COVID-19 has made the country a nation of accidental savers. That is an over simplification because many families have really struggled financially since March 2020. But the Bank of England reported that between May and November 2020, British households built up an additional £125bn in savings. That is five time more than in any other nine month period. Over half of that money is lying in a basic bank account. Interest paid is likely to be nil or miniscule.
This pandemic side effect offers St James’s Place Partner Practices with a neat hook to attract new clients. It’s a win-win situation. The saver may not yet be aware of the returns that are available and the financial adviser is able to share a range of different investment choices. How does any IFA or SJP partner practice position themselves to benefit from this situation?
Financial education
We know that any piece of content will need to be approved by compliance officials to ensure no financial promotion etc. Let’s put that to one side for a moment. There is definitely scope for an article that explains why keeping recent savings in a basic bank account will not provide great returns. It’s also worth pointing out that by all means spent some of the saved money. Everybody has earned the right for some retail therapy! (Especially as this article is written on the day non-essential retail re-opened in England.) A report in the Daily Telegraph predicts that of the savings, one-third will be spent and two-thirds will be available for investing.
Marketing opportunity
There is definitely a marketing opportunity here for IFAs. Online marketing is effective when there is a strong identification of “what” and “where”. In this case, what = excess cash unexpectedly available, where = in the geographic vicinity around where your practice is located.
For a marketing campaign to be effective an IFA needs to be realistic about how far from their base they can promote themselves. The proliferation of IFAs means another practice in the next town is equally able to provide this investment service. For a specific campaign like this, we recommend anchoring the subject to a location. This is the guiding principal in creating content and any SEO around the message.
Marketing Strategy for IFAs
The ‘what and where’ marketing principal underpins our advice to IFAs wanting an effective online strategy. The analogy is that it’s better to be a big fish in a small pond.
There are so many opportunities to place and promote your approved article. You must tweak it, so it is not identical each time (Google doesn’t approve of duplicate content). The opportunities include an article:
- On the IFAs own website (including SEO)
- In a local community magazine
- On Google My Business
- On the website “Nextdoor”
There are also a number of social media opportunities as well, including:
- Placing links to the article of any community Facebook pages
- Sharing the article on the IFAs own social media channels
The topic of investing pandemic savings will likely be relevant for quite a few months. There is scope to repeat the massages on a few occasions, tweaking as you go. Sixth Sense Marketing provides outsourced marketing tailored for IFAs and SJP Practices. Our work over time helps advisers receive more enquiries because their online visibility has been improved markedly. For details on outsourcing your marketing activity contact Sixth Sense Marketing.
