Firstly, spend some time thinking about why you like advising your clients. What is it that they get from you and what is it that you enjoy?

Everything will stem from your beliefs about the value you bring and the difference you make – good marketing will help you articulate this and attract the right clients.

This can depend on several things: who you want to work with, where your clients are, how much resource and budget you have, what you enjoy doing and so forth.

There are rarely any quick wins or silver bullets with this and so it’s important to do the research, build insight and make sensible decisions about where you spend your time.

There is lots of research that shows where past successes have been made but the answer for each business will be different.

It depends on what you mean by marketing and what you’re trying to achieve.

• Is marketing to you about generating new leads?

• Is it about implementing a client servicing strategy?

• Is it about promoting your (new?) brand and business to a new area?

• Are you looking to engage with your audience through digital channels?

• Perhaps you’re not quite sure?

• Or perhaps all of the above?

Speaking to a professional who understands how this all knits together and how to prioritise, will help.

We must admit, many financial adviser firms look alike and it’s hard to know how or what to do to make yours stand out.

This is where understanding your brand comes in – and often something that advisers don’t spend enough time thinking about.

• How do you differentiate?

• How do you reflect this externally?

• And most importantly, what are you trying to achieve?

From experience, many practices don’t have a clear understanding of the importance of having a clear target audience/s. The more broad and vanilla your message, the less it will resonate with anyone.

Good marketing is about good communication, and good communication is about understanding needs, challenges and messaging - which will be different depending on who you’re speaking to.

So before you’re looking to attract new clients, deeply consider who you want to work with. From there it is much easier to build a strategy to grow.

Marketing should be considered an investment.

Whatever we do, we need to find solutions that work to your resources. That’s a fundamental part of what we do – it’s about building something that is sustainable and manageable, and most importantly, effective.

Marketing doesn’t have to cost much – as long as we work smart, use the technology at our disposal, keenly focus on objectives and track our results - it’s about how and what you deploy.

The focus is the return on your investment.

For many reasons!

It’s similar to what you provide your clients – expertise and experience to guide you down the right path.

It is someone to diagnose, to devise and to implement - someone who helps you achieve your objectives.

There are many facets to marketing. A good consultant will always work with you to ensure that you can carry on without them, so it must be manageable and it must be doable. And it must achieve the results you’re after!

Moorish Idol Marketing is a marketing consultancy for financial advisers.

Gail Glennie, founder of Moorish Idol, has nearly 20 years’ experience in financial services marketing. She has spent her career testing and learning what works and what doesn’t.

Having spent the last five years as Head of Consultancy (London & South East region) at St. James’s Place, she has helped hundreds of financial advice firms launch brands, generate new clients, build referral strategies, create client communications and servicing strategies…and the list goes on!

Confident, curious and capable, she brings insight and helps you build a strategy that works. You’ll also have fun along the way!

Firstly, we’d have a chemistry call – are we the right fit for each other? Marketing consultation often requires sharing your aspirations and problems, so we must trust and understand each other. It’s important to see how you feel first.

If you want to proceed, we’ll have an initial scoping meeting to delve into the objectives, vision, resource, budget and challenges. This is completely free of charge.

You will receive an initial estimate, outlining costs for your review before we embark on anything.

Each business is different, so let’s have a chat.