These days, most social media networks offer a paid advertising option, allowing firms access to millions – or even billions – of users they could not otherwise reach. That’s not to say that organic social media isn’t important. In fact, it’s vital in enabling firms to engage with their followers, strengthen their brand image and build trust with their audience.

Paid digital advertising is simply a way for businesses to take their marketing one step further and achieve specific, measurable results. Whether your objective is to build brand recognition, drive traffic to your website or gather leads for your business, paid social can help you get there.

Before we get started, it’s important to note that social media advertising is undoubtedly trickier for companies working in regulated industries like financial advice and law, who face additional regulatory and compliance restraints. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done successfully. In fact, UK financial services companies are set to spend £2.46bn on digital advertising in 2022!

How does paid social work?

Paid social advertising is also known as cost per click (CPC) or pay per click (PPC) advertising. PPC is the pricing model most often used in social media advertising – essentially, advertisers will only pay when a user takes the desired action on their ad.

The trouble with paid social is that it’s a very popular way of reaching out to new audiences. This means that multiple advertisers from similar industries will be competing for the same target audience and/or keywords at any one time. So, how do advertising platforms decide whose ads to show? Well, it all begins with an auction.

Every single day, social media advertisers are bidding against each other in millions of online auctions for ad placements – i.e., the spaces available on social media platforms where ads appear. Each time your ad wins an auction, it will be ‘served’ to a user – this is called an impression.

There are a wide range of bidding methods on offer, depending on the platform in question. To keep things simple, we’ll limit ourselves to explaining two types of bidding: manual and automated.

Manual bidding

Advertisers employing a manual bidding strategy will decide on the amount they are willing to pay for each ad placement and enter this value manually when setting up their ad. This enables advertisers to better control what they are paying for each click – but it can mean missing out on placements if you’re underbidding.

Automated bidding

If you choose an automated bidding strategy for your social ads, the social media network will employ a complex algorithm to automatically decide what you will pay for each click. Each platform will use a slightly different algorithm to determine the winning ad, but will mainly base its decision on both your campaign goal (i.e., whether you’re looking for website visits, leads or conversions such as a purchase or newsletter signup), and the quality of your ads.

What is ad quality?

Most advertising platforms will give social media ads a quality score, which determines how likely they are to win bids for ad placements. The important thing to remember is that high ad quality mostly results in a lower cost per click, leading to more cost-effective campaigns that deliver a higher return on investment.

Each social platform will give different weight to different factors, so it’s important to understand how the ad platform you plan to use ranks ad quality.

For example, , which takes the form of one of five categories: Above Average, Average, Below Average (Bottom 35% of Ads) Below Average (Bottom 20% of Ads) and Below Average (Bottom 10% of Ads). These metrics help advertisers understand how well their ad is likely to perform compared to those competing for similar audiences. The lower the quality, the more you’ll have to pay to win the bid.

On Facebook, quality depends on factors like how relevant the ad is to the audience you’re targeting, positive or negative feedback on your ads (such as a user hiding it on their feed), the presence of low-quality attributes such as clickbait, and even the landing page the user is directed to after clicking on your ad.

Similarly, LinkedIn’s Campaign Quality Scores are based on your ad campaign’s predicted click-through rate (pCTR) compared with others of the same audience. Given that audiences are more likely to click on something they perceive to be interesting and relevant to their situation, you’ll need to focus on your ad’s relevancy in order to improve your Quality Score.

Twitter, on the other hand, puts much more emphasis on engagement when judging ad quality, meaning you’ll pay less for a campaign with high engagement. For Twitter, optimising your quality score means focusing on creating engaging content that encourages comments, likes, shares and other actions on your ads.

Top tips for quality ads

1. Try a video

Did you know that Tweets accompanied by a video see 10 times more engagement than those without? Or that 88% of people say they’ve been convinced to purchase a brand’s products or services after watching a video? This is because video is better at capturing people’s attention and getting a memorable message across – simply put, it caters to the gnat-like attention span of today’s social media audiences!

In an experiment conducted by video creation platform Biteable that pitted a Facebook video ad against a static image, the video generated 480% more clicks and enjoyed a much higher click-through rate. Not only that, but the video was 497% cheaper per click than the static ad.  These results suggest that the video received a higher quality score than the static counterpart (and ads competing for the same audience) as it won bids at a lower cost-per-click.

2. Optimise your landing page, too

If you’re just starting out in paid search advertising, it’s likely you’ll be concentrating on perfecting your ad creative and content – perhaps without putting too much thought into the website page people who click on your ad will ultimately be visiting.

Landing page relevancy is a huge part of the overall user experience and should be the focus of as much attention when setting up your ad campaign as the ads themselves. It should feel like a natural follow on to the ad your visitor clicked on, and allow them to easily fulfil whatever action it is you want them to take. If you have promised your audience an eBook download, for example, the landing page should be a dedicated page with an easy-to-use form (if the content is gated) or button (if it is not) to enable access. If you want them to get in touch or sign up for a free consultation, this should be equally easy to accomplish on your chosen landing page.

3. Don’t give in to clickbait temptation

Clickbait, according to one expert, is described as “tricking people into consuming your content by making them believe it will be better than what it really is.” Clickbait advertising is the practice of using sensationalist and even misleading headlines on your ads to encourage people to click.

An example of a clickbait headline might be “Investors can’t believe this SIMPLE BitCoin trick that can make you MILLIONS!” This is clearly a dangerous and misleading statement because it implies that investing in BitCoin is simple and always delivers results. Equally, the article is likely to disappoint audiences because, as we all know, there is no one simple trick to investing in any kind of asset class.

The trouble is that clickbait actually harms your ad’s quality score because it means your landing page is less relevant to your audience than the ad has promised. In the short term, you’ll pay more for your ad campaign and receive fewer qualified leads for your business. In the long term, clickbait use can cause reputational damage and erode trust in your brand. In highly regulated industries, you’re also likely to find yourself falling foul of advertising standards and compliance regulations.

