Ellis Communications, L.L.C.

Will Financial Professionals Survive in These Tough Times? 
Phoenix Firm Develops New Tools To Help!
Developing A Marketing Plan, Direct Mail and Supercharged Marketing

With a shaky economy, seesaw stock market and uncertain investors, financial advisors must aggressively and intelligently market themselves to grow their business and survive and Phoenix, Ariz.-based Advisor Marketing is offering three new tools to help them succeed in that endeavor.

Advisor Marketing has developed presentations with voice narration on CD-ROM and workbooks that cover the topics of preparing a marketing plan, using direct mail as a marketing technique and supercharging your marketing.  These tools are perfect for advisors who don’t want to spend the money to attend the company’s marketing seminars.

"Advisors realize their glory days are over," says Martin R. Baird, president of Advisor Marketing, a full-service marketing management firm that provides a variety of services to financial advisors.  "Not that long ago, they didn’t have to market themselves, but now they desperately need to know how to do that.  It’s a matter of survival and we are offering these new products to meet this huge need."

Through an audio narration, Baird walks advisors through the presentation’s subject and asks numerous questions to encourage them to think and participate.  Advisors can pause the presentation and write their answers in the workbook.  After the presentation is complete, they can review the workbook and begin taking steps to market their practice.

Advisors who view the marketing plan presentation learn that a long plan isn’t always a good thing, the three keys to a successful marketing plan, the importance of taking action after the plan is developed, how to manage the plan for success and more.

With the direct mail presentation, advisors learn five keys to using envelopes that will get opened, what people read first and second when they look at a mailer, how to write text that’s informative and easy to read, and other lessons.

The presentation on supercharging your marketing provides lessons on common marketing mistakes and using seminars as an effective marketing tool.  It also summarizes seven marketing sins described in Baird’s book, "The 7 Deadly Sins of Advisor Marketing."

Baird recently conducted a TD Waterhouse-sponsored seminar in California on preparing a marketing plan and about 100 advisors filled the room. 

"As business owners, advisors are under the same profit-margin pressures as other businesses," says Chris Murtha, vice president of marketing and business development for TD Waterhouse Institutional Services.  "They are trying to achieve what every type of business shoots for - increase revenues and lower expenses - to improve their own profitability.

"The packed room during Marty’s presentation underscores the efforts by advisors to improve their marketing efforts to build and sustain their practice."

Advisor Marketing’s presentations offer most of what an advisor hears during one of Baird’s live seminars.  "Advisors who are spending significant money on travel and accommodations to attend one of my seminars will still receive the marketing advice they need while substantially cutting expenses," Baird says.

The fact that advisors are spending serious money to learn marketing techniques is a telling trend, Baird notes. 

"I’ve worked with financial advisors and conducted marketing seminars for more than nine years and I’m sensing desperation as another uncertain year looms," Baird says.  "During and after seminars, advisors tell me their business is in the tank, that they’re struggling and that they now know they must have a marketing plan.  In the past, they were confident more assets would come in from existing and new clients but they’ve long since lost that confidence."

The CD-ROM tools cost $49.95 and may be ordered by calling Advisor Marketing at 480-991-6421.

Advisor Marketing is the premiere source for marketing advice, information and tools for self-driven, success-oriented financial advisors who are demanding information that helps them market their practice, meet the needs of their clients and increase sales.  The company’s Web site, www.advisormarketing.com, offers such services as a free weekly electronic newsletter, free reports on how to conduct different kinds of marketing and evaluation of advisors’ marketing materials that is provided at no charge when the critique is posted online for all advisors to read.  Advisormarketing.com also offers an electronic forum where advisors can learn from each other by discussing common problems, sharing ideas and gaining new insights from their peers.  Advisor Marketing may be reached at 480-991-6421.