Aptus Consultants

Blogs started life as means by which people could record their views online on any subject they wanted to comment on. They have become ever more popular, and in January 2009 Technorati estimated that since 2002 over 133 million blog accounts have been created.

Of course the vast majority of blogs are published by individuals, but blogging is increasingly being seen as a low cost but effective marketing tool for businesses. According to SocialText, 16% of the Fortune 500 companies were blogging in 2009, up from just 3% in 2006. Meanwhile, in 2008 the New York Times suggested over 5% of the 25 million small businesses in the US now produce a blog.

Given that we work in an industry which revolves around staying informed, building relationships and creating trust, there are any number of reasons why it makes sense for IFAs and Planners to produce a blog, and here are just five:

1. Regular communication

Blogging is a great way of regularly keeping in touch with your clients, providing of course it is done the right way which means:

• Ensuring that the content of the blog is interesting by focussing on what your target audience might want to know.
• Resisting the temptation to overtly advertise as nothing is more likely to turn off the reader.
• Committing to writing posts on a regular basis, usually at least once a week.
• Providing a variety of channels by which your readers can access the blog (e.g. website, newsletter, RSS feed)

Get these basics right and you will find that you have a low cost but effective method of staying in touch every week with your most valuable asset, your clients.

2. Demonstrate insight

As I mentioned in my last but one blog post, there is a huge volume of financial information available on line, so there is a challenge for financial intermediaries to stand out against this background noise.

Blogging provides an excellent solution which not only lets you to participate in the information flow but also allows you to demonstrate your insight by using your knowledge to comment on the ‘hot’ financial topics of the day. This insight is key to helping clients understand the value of advice and in differentiating it for mere information.

3. Add value

In the post RDR world, one question most clients will ask themselves is ‘did I get value for money from the fee I paid’. A challenge for IFAs therefore will be to find ways of adding value to the service they deliver, ideally by giving ‘toffees’ (i.e. high perceived value, low delivery cost services) with the advice they provide.

A financial blog can add such value in that it can be positioned as a service that clients are subscribed to and which will give them regular news and comment on financial matters.

4. Generate business

As I have mentioned previously, blogs should not be used for advertising but nevertheless they can be a great way of helping you to build your business as they:

• Provide regular communications to existing clients, thus helping you to maintain your relationship.
• Promote you to the wider public, thus creating opportunities to attract new client.
• Generate more traffic to your site, especially if they incorporate links to other articles of interest.
• Improve your search engine optimisation, so making your site easier to find.

5. Stay informed

One spin off but very real benefit of blogging is that the search for the latest financial news or trends does force you to keep abreast of the latest industry developments. Not only does such searching provide the subject matter for your blog, it also helps to ensure that you can demonstrate the currency of your knowledge and the breadth of your expertise when you are next sitting down with your client.

So with all these benefits, why is it that so few IFAs or Planners produce a blog? Here is a selection of excuses which are often trotted out:

a) It takes too much time!

Producing a regular blog does require effort, and 3 hours per article is not an unrealistic time allowance. But ask yourself a simple question, given the potential benefits outlined above, are there many other things that fill your days that represent a better investment of your time than writing a blog article?

b) It’s a compliance risk!

If you think compliance is a major issue then you have probably misunderstood what blogging is for. Remember, it is not about advertising, product promotion or providing individual advice, it is about broadcast communication and the demonstration of knowledge.

c) I don’t know what to write about!

Oh please, we live or die in this industry according to our ability to communicate, yet plead some form of collective writer’s block when it comes to scripting articles of interest for our clients. The truth is that there are always things going on in our industry which our worthy of comment, we just need to blend the time it takes to find them with a little creative thought to turn them in to interesting and digestible comment.

d) My clients don’t want it!

Guess what, people look to the web all of the time for information. According to Universal McCann, 77% of web users regularly read blogs. Coincidently, according to Mintel, 77% of UK consumers now see the internet as the best method of researching financial services products. So please don’t fool yourself in to thinking that the only time your clients think about financial services is when they sit down with you for the annual review, and if you aren't giving them the information they want, who is?

e) It’s too complicated!

No it is not! There are no technology barriers to writing a blog, indeed there are countless tools available to help you such as WordPress and Blogger. Better still, you can incorporate your blog in to your website so as to provide a fully joined up experience for your users.

So why not give blogging a go, the great thing about the internet of course is that there are hundreds of blogs out there that can tell you how to do it!