What are the best compliant marketing and communication tools for your Financial Advice business?

Well it depends on the kind of marketer you are.

In PART ONE of this two part series we had a bit of fun looking at the best vehicle to get your business to where you want to be without getting stung by OTT road rules (we called Compliance). In this article, we drew comparisons between driving styles and traits like marketing skills and resources.

In other words: Type of Driver = Type of Marketer and/or Client Communicator.

And then we suggested the best type of vehicle for each type of driver.

See: [Compliant Marketing] What kind of vehicle should you drive?

Well now lets look at some of the mar-comms tools that are out there and relate them to the kind of automobile that best suits you.

 

WHICH TOOLS ARE BEST SUITED TO YOUR STYLE OF MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS?

 

Formula 1 – The elite professional.

Your main role and passion is high performance marketing. You have the time, skills and budget to drive an elite set of tools. You’ll be writing blog content and driving integrated email and social media campaigns as well as automating sales funnel marketing. This will all be measured regularly with fully integrated reports.

And being a Formula One driver, tech and features are worth the higher price it if it gives you an edge.

Tools you may drive:

• Infusionsoft – Sales and marketing email automation and campaigns. Includes a Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Priced from $445pm because you’ll need all the features you can get for your large database.
• Hootsuite, Buffer – Manage, publish, schedule and measure all your social media in one place. Pricing $127pm (Hootsuite or Buffer).
• Klipfolio – Combine your Infusionsoft and Buffer metrics into a single dashboard. Pricing $63pm.
• Klout, Scoop.it, Flipboard – You will probably use content aggregator tools like one of these free ($0pm) examples to give you inspiration for your own content. But you shouldn’t simply be sharing stuff from here (because it is not likely to be compliance to do so).

 

Luxury Sedan – Money is no object.

You don’t have the same level of marketing skill (nor the time or desire) as the Formula One driver so you’ll pay for an agency to set you up so that a lot of your marketing is either automated or managed by someone else. You may write some content but most of it is probably done by your agency.

And the more you pay, the better it must be – right?

Tools you may drive:

• Hubspot – Fully integrated and sophisticated email and social media marketing. Includes a CRM. Priced from $1050pm (you can pay less (and more), but you’ll need most of the bells and whistles because your agency reckons you need them – and they are probably getting a kick-back too).
• Agency retainer – You are getting most of your manual marketing and reporting done by someone else. Most likely on a retainer (from $2000pm).

 

SUV – Have fun when you want to.

You enjoy and have an interest in marketing, social media and writing the occasional article on your blog – but it is not your main focus. You can only really justify about an hour a fortnight taking the wheel and going off-road, otherwise you need your marketing and communications to be on autopilot.

Tools you may drive:

• Feedsy – Fresh weekly content added to a hosted blog for auto-emailing as a newsletter every month and for you to schedule your shares on social media. You also add your own content every month (because you enjoy it!) From $79pm.
• Facebook – Did you know you can schedule the sharing of your article within Facebook? And it’s free.
• Hootsuite – Because you manage Twitter and LinkedIn as well as Facebook, you use Hootsuite to manage, schedule and measure your social media. The free version ($0pm) is all you need.

 

Hatchback – It’s all a bit of a chore.

You never seem to find the time to write that occasional article on your blog. And then when you do it’s a pain to practically recreate it in your email newsletter and then send it out.

However most of the time you just share stuff on Facebook and LinkedIn that you have found on the internet because it is easier. But hold on a minute … there is no disclaimer or disclosure statement on their article.

Are you being compliant? Doh!

Too busy to worry about that now – back to work.

Tools you may drive:

• WordPress – Your blog is already on your website so you don’t see the hidden costs of maintenance and hosting. Free (but is it really?).
• Mailchimp – You manually build each newsletter which happens once a month (well maybe every 2nd or 3rd). You don’t mind the Mailchimp branding so are happy to pay $0pm for it.
• Facebook – You may not be enjoying the free scheduling within Facebook. It’s free.

 

Tesla Model S – Welcome to the future.

You are less hands-on than the SUV mar-comms driver so look for more effortless automation.

You have ideas for your own articles but not the time to create them – so you carefully brief and outsource them.

Some still prefer their news on paper but instead of bulk printing and mailing you easily create and print just what you need.

Tools you may drive:

• FeedsyWeb+Mail – Fresh weekly content added to a hosted blog for auto-emailing as a newsletter every month. You don’t have time to add your own content or share on social media. From $79pm.
• FeedsyWrite – Easily brief your own 500 word bespoke article including a photo and SEO. Pricing from $231ea.
• FeedsySocial – Social media shares with the human touch – done for you. Pricing $220pm.
• Facebook Boosted Posts – For as little as $5 per day, increase the reach of your social media posts by paying for the privilege. This can be managed by FeedsySocial.
• FeedsyPrint – printed newsletters and fact sheets in seconds and straight from your blog. Pricing $22pm.

 

 

By Foot – Too afraid to even get behind the wheel.

You’re putting your faith in the goodwill and the referral network you have generated.

Growth is not something you desire but you manage to pick up enough clients by physically exchanging business cards at your monthly networking events.

Tools you may drive:

• Business cards – you go through boxes of these things!
• Networking memberships – luckily your family are OK with your attendances at early breakfast and late night networking events.

 

By Bus – Happy to get there with everyone else.

Your marketing and communications is something you know you need to do but you don’t want to spend any effort on it. You just need something that is affordable and the bare minimum to keep your brand welcome and in front of your customers and prospects.

Email is the channel of choice (partly because you don’t really ‘get’ social media).

Tools you may drive:

• FeedsyWeb+Mail – Fresh weekly content added to a hosted blog for auto-emailing as a newsletter every month. You don’t have time to add your own content or share on social media. From $79pm.

 

An Uber – Smart and in control.

You want to be able to easily set-up your ride and then not drive. Giving instructions should be easy and all the hard work is done by someone else (or by automation).

Tools you may drive:

• FeedsyWeb+Mail – Fresh weekly content added to a hosted blog for auto-emailing as a newsletter every month. You don’t have time to write your own content or share on social media. From $79pm.
• FeedsyWrite – Bulk brief your own 500 word bespoke articles including a photo and SEO. Pricing from $231ea.
• FeedsySocial – Social media shares with the human touch – done for you. Pricing $220pm.
• Facebook Boosted Posts – Set your monthly budget and let FeedsySocial increase the reach of your social media posts by managing paying Facebook for the privilege. 
• FeedsyEats – OK, Feedsy may not be delivering food any time soon but there are some new services on the horizon.

So which of these tools are best for you? Did we miss any?

 

Let us know, suggest other modes of transport and join the fun on our Facebook Page.