4. Test, test and test again

Even for paid advertising experts, understanding exactly what an audience is looking for, and what they will judge to be a quality ad, is no mean feat. The answer is to find out for yourself by conducting tests to see which ads do better.

Most social media advertising platforms will offer a range of ways for you to do this. For example, many will offer A/B testing (also known as split testing), which allows you to test two similar ads with one differing variable (e.g. ad creative or headline) and see which performs best. For example, you may want to see which of two images resonates most with your audience, or whether users click more on a headline that asks a question vs one that makes a statement. A/B testing splits your budget between the two options and shows the first to one half of your audience and the second to the other half. You can then compare the results and tailor your strategy accordingly.

Testing enables you to gain a better picture of what works best for your particular audience and to continue honing your creative, message and bidding strategy to improve your ad quality for the future.

5. Use your best performing organic content

You can actually test which content performs best without spending a single penny by trialling potential ad content with your organic social media followers first. You can then use social media analytics to gauge which of your posts has resulted in the most engagement, such as likes, comments, shares and website visits.

The next step is to use these posts as inspiration for your content – but this doesn’t mean you have to stop testing! You could create three or four different versions of the high-performing post and continue to conduct A/B testing until you have a final winner!

Are you ready to boost your ad quality score and increase your ROI?

We hope you’ve enjoyed our guide to creating quality paid social ads and that you’re now ready to go out there and create some winning ad campaigns.

For those who lack the time, expertise or resource to create their own ad campaigns, all is not lost! At TOMD, we help our clients get the results they’re looking for with their PPC and paid social ad campaigns and grow their business.

For more information about how we can help you succeed with your social media advertising, why not get in touch with us at marketing@tomd.co.uk or call 01279 657555? We’ll be happy to discuss your online advertising needs.

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That’s not to say, however, that it can’t be done. For over 20 years, TOMD has worked with thousands of financial services firms to boost their marketing to the next level, working closely with their compliance departments to produce winning campaigns that nonetheless firmly adhere to the rules and regulations that come as part and parcel of working within this sector.

Drawing on our decades of experience, then, we hope that this guide to building a marketing strategy helps financial advisers looking to breathe new life into their marketing in 2022 or offers some ideas to those just starting out.

What are the most effective marketing tools for financial advisers?

When building your marketing strategy for the year ahead, these should be some of the biggest tools in your arsenal:

1. An understanding of your target audience
2. A website that effectively represents your brand
3. SMART objectives
4. The right social media platforms
5. Positive reviews
6. Thought leadership content
7. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
8. Marketing experts who understand your industry

Don’t be overwhelmed – just a few of these tools could help you pave the way to marketing success in 2022.

1. An understanding of your target audience

The type of client you wish to attract (which may be the same or different to those you already work with) must form a crucial part of your marketing strategy. If you don’t know who you are targeting, it then follows that you won’t know which marketing channels to use to reach them, the content that will engage them, or even the language and tone of voice to use.

As an example, let’s look at the differences in the marketing strategies you might employ for high-net-worth clients as opposed to mass affluent consumers. We’ll start off by assessing the characteristics of each group. Data for these characteristics comes from LV= research and a 2020 research paper from the Resolution Foundation entitled The UK’s wealth distribution and characteristics of high wealth households, unless otherwise stated. Please note that these are just examples based on our own limited research and may not be reflective of your own client base.

Of course, both groups are likely to have overlapping interests – but here are a few examples of where you might be able to differentiate your content to better appeal to one or the other. For instance, an adviser targeting a high-net-worth clientele might decide to produce content about Inheritance Tax planning, high-net-worth wealth management and business succession; targeting criteria for these individuals might include postcodes with a high density of high-value properties, those working within certain industries at a senior or CEO level, or those with an interest in luxury brands or passion investments. For a mass affluent audience, you might decide to target parents over the age of 55 looking to support their child(ren)’s education, or those interested in retirement planning, buy-to-let property or lower-risk investments. Of course, these are just examples and will depend on the particular characteristics of your intended audience.

2. A website that effectively represents your brand

Any brand from any sector will benefit from a well-thought-out, modern website with well-written content and an eye-catching design that reflects the business’s mission and values. For the financial services industry, however, a well-designed website is not so much beneficial as it is absolutely crucial. Good web design is proven to instil trust and confidence in visitors – an essential for financial services firms, as those seeking advice are looking to entrust their financial wellbeing and security to an unknown quantity. A 2020 study found that good website design has a strong positive correlation with consumer trust, which then increases the likelihood of visitors going on to use a business’s services.

This is backed up by Trust Pilot statistics, which state that the most important factor for consumers when deciding whether to trust a financial services firm is its website, with 68% deeming this to be ‘important’ or ‘very important’. Even if your business acquires the majority of its new clients via word of mouth, you shouldn’t neglect your website – referred prospects are still likely to check out your website as a precaution before getting in touch.

3. SMART objectives

A lot of the clients we work with come to us with a goal in mind. Perhaps they want to appear higher in the Google rankings, or maybe they want to increase the number of enquiries via their website. Admirable though these end goals may be, they are not specific enough to truly drive success. When do you want to achieve this by? How many extra enquiries do you want to receive? Is this per month or per year? And is what you’re attempting to achieve even possible within that timeframe? These are the questions you need to ask, and the SMART framework will help you to answer them.

SMART goals are:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic

Time-bound

Let’s take the goal of appearing higher in the Google rankings. A SMART version of this goal might be ‘I would like to move from tenth place to fifth place in the Google rankings for the keyword financial adviser in Liverpool within a period of six months.’ This goal is specific, outlining the particular keyword we want to rank for. It’s measurable as we’ve included a numeric value we’re looking to achieve by the end of the goal period. With the right optimisations on our website, it is likely achievable – we’ve specified a region, meaning that the keyword is likely to be less competitive. And finally, it’s realistic because we’re not looking to reach our goal ranking within a week – we’re allowing time for our SEO improvements to feed through to our Google results.

