes are, as are the young. The former group is already sophisticated enough to recognise their need for independent financial advice, the latter represents the future of our sector.
Stephen Phillips is proprietor of Phillips Marketing
http://www.phillipsmarketing.co.uk
