Quarter 3, 2012
Imagining Your Ideal Niche: How to Prosper in a Crowded Market
Look into any successful business and, chances are, it serves a niche. Some niches are wider than others and often businesses find they have created a specialization by chance.
Nonetheless, head-to-head competitors often have an upper hand by creating efficiency with a niche strategy. For example, Lowe's, the home improvement goliath, tends to have a greater appeal to women compared to its main rival Home Depot. Why? It harnessed the spending power of women by implementing marketing programs tailored to female consumers in the 1980s. This program included everything from store design to advertising, from friendly sales staff to community outreach programs. Fast forward 20 years later and it now has a stronger foothold on female consumers.
Generation X and Y Investors Are the Future of Your Business. The Time to Engage Them is Now
For advisors, the over-50 Baby Boomers have been the focus of keen attention, a situation even more pronounced as these investors approach retirement. Such emphasis on these higher-asset clients has served advisors well, but it also represents significant business risk as the Boomers begin withdrawing assets for retirement.
Serving Women Investors Was Once Considered a Boutique Business. Today, It is Imperative for Success
Advisors have long viewed women investors, at best, as a secondary market or, at worst, as a minor niche market to be served by a few specialists. However, significant social and economic trends are gradually putting more women investors in the driver's seat, and advisors who do not develop successful approaches for serving them may be left in the dust in the coming years.
Building a Business With Business Owners
The three million private business owners across the U.S. are viable prospects for advisory firms. Surprisingly, less than one-third of advisory firms focus on entrepreneurs when developing a target market criteria. This lack of attention, combined with the vast number of entrepreneurs and their wide range of demands for advice, represents tremendous opportunity for advisors. Given the complexity of their needs, entrepreneurs tend to be highly dependent on their advisors, which creates strong client loyalty and supports high levels of client retention. Further, by serving a specific type of entrepreneur, advisory firms can develop a reputation for providing deeply specialized and targeted advice that other firms cannot replicate. As a result, clients are more apt to provide referrals, market share grows more readily and the advisory firm is more protected from generalist competitors.
Your Marketing Toolkit: Determining Your Marketing Mix
The economic recession, followed by a lagging recovery, has only brought more anxiety to the advisory community. Additionally, investor confidence and trust is at an all time low. Recent studies suggest a growing number of investors appear willing to leave their current financial advisor even though trust in financial organizations and advisors is on the rise. Is this trend an opportunity or a threat?
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