4. The right social media platforms

In a report entitled Twitterisation 2.0: The Exponential Pull of Innovation, US firm SEI observed that “Despite historic hesitancy on the part of many asset managers, driven in large by regulatory concerns, social networks play an increasingly pivotal role in the industry.” Dedicating resources to a company’s social media presence, it continued, is vital at a time “where many financial brands are facing an erosion of awareness and trust.”

 For firms just starting out on their social media journey, selecting the right social media channels for your business is crucial. For example, LinkedIn is likely to be suitable if you are looking to attract wealthy senior professionals seeking retirement planning advice, while equally Instagram or TikTok won’t be appropriate if your target audience largely consists of those over the age of 50. You should also consider what each platform is used for, so that you can adapt your content and message accordingly. Twitter is increasingly used as a platform for conversations and debates about trending topics, so a constant stream of tweets advertising your various products and services is unlikely to gain traction. Instagram, meanwhile, is a highly visual platform that is primarily used to drive engagement; here, success depends on having the resource to produce stunning photographs and video content.

If you’re unsure, it could be well worth investing in the services of a social media agency (like TOMD!), who will be able to advise you on the most suitable platforms for your business, assist you with setting up your profiles and produce high-quality graphics and content to improve your chances of success.

5. Positive reviews

 According to the same Trustpilot survey we cited earlier, ratings and reviews are the second most important factor for consumer trust in financial services, with 61% of consumers saying they are ‘important’ or ‘very important’. In fact, across all industries, nine in 10 UK customers said they would check online reviews before buying from a particular business, while even more (94%) said they would avoid businesses with a rating lower than four stars.

So, how can you leverage the power of reviews for your own business? Well, the first step is to actively ask for them. You’ll likely find that most of your clients are willing to do this – according to BrightLocal’s latest Local Consumer Review Survey, of the 73% of consumers who were asked to leave a review in 2020, 72% went on to do so. The same report revealed that the most common way of asking for a review is via email.

The final step is to make sure that prospects can find your reviews. If you have asked for Google reviews, these should be displayed in the search engine results when people search for your business. If people have left reviews on websites such as Trustpilot or Feefo, you can install a widget on your website that pulls through your latest reviews for visitors to read.

6. Thought leadership content

 If a person is trusting a company with their finances, it naturally follows that they’re going to want reassurance that this firm knows what it’s doing. One way to establish your knowledge and expertise, and to stand out from the competition, is through a well-thought-out content strategy addressing topical issues your target audience is looking for and educating them about their finances.

Thought leadership content takes this a step further. It enables you to offer opinions, deliver fresh new insights, and to spark conversations – this might be via a video, an online report or a long-form content piece. As highly shareable content, it also generates engagement in the form of likes, clicks and shares and it’s an excellent way to build trust in your brand. This is borne out by Edelman and LinkedIn’s 2021 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study – nearly two-thirds of those surveyed (64%) said that an organisation’s thought leadership content is a more trustworthy basis for assessing its capabilities and competency than its marketing materials and product sheets.

Creating quality thought leadership content is time-consuming, though, and many firms find that, despite their best intentions, content creation is constantly falling to the bottom of the to-do list. Working with a content agency that specialises in financial services (like TOMD) could help you prioritise your thought leadership content strategy in 2022.

7. Search Engine Optimisation

 Many of the firms we work with are nervous about SEO because it sounds so complex. While there is a lot that goes into it, SEO is essentially about making your website as user-friendly as possible. Think about a website that loads quickly, with easy-to-use navigation, useful content that answers the questions you’re looking for and an easy way to get in touch. These are all things that most web users expect as standard these days, which is why Google rewards user-friendly sites by pushing them higher up the search engine rankings. Think about what you’re looking for in a website when searching for products and services, and try to emulate this on your own site.

Optimising your website for Google and other search engines has never been more important for the financial services sector. Analysis from Ruler Analytics shows that in 2020, 41% of web traffic to financial services sites came from organic search (i.e. people searching for something and clicking on a result), and another 24% came from paid search (where a company pays for their result to come up when users type in a certain keyword). So, researching the words that people are using to search for services like yours, and writing optimised content to answer the questions people are actually asking, really does pay – and it’s only likely to become more crucial as time goes by.

8. Marketing experts who understand your industry

 Over the years, we have worked with many firms who have come to us after being dissatisfied with a marketing agency that does not understand the intricacies of the financial services landscape. Because of the regulatory limitations on the financial services industry, what works for the tech or retail sectors (for example) won’t necessarily work for financial services. Likewise, as a niche and specialised industry, content writers with little experience in the finance industry are likely to struggle to provide the kind of interesting, topical and – most importantly – accurate content you need to establish yourself as an expert in your field.

From liaising with compliance departments to applying the correct risk warnings on your marketing collateral, TOMD has over 20 years’ experience in helping financial services firms of all shapes and sizes to achieve their marketing ambitions. To find out more, please email us at marketing@tomd.co.uk or call 01279 657555.

Expand your knowledge with TOMD

 Find out how marketing has changed within the professional services industry since the pandemic to help your own marketing move with the times.

The post Building a marketing strategy – the ultimate guide for financial advisers appeared first on TOMD.

While part of client retention is obviously to provide an excellent standard of service and satisfactorily deliver your clients’ desired outcomes, another (big) part of the puzzle is client engagement – i.e. keeping in touch with value-added, relevant communications and keeping your brand firmly front-of-mind.

So, what is client engagement?

Client engagement refers to the process of keeping in touch with your clients across a variety of channels, with the purpose of boosting your working relationship and strengthening the emotional connection between you.

And statistics show that client engagement reaps serious rewards. According to analytics company Gallup, a ‘fully engaged’ customer carries a 23% premium over the average customer in terms of share of wallet, profitability, revenue and relationship growth across the client lifecycle.

Creating engaged clients isn’t simply the work of a couple of hours, or even a couple of days. It requires an in-depth understanding of your clients’ needs, interests and communication preferences, and a long-term strategy that spans multiple communication channels such as email, social media and your website.

