“What’s new this year in financial services marketing?” That’s usually how our annual brainstorm call with our favorite client kicks off. It’s a great question and one that needs to be asked more often.

But the sober truth is that a lot of the “new” isn’t so technologically groundbreaking — but rather focuses on doing things better, for less cost, and with greater impact. And, faced with all the new technology that is constantly on the move, it’s more important than ever to improve upon the basics.

… so what’s new? 

With options for communication becoming easier and more fluid year over year, the question to ask is not what you can do but what you should be doing to make those communications more meaningful.

The most important thing is to put yourself in your client’s shoes. I don’t want tweets from my bank, or a reminder to save every time I swipe my credit card. Just because it is possible doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

What I do want is simpler, easier-to-read statements. Easy to find phone numbers when I need to speak with a real, live person. For my money manager to check in with me on a regular basis (not just when he wants to sell me a new product to up his commission), for an in-browser experience that has as much panache as the app version (and please don’t force me to use the app version).

Scrape back the surface, and most companies see a major hemorrhage of money to fix these needs. Statements means taking on the IT department or processing company. Phone numbers mean a more rigorously staffed call center. More customer check-ins mean a more attuned relationship manager who treats his or her smaller clients as importantly as the large ones. (Isn’t it easier just to tweet a little every not and again?)

All valid arguments — but all are necessary to keeping business. And, where a review of your services are only a mouse-click away, word-of-mouth and referrals are more important than ever.

I recently heard a great buzzword for this, coined (and trademarked) by business guru Ted Rubin — ROR, Return on Relationship. Simply put, it’s the investment you make in your existing clients that will organically grow new ones.

Smart companies spend as much, possibly more, on growing their existing relationships as they do trying to forge new ones. It’s your current clients who will make or break your bottom-line. And with so much media focused on capturing “new” eyeballs, your existing clients may be feeling a little neglected. (I think of this every time my big-bank or bit-telecom sends me a promotion for cash back on new services — when I’ve been their client consistently for the better part of two decades.)  

Focus on the experience of your current clients. How can you make their interaction with you better? Communication more fluid? Offers that apply to them as well as new customers? What are they comfortable using? How do they share recommendations with their peers? All these questions are focused on making their interaction with you easier and more meaningful. 

Once the pieces are in place, “easier” and “we’re listening to you” is a great message to promote to your clients.

“A good offense is the best defense,” we’ve all heard it, but what does it mean to marketing? Here’s a great example.

We have a client, who manages the accounts of many institutional clients, including a number of large foundations and endowments. 

Now we all know that endowment management is about steady, safe, boring old growth — not a very sexy message when Wall Street’s bulls are running.

At issue was our client’s potential for losing accounts during Board turnovers, when, a newly-installed board member would inevitably say “I have a guy…”

For most companies (us included), the highest risk of lost business happens during transitions. And for our client, with so many Board members continually changing-over, it was a full-time job just to keep up with all the people in motion.

Our solution, one which they still use, was to create materials that provided a good offensive strategy.

We helped them develop a strong, timely series of publications which are delivered to their clients on a regular basis. We also redesigned their quarterly performance materials to provide an easy to read summary that shows strategy, performance, and commentary from each of their managers. The company furthers develops this series by creating timely white papers (created in Word templates that we developed for them) allowing them to email thought pieces or respond to current news items.

This endless stream of intelligently written, easy to read quarterly performance materials, commentary, and analysis helps the company retain clients by being proactive in their communication with them. And they’ve realized that a binder full of timely, thoughtfully-produced materials does wonders to quell the fears of new board members.

And while committing to producing these materials is costly and time-consuming, they’ve realized that the annual cost is far less than one lost client engagement.

One of our favorite projects to date started with the above request. It stemmed from some prospect-sales staff role-playing we did with the client to better understand how they could connect with their prospects.

What we found was —no matter how “different” they said they were — every engagement started with the same “let’s do an analysis of your assets and liabilities” questionnaire. It didn’t matter how much money you had, the form was pretty much the same.

We soon realized that the guaranteed way to STOP a conversation was to pull out this form — who is comfortable being completely honest with their financials in front of a complete stranger?

What we needed was a better way to start this conversation. One that is less one-sided, would foster an honest discussion, could be worked on in private and with family members, was plain-English, and has NO wrong answers.

Working closely with their internal marketing team, we developed a series of exploratory tools which fostered a conversation about wealth — without mentioning money.

These tools were developed by interviewing the sales staff and having them tell us what are some of the most common, concerning, and oddest conversations they’ve had with their clients. From this information, we scripted nearly a hundred issue statements, written from the client’s point of view. We then developed a series of low-tech ways to get these issues into the hands of the potential clients — something they could discuss as a couple or family and push around their kitchen table far in advance of an initial meeting.

The results were immediate. Rather than showing up with balance sheet form in hand, the sales rep could really get to know clients’ needs, wishes, and obligations (and on what timeframe they wanted it on). Behind each issue was a specific financial need, for example, a card that read “I don’t like who my son/daughter married” spoke to per stripes inheritance or structured trusts.

This was a great exercise for us — it allowed our creativity to shine — and received raves from prospects.