How to keep your clients engaged

1. Ask for feedback – and act on it
2. Maintain an active social media presence
3. Boost engagement with video storytelling
4. Consider a client loyalty scheme
5. Reach out with timely and relevant communications

By following these five tips, you can ramp up your client engagement activities and start reaping the rewards. Let’s take a look at them in a bit more detail.

1. Ask for feedback – and act on it

Asking for feedback is an important part of relationship building, as it makes your clients feel valued and encourages loyalty. It is very important to openly demonstrate that you are willing to listen to feedback and offer opportunities for your clients to provide it – otherwise you might find they simply melt away without a word. In fact, Zendesk’s CX Trends 2022 report found that 61% of customers would switch to a company’s competitor after just one bad customer service experience. And whilst opening yourself up to feedback runs the risk of hearing some unpleasant truths, if you don’t know what’s wrong you can’t fix it. As Bill Gates once said, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

Collecting client feedback is just part of the jigsaw – taking action to rectify issues and provide a better client experience in the future is a very important second piece. A third is following up with those clients who left feedback to let them know they have been listened to, and sharing your plans for solving the identified problems – which, in turn, will increase their loyalty to your business and make them more willing to leave feedback about your services in the future. In fact, 81% of people would be more willing to provide feedback to a company if they knew they would get a fast response.

2. Maintain an active social media presence

Keeping on top of social media can feel like a full-time job in and of itself, and many of the firms we work with find it simply falls by the wayside during busy periods. Whilst your clients will (understandably) always be your top priority, failing to keep on top of social media can harm your business in other ways. In fact, it can do long-term damage to your reputation. As an article in the Financial Marketer put it: “Many finance brands want to be seen as thought leaders, which certainly isn’t the case if your most recent update was posted back in 2012.”

With billions of people now on social media, it’s unsurprising that social media networks have become an integral part of how consumers select and purchase products and services. In fact, research from We Are Social and Hootsuite showed that 42% of 16 to 64-year-olds worldwide used social media when researching products and services in 2020. Furthermore, in the 16 to 24 age group, people are more likely to use social media for this purpose than search engines.

So, if your potential clients are using social media networks to research brands and are heavily influenced by the results, an inactive social media account will mean that a lot of future prospects could be slipping through your fingers.

There are ways to make life easier for yourself and keep your social media presence active even when you are busy:

1. If you’re on a multitude of different social media platforms, consider cutting this down to just one or two so that your workload is manageable.

2. Use social media scheduling tools such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social to get all your posts scheduled at the beginning of the week, leaving you the rest of the week to do what you do best.

3. Use a social media agency (like us!) to produce quality content and graphics to engage your clients on social media.

3. Boost engagement with video storytelling

Hands down, videos are one of the best ways to increase client engagement across all of your marketing channels. So much so, that 83% of video marketers surveyed in 2020 said that video had helped increase the average time users spent on their website. So, what makes video such a successful part of any customer engagement strategy?

Firstly, people have a short attention span these days. If a picture can say 1,000 words, then a video can say many more, and in a much shorter timeframe than an article could ever achieve. The kinetic nature of videos also attracts the eye and helps keep attention – perfect for warding off that glazed-over look that is the enemy of marketers everywhere.

Secondly, they are shareable, which in turn helps your message spread farther and wider than an article ever could. Astonishingly, videos generate 1,200% more shares on social media than text and images combined, and increase the likelihood that your page will get featured on the first page of Google’s search results by up to a factor of 53!

Last but by no means least, they keep your clients around – which, after all, is what client engagement is all about. For example, producing informative video guides and ‘how-to’ content about your services and the wider industry, and regularly sharing these with your clients, will position you as a thought leader, boost clients’ understanding of and loyalty to your business, and keep your brand front of mind.

4. Keep your clients loyal

The task of maintaining client loyalty takes many different forms. Offering a stellar service is obviously a key part of it, but these days, it’s also vital to actively build an ongoing relationship with your clients based on mutual respect and trust. With  the ‘great wealth transfer’ between the generations set to reach £5.5trn over the next 20 to 30 years, IFAs who build strong relationships with their clients and work collaboratively with families to address intergenerational wealth challenges are more likely to see the younger generations becoming loyal clients themselves in years to come.

Of course, every professional services firm will face different challenges in their quest to build client loyalty. With the internet and online reviews at their fingertips, today’s financial services clients have more choice and control than ever before over the solutions they believe will best meet their financial needs. With digital apps, robo advisers and even social media stars all vying with traditional firms for custom, it’s a more competitive marketplace than ever before. Retaining a loyal client base will depend on your ability to adapt your offering to the population’s shifting needs, and to demonstrate a superior service than that offered by the plethora of digital alternatives now available.

Meanwhile, solicitors may have clients who use them irregularly, for example for a house move or for ‘distress’ purchases such as a divorce or legal dispute. Here, keeping clients loyal will depend not only on the provision of a quality service, but on ensuring that your firm remains at the top of their list the next time they require legal services. For example, following up with clients after the conclusion of their case, as well as keeping a database of current and former clients (ideally separated by practice area), will enable you to reach out with relevant, value-added content and create cross-selling opportunities between practice areas.

Keeping your clients happy and engaged (in ways that go beyond the service they are paying for) will allow you leverage your most loyal clients to bring in even more business – i.e. via a client referral scheme. According to Mention Me, over half of UK consumers trust recommendations from friends or partners more than any other form of advertising, so a referral scheme will have the dual benefit of rewarding existing clients and strengthening your relationship with them, and bringing in high-quality new clients who are likely to become loyal brand advocates themselves.

5. Reach out with timely and relevant communications

In the financial, legal and accountancy industries, clients want to know that the people they’re paying to advise them have the knowledge and expertise to do so. When you’re trusting somebody with your house purchase, or to invest money on your behalf, it’s completely understandable. So, reaching out to your clients with informative content, articles, news and thought leadership pieces via email, post or other channels is not only keeping your firm front of mind, but reassuring clients that you know what you’re talking about (and keeping them loyal, as we mentioned above).

There are a range of tools and services available to help firms achieve this with the minimum time and effort. For example, TOMD’s cost-effective Client Communication Package helps financial services firms send out informative, timely and relevant content in the form of newsletters, articles, and monthly updates on the residential and commercial property markets, the UK economy, and the small business world, using pre-approved, compliant content.

Email marketing software such as Campaign Monitor or Mail Chimp also provide businesses with easy-to-use scheduling and automation tools to help them kick their communications up a notch. But remember to space your communications out a little bit – too often, and clients could view them as spam.

Increase your knowledge with insights from TOMD

Looking for more information? Check out this post on keeping your existing clients happy and coming back to your firm.

The post 5 client engagement strategies to boost loyalty and retention appeared first on TOMD.

Meanwhile, certain areas of the legal sector see particularly high demand. For example, those working in the field of family law often see a spike in divorce enquiries, with the first working Monday of January – otherwise known as Blue Monday – historically seeing the most couples filing for divorce. Meanwhile, property searches often peak during the festive season as prospective buyers plan a New Year move.

As a result, we find that many of the financial services and law firms we work with seek to ramp up their marketing in the New Year to tap into this demand and attract new business. But starting in January is likely to be too late to achieve the results you’re looking for. Really, if you’re looking to market in January, you need to get started now.

Proactive, not reactive

Planning ahead is key to successful marketing, with campaigns planned and prepared in advance more likely to generate leads (and cost less) than those thought up on the fly. This is the proactive approach to marketing. Planning enables you to properly identify your target market, understand which channels will best reach this audience, assign a realistic budget and ensure all the elements of your marketing campaign are connected (or ‘integrated’) for maximum effect. This means they send the same message and use the same design and branding across all your communications channels.

On the other hand, returning to the office in January and suddenly realising you have no marketing activities planned for one of the most lucrative times of year – i.e., the reactive approach – can lead to panic, poor decision making and a haphazard approach to marketing that is less likely to reap results and more likely to waste your time and money.

Now is the best time

It is true that the run-up to Christmas can also be extremely busy for financial advisers and solicitors as they seek to wrap up their caseload in time for the festive shutdown. You might be thinking that now isn’t a good time either! But remember that making time to plan your marketing activities even while you are busy will mean that you have everything organised, primed and ready to go when you really need it – maximising the chance of your campaign achieving its objectives.

Remember as well that this isn’t something you have to do alone. At TOMD, we have specialist designers, copywriters, marketing strategists and web developers who can swiftly turn your plans into action. We’ve worked with financial and legal firms for over 20 years and understand how to market effectively within these highly regulated sectors. For more information about our services and about how you can effectively plan your New Year marketing strategy in the run-up to Christmas, get in touch on 01279 657 555 or email marketing@tomd.co.uk.

The post Blog: Planning your marketing in the run-up to Christmas appeared first on TOMD.

The point of the Chancellor’s reminder was that in setting interest rates the BoE must pay close regard to that impact on the inflation rate and try to keep annual price rises, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index compiled by the Office for National Statistics, somewhere around the official target level. That target has stood at 2% for some years, but the latest CPI rise in the year to September was 3.1%.

Inflation at 4 or 5 percent in prospect

In his Budget speech, the Chancellor also noted the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast of around 4% inflation in the coming year. The BoE’s new chief economist Huw Pill had days earlier hinted that a peak of 5% in the coming months would not be surprising. So, with the Chancellor at arm’s length from interest rate policy and the incoming BoE economics chief ringing warning bells on inflation, where does BoE policy stand now?

It’s probable that in normal times, with no COVID or Brexit effects in play, raising interest rates to curb demand in the economy would be the simple solution. Lifting interest rates would help to choke-off excess demand and perhaps over a period of months begin to stabilise prices. However, the price rises we’re all currently experiencing represent what you might call ‘the wrong kind of inflation’ for successful application of traditional policy responses.

Current price rises are driven largely by international and domestic supply chain pressures and by soaring global energy prices, which BoE interest rate rises would scarcely affect. Indeed, upping interest rates substantially could serve to exacerbate inflationary pressures by lifting mortgage rates and other costs that could feed into the cost of living, even prompting a 1970s-style wage-price spiral. So, a finely balanced judgment, like walking a tightrope, will be needed when the BoE makes its decision on rates this Thursday 4 November.

No quick fix from BoE on Thursday

Clearly, Huw Pill and others at the BoE recognise that their policy toolkit doesn’t contain a quick fix for rising inflation in its present form. Otherwise, instead of forecasting a possible 5% peak (some commentators think it could be even higher), Huw Pill would be saying that action by the BoE will rein in the price rises and return the CPI inflation rate to its target zone in the coming months.

There’s wide expectation that the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee will indeed vote for a rate rise this week, if only to deflect suggestions of doing nothing rather than in expectation of a significant impact. So, borrowing rates for householders could rise, which will potentially moderate consumer desire to spend. However, it’s the supply side (oil and other cargoes delayed in the supply chain) that’s at the root of the problem.

Inflation isn’t all bad. Some economists say that a modest level of price rises reflects a healthy economy. It can even be good news for some, such as heavily indebted individuals and governments, whose debts shrink in real terms as each inflation-hit month passes. Governments can generally borrow at low interest rates, which may not be the case for individual unsecured borrowers, and if those rates are lower than the inflation rate then they’re gaining financially, in theory at least.

Everyone’s inflation rate is different

It’s ‘in theory’ because the CPI is based on a basket of items on which a fairly average UK consumer might spend their money. In reality, hardly anyone would have a spending pattern exactly as portrayed by the CPI; we all have our own uncalculated inflation index that reflects exactly how we spend our money, and that pattern may vary from year to year. There’s also house-price inflation, which may seem good to homeowners but not so good to prospective first-time buyers.

Whichever way you measure inflation, for those with money in the bank beyond what they need for immediate use plus provision for unforeseen expenditure, it’s an obvious enemy in times like these. With the CPI more than 3% above its level 12 months ago and interest on most bank deposits well below 1%, the spending power of money in the bank is being eroded. If the BoE orders a modest rise or two in rates over the coming months but inflation over the next 12 months turns out to be 4%-5%, the erosion over two years will have been considerable.

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Those businesses that have survived – and even thrived – over the past 18 months are those who have best adapted to the rapid pace of change brought about by a society turned on its head overnight. Without physical products to store and sell, professional services businesses working within the financial, legal and accountancy sectors have had the freedom to completely overhaul their business models and explore new ways of working and marketing their services. Whether or not they did so, however, depended on their ability to quickly embrace digital solutions and adapt to a virtual delivery model.

Digital transformation

Multiple studies and surveys have consistently demonstrated the rapidity with which businesses across all sectors and industries adapted to the overnight shutdown of the country back in March 2020 – and the sudden unavailability of traditional marketing channels such as networking, events, and face-to-face meetings.

According to research from McKinsey published towards the end of last year, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the creation of  digital or digitally enhanced offerings by an average of seven years in a matter of months. This has largely been driven by a massive increase in consumer demand for products, services and interaction via online channels – and those who have met this challenge have not gone unnoticed. Deloitte’s Global Marketing Trends 2021 report found that 82% of consumers were more willing to do business with firms that had worked to expand their digital offering.

With social media use rocketing by 10.5% during 2020 and a younger generation of clients turning to ‘robo-advisers’, web chat and other online services, it is ever more important for financial, legal and other professional services firms to make themselves available to clients via a wider range of digital channels.

A shift towards the social enterprise

Deloitte’s 2021 report suggests that clients increasingly want to work and do business with firms that demonstrate a commitment not just to profit, but also to the wider community. In its survey, 79% of respondents were able to recall instances of firms that had responded positively to the COVID-19 crisis, assisting their clients and communities to navigate an unprecedented situation – for example, financial institutions pausing overdraft fees and postponing loan repayments.

During the pandemic, the need to keep ourselves, and others, safe led to an increased interest in how the companies we worked with were achieving the same. In addition, the crisis revealed the huge level of inequality that still exists in societies across the globe. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become more important than ever for companies marketing themselves in 2021, with the heavy weight of consumer expectations leading many of them to adapt their strategies. Clients want to be advised by firms who are thinking beyond simple profit and, in the financial services industry, by those offering expertise in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing.

More meaningful client communication

In times of difficulty and change, people typically look to their financial advisers, solicitors and other professionals for reassurance. For financial, legal and accountancy businesses, this has meant embracing virtual communications platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, in addition to digital solutions that allow clients to track progress from afar, such as cloud-based document sharing systems and secure investment management platforms.

It has also meant developing a regular content and communications strategy to help firms ‘check in’ with clients and to market their expertise by delivering relevant news and insights. ‘Relevant’ is definitely the watchword here; an article in marketing magazine The Drum last year pointed to growing demand from financial advice clients for personalised content and guidance.

Move with the times

At TOMD, we offer a range of services that enable businesses to better engage with their clients in a post-pandemic world. From modern, responsive websites that reflect your firm’s brand and values, to marketing consultancy and strategy services to help you convey your CSR credentials, and from social media support to relevant, topical content personalised for your clients’ interests, we likely have a solution to suit you.

To get in touch, please call 01279 657555 or email marketing@tomd.co.uk.

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The SRA revealed that law firms across England and Wales would be asked to provide their opinions on the use of technology and innovation within the legal sector and comment on their own experiences of doing so. This approach reflects recognition by the various bodies responsible for the UK legal sector that, in a rapidly-changing commercial world, technology and innovation play a growing part in both marketing and customer relationship management (CRM).

SRA supports innovation

“We have,” the SRA explains, “commissioned the University of Oxford to conduct independent research into the extent that legal tech and innovation are being used and how their use may develop in the future. Involving an online survey of all the 10,200 law firms we regulate in England and Wales, the research will focus particularly on innovation and technology which may improve access and services to the public.

“Once complete, the findings will help us and wider legal sector to understand current use of innovation and technology across the sector, what the most likely areas of future use and development are, and how to best support future innovations, including by potentially removing regulatory barriers. We are committed to supporting the use of innovation and legal technology that helps to meet the needs of the public, business community, law firms and the economy.”

The SRA’s proactive stance on marketing and CRM is in contrast to the past. Dickensian images of the profession endured well into the 20th century. Such images were probably still prevalent when, following the partition of Ireland a year earlier, The Law Society of Northern Ireland was established in 1922. Gradual change was under way by 1949, when The Law Society of Scotland was established as the professional body for Scottish solicitors.

Wider spectrum of clients

In the early post-war decades, solicitors were often still perceived as aloof and unapproachable, particularly by the wider spectrum of clients needing legal services as affluence increased. More home ownership, more business start-ups, more relationship issues and more litigation brought more ordinary folk into contact with the legal profession, yet law firms seemed publicity-shy.

The main cause of the publicity-shyness was that until the mid 1980s solicitors were barely able to promote their services at all. They depended on local awareness, word of mouth, a basic entry in the telephone directory and a brass plate by the office entrance. The Law Society changed that in 1986 by ending its ban on advertising legal services; its counterparts elsewhere in the UK did likewise.

Lawyers’ ability to look and to act like modern professionals was further enhanced by the Lord Chancellor’s decision in 2007 that judges and lawyers in civil and family court cases would no longer need to wear the white horsehair wigs customary since the 17th century. Consultation within the profession had shown that a majority felt that wigs were anachronistic.

Legal Services Act brought change

Around the same time, a review brought plans to separate formal regulation of law firms from the other activities of The Law Society. The Legal Services Act 2007 led to the creation of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, operationally independent of The Law Society. This was in line with the trend towards arm’s-length regulation already practised in the financial services sector.

It had also been deemed that the structure of law firms needed updating, partly to deal with the personal financial liability involved in joining traditional partnerships. The phased 2007 act provided for ‘Alternative Business Structures’, which also enabled non-lawyers to own or manage law firms. The first ABS gained its licence from the SRA in 2012, but the overall rate of take-up was sedate.

So, fully-modernised solicitors are now free to put themselves out there, subject of course to normal advertising standards and to specific requirements laid down by the SRA. In recent years, even barristers, who represent clients in higher courts and still often don traditional wigs and gowns, have been developing a taste for technological advance. Their representative body, the Bar Council, are conducting an online seminar in May in support of barristers’ use of social media.

Barristers turning to platforms

The Bar Council asserts: “An increasing number of barristers are turning to platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn in order to express themselves and develop their professional profile and networks. Our online seminar ‘Navigating social media for the Bar’ supports barristers and their staff in navigating the practical and ethical challenges associated with the Bar’s use of social media.

“Focusing on best practice, the most effective ways to establish brand image and mitigating and managing associated risks, this new online seminar is designed to address concerns about using social media and to help maximise social presence and reach. It will help barristers to understand how various platforms can offer increased opportunities for marketing and practice development.”

Safe and effective tech solutions

Professional bodies are obviously conscious, as are we at TOMD, that there can be risks attached to technology-driven changes to marketing and CRM practices if applied inexpertly. Both the Law Society’s research initiative on technology and innovation for solicitors and the Bar Council’s social media guidance for barristers are laying the foundations for safe and effective use of tech solutions. Law firms and chambers may benefit from specialist help building on those foundations in future.

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International Women’s Day is all about celebrating women’s achievements and raising awareness about women’s equality. Each year has a theme – and this year, it’s #ChoosetoChallenge. And our new Head of Digital, Lisa, and our new Corporate Marketing Manager, Clare, have certainly arrived with us at an extremely challenging time.

Both women started full-time jobs with us virtually in January, during the pandemic, undertaking intensive training while home-schooling their young children. They have challenged themselves and their circumstances to become full-time working mums – and teachers. It hasn’t been the most conventional start, so we’re very proud of how far they have come in the few short months we’ve had them with us!

So far, in fact, that they’re joining the team in walking five million steps to raise money for Charlotte, a little girl with a rare form of cancer – click here for more details.

At TOMD, we have always ‘chosen to challenge’ by being an equal opportunities employer. Five of our Senior Management Team are women and we ensure that all employees, male or female, are treated equally and given the same set of opportunities. We look forward to celebrating International Men’s Day in November.

So, welcome to Lisa and Clare – and happy International Women’s Day!

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31st March 2021

Five million steps later, our Marketing & Operations Executive, Rita, crossed the finish line of the TOMD team’s epic virtual 2,500 mile walking tour of the UK, with her husband and son helping her along the final 25 mile stretch from London to our office in Sawbridgeworth!

30th March 2021

We’re approaching the end of March, meaning that the end of our five million step virtual tour is nigh! Helping to complete our penultimate stop is our Marketing & Content Specialist, Chloe, who’s making her way to London from Horsham. Before she reaches the capital, though, she’s stopping off to visit a valued client in Wokingham!

29th March 2021

Our Director, Mike, is taking a trip down memory lane on his way from Southampton to Horsham – stopping off at his hometown of Worthing in tribute to his junior school football playing days, before visiting some other places he lived in Brighton on the way.

26th March 2021

From Land’s End, we’re on the home stretch back to Sawbridgeworth (although there are a good few hundred miles to go yet)! Our Head of Digital, Lisa, took along her son, Albert, as a walking buddy on her stretch of the TOMD virtual walking tour, travelling 222 miles from Land’s End to Southampton.

25th March 2021

We’ve done John O’Groats, and now it’s time for Land’s End, at the westernmost tip of Britain. Rachael, our Corporate Marketing Manager, took over in Cardiff and made the 223 mile trek down to the stunning destination, which is well known as a starting or finishing point for the popular journey to or from John O’Groats.

23rd March 2021

From the wilds of Snowdonia to the big city, Cathy walked 143 miles across Wales to reach its capital city of Cardiff. Along the way, she took in the landscape of Brecon Beacons National Park, including Pen y Fan, the highest mountain in Southern Britain.

22nd March 2021

Taking over from Grace in Manchester, our Technical & Content Director Jo took the team to Wales for the first time, finishing her leg of the tour in Snowdonia National Park. Covering 823 square miles of outstanding natural beauty, the Park is home to the highest mountain in England and Wales and Wales’s largest natural lake.

19th March 2021

The next leg of our TOMD virtual walking tour is not so virtual after all, with Grace walking 203 miles from our previous stop, Belfast, to her home in Manchester!

18th March 2021 

Amanda is taking over from Mariana on the next steps of the TOMD virtual walking tour. She walked 68 miles along this beautiful stretch of coastline and completed her journey in Belfast – the capital city of Northern Ireland!

17th March 2021 

As well as walking the length and breadth of the UK, the team is performing miracles to get there. Mariana walked (or rather rode) on water to cross the sea between Glasgow and Derry, setting foot in Ireland for the first time on the tour!

15th March 2021 

From the northernmost tip of the UK, the team is now making the long journey south on our virtual walking tour. On the first leg of our southward journey is Monica, who is walking the 278 miles from John O’Groats to Glasgow!

12th March 2021 

Our next team member, J-P, also has a dog in tow as he and Teija make their way from Aberdeen to John O’Groats – the northernmost point of mainland Great Britain. That’s 888 miles collectively walked by the team so far – stay tuned for the next 1,612!

10th March 2021 

Taking over from a tired Chris after her marathon trek to Edinburgh, our Corporate Marketing Manager, Clare, and her very cute pup, Wicket, made the 121 mile trek from Edinburgh to Aberdeen – Scotland’s whisky capital!

8th March 2021 

From Huddersfield, our Head of Corporate Marketing, Chris, walked an epic 208 miles up to Scotland’s capital and cultural centre, Edinburgh. First, though, she stopped off in Leeds for a client visit before walking to her hometown of Darlington.

5th March 2021 

It’s the turn of our Marketing & Projects Executive, Jasmine, to be the face of TOMD’s virtual walking tour. She made her way up to Huddersfield, but not before stopping off at her hometown of Newcastle-under-Lyme on the way. Keep following to track the next leg of our journey, taking one of our team members all the way up to Edinburgh!

4th March 2021

Second up on TOMD’s virtual walking tour of the UK is our Web and Digital Assistant, Charlie. Taking over from a tired Nicola in Norwich, he marched the 302,000 steps up to Birmingham – the youngest city in Europe! Stay tuned to follow the team’s next steps as we venture further up the country.

2nd March 2021

Our Head of Design, Nicola, started out on the first leg of TOMD’s virtual tour of the UK on the first of the month, making a quick stop in Cambridge to ‘visit’ a client before heading on up to Norwich. With the sun shining, she made quick work of our first leg of the tour. So that’s 92 miles racked up, and only 2,408 miles left to go… wish us luck!

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The same arithmetic applied at the tail-end of 2019, when we welcomed a new decade. How’s that going so far? ‘Not well’ would be an understatement. Maybe the spoilsports had a point after all and on 1 January 2021 we can make a completely fresh start to the third decade of the third millennium.

Sadly, there’s not a reset button that can give us that fresh start, so it’s a case of ‘brace, brace!’ on final approach to 2021 with many of 2020’s challenges likely to persist, albeit with the prospect of better times beyond. So, where did it all go wrong in the Brexit transition year of 2020?

The answer to that, of course, is that a global pandemic emerged tragically to end many lives and devastate countless others. We’ll all be glad to see 2020 disappearing in the rear-view mirror, but let’s just take a quick rearward glance at the old year through the lens on life that is the TOMD blog.

January

Unaware of the impending health crisis, in our 14 January post Will the £50 polymer be the last hurrah for cash? we explored the trend towards contactless payment and consequent implications for banknote and coin usage. In summing up, we commented “The pace of change in recent years took many people by surprise and the projected future trends in payment methods could be similarly overtaken by events.”  An event to accelerate the demise of cash came far sooner than expected.

February

In the calm before the COVID storm, our 3 February post Professional firms deserve specialist marketing support looked at how regulated businesses benefit from the services of marketing firms that know the ways of their world. We concluded “When it comes to the marketing and advertising of professional firms, knowledge of the relevant legislative and regulatory environment is a crucial quality required of any marketing business engaged by such firms to support and advise them.”

March

As the health and financial threat of the virus became clearer, the new Chancellor Rishi Sunak would clearly have to revise his Budget, due on 11 March. In Budget challenge for new Chancellor (6 March), we said  “With UK coronavirus cases poised to accelerate, the Budget and its mere financial content may seem like a sideshow, but fiscal decisions this year could have a far bigger impact on people’s lives than usual.” The Budget duly heralded financial support for those most affected.

April

Now in lockdown, we reviewed things from a business perspective. Posts included Professions confront virus impact, Housing market squares up to lockdown and Virus isn’t Footsie’s first trauma. The last of these said “Some of the selling was driven by panic, but a major share-price correction wasn’t entirely irrational. Travel bans and lockdowns looked set to disrupt major corporations as well as smaller companies, with dividend cuts, distressed rights issues and possibly worse to follow.”

May

Our posts this month included two, Favouring new customers (15 May) and Customer loyalty schemes (18 May), that chewed over the old question about the value of loyalty. In the first, we asked “So is it ethical, or even legal, for one category of customer (new) to get a better price than another (existing)?” and before going into greater depth offered this brief response: “The answer to the ethical question depends on your perspective and to the legal one it is a qualified ‘yes’.”

June/July

With optimism about infection rates improving, and the Chancellor preparing his ‘eat out to help out’ scheme for August, our thoughts were drawn to a UK holiday destination, Cornwall. This county packs marketing punch (24 July) looked admiringly at the way some Cornish businesses exploit people’s happy holiday memories to sell stuff to them back home. Readers learned “Seasalt also sells chocolates called Seagull Droppings, but Cornwall does have more appealing nibbles.”

August

In Financial plans with a little bit of give (18 August), we noted that the pandemic had given many people time to consider their own and others’ finances and perhaps to review their Wills. We wrote “Help from older people is focused mainly on family, perhaps through cash gifts within the allowances that exclude them from future IHT computations, and often paid into Junior ISAs. There are usually many chances to provide similar help where needed outside the family circle.”

September

Although coronavirus had been dominating the headlines, concerns about climate change remained and minutes of a meeting of the Climate Financial Risk Forum (CFRF) prompted our 14 September post Financial risk and climate change. After outlining the forum’s progress, we added “Four themes signpost the direction of travel for climate change financial policy about which firms will hear more in the coming months as the [CFRF] Guide is progressed and refined.”

October

Conscious of the charitable work carried out by City of London livery companies, especially when times are tough, in Livery companies embrace financial sector (23 October) we looked at their 700-year heritage and ongoing relevance. We highlighted that “There is now a dedicated ‘Financial Services Group of Livery Companies’, which was formed in 2006 and has 12 members, [including] unlikely as it may sound, the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists.”

November

Expanding on the matter of climate change, our 17 November post, Investors’ ethical concerns addressed, covered the wider aspects of responsible investment described as ‘environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues’. We observed “Ethical pooled investment funds may shun the shares of companies that supply tobacco or alcohol products, military arms, pornography or gambling services. In some cases the taboo list extends to mining and fossil fuel production.”

December

During the last month of 2020, coronavirus vied with Bexit for supremacy in national media and of course both those stories are ongoing, as is the theme of the less pressing topic of our 14 December offering, Governor not often a BoE insider. A sub-heading in the post read “Five lords and no ladies” before we ran through the credentials of post-1970 Governors of the Bank of England and emphasised an earlier point that “all Governors (and Chancellors) to date have been men.”

So, farewell 2020, few will mourn your passing but, equally, few will forget you and the impact you had on virtually every aspect of our lives. We hope 2021 has better things in store for all our clients and readers.

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