Don't throw the analogue baby out with the digital bathwater. Here's how to balance the old with the new.
As blogs, newsletters and videos become normal modes of client communication, financial services professionals are heading into a brave new world of digitisation. But, as Anders Sorman-Nilsson argues, while new online communication channels can’t be ignored, old school communications are key to connecting with your customers’ enduringly analogue, emotional hearts.
We are entering a world of ‘digital disruption’: the idea that everything that can be digitised will eventually be digitised. This includes the customer service and marketing touchpoints that are essential tools for financial services professionals seeking to win the hearts and minds of tomorrow’s customer.
Digital disruption is a force to be reckoned with for financial services professionals such as mortgage professionals, financial advisers and insurance brokers, but it doesn’t mean that everything that can be digitised should necessarily be digitised. It’s essential to pay careful attention to your communications mix so that you don’t throw out the analogue baby with the digital bathwater. While the digital world represents a shiny new penny that is key to engaging with the customer’s increasingly digitised, rational mind, old-school communications remain vital to connecting with the customer’s enduringly analogue, emotional heart.
The digital world disintermediates the relationship between financial and bricks-and mortar investments and the end consumer, and that consumer is increasingly doing their due diligence digitally. This means that you run the risk of being digitally disintermediated unless you start providing more value to the customer, via both digital and analogue channels.
Think about it this way: digital is phenomenal for attracting new clients, and analogue is great for retaining (cross-selling and closing) existing clients. Thus, you need to become a thought leader in the way that you provide informational, rational value to clients’ increasingly digital minds, while still connecting emotionally with their enduringly analogue hearts.
To be able to compete with digital comparison portals, and to protect yourself against digital disintermediation, it’s critical that you figure out which touchpoints you should digitise and which ones you shouldn’t digitise. This isn’t a choice between either the digital or the analogue channel. Instead, you must go ‘digilogue’. Here’s how you can do this.
PROVIDE VALUE TO DIGITAL MINDS
Put your industry thought leadership and professional expertise on the digital line by creating a great blog, newsletter, and well designed, interactive website. Create a ‘4-2-1’ digital content schedule: blogging four times per month, sending two digital newsletters per month, and creating engaging and educational video content at least once per quarter.
For example, a mortgage broker in Surry Hills, Sydney, could create a 4-2-1 digital content schedule to provide informational value to clients’ (and prospective clients’) digital minds, while also boosting their Google rankings. It would look something like this:
‘4-2-1’ DIGITAL CONTENT SCHEDULE
BLOG
1. “The impact of the RBA decision on home loans in Surry Hills”
2. “3 things to think about when buying in Surry Hills”
3. “Do’s and don’ts when talking about home loans with the major banks”
4. “Top 7 questions to ask yourself when choosing a home loan in Surry Hills”
DIGITAL NEWSLETTER
1. “3 tips to ensure a thicker wallet with the right home loan”
2. “Surry Hills property trends – why the time is right!”
VIDEO
1. Interviews with happy clients who now reside in Surry Hills, or video footage of lifestyle factors such as cafes and restaurants in the area
BEING SEEN
You must be seen in the digital world. Your prospects need to start trusting you as a thought leader in the digital world before making an approach to see you in the analogue world. In the digital world, where clients are doing their digital due diligence, offering engaging content is king.
Creating search-engine optimised, localised content that can be easily accessed by a prospect contextually via mobile devices will be key to your success in winning digital minds. For example, have content on offer that your clients can view while they’re walking up the street in your area and checking out property.
CONNECT WITH ANALOGUE HEARTS
While it is critical that you, as a finance professional, are digitally accessible and provide value to digital minds, you also have to ensure that you connect deeply with analogue hearts. Traditionally and enduringly, most transactions take place in the analogue, face-to-face world. Big deals are usually still sealed with a handshake. There is something about the ritual of signing on the dotted line with a Montblanc pen, for example, that the digital world still cannot mirror.
It’s absolutely necessary to make each tangible analogue encounter with clients, and prospective clients, world class. If a client, or prospective client, decides to spend analogue, face-to-face time with you, you must show incredible respect for the time they invest with you by connecting deeply with their analogue hearts.
In June 2013, when I spoke at the Million Dollar Round Table for global financial advisers and insurance professionals in Philadelphia, I gave the following recommendations. Have a think about them:
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Scenario planning and consulting on a one-on-one basis with your client: My financial advisers at Sentinel Wealth do this incredibly well. We sit down each quarter face-to-face and revisit goals and the long-term plan. They provide me with hindsight, insight and foresight based on our plan, while providing a sense of partnership during these conversations.
- Writing a handwritten card: This will remind the client of their investment and savings goal, or congratulate them on goals achieved. When I was working with mortgage brokers who sold Advantedge products, one broker said that writing handwritten notes was his key way of adding analogue value and ensuring he retained his clients’ loyalty.
- Hosting investment and financial literacy workshops for clients and their friends: This is a great way of adding value to existing relationships, while also building a pipeline of trusted referrals.
- Speaking at industry conferences: This will boost your personal brand and thought leadership credentials, and harness your financial networks (accountants, mortgage professionals, stockbrokers, banks, etc.) both for speaking opportunities and face-to-face introductions. If you become a trusted adviser and thought leader within your industry, the likelihood is that the industry will talk about you. This in turn can generate positive PR and recommendations.
There is a time to be digital and there is a time to be analogue. Financial services professionals must ensure they find the correct blend. Digital is phenomenal for attracting new clients and for boosting your own digitally amplified branding, while analogue can be great for building enduring trust, retaining business, and closing deals.
Increasingly, you must learn to shift seamlessly between the digital and analogue worlds. In one word, you must start becoming ‘digilogue’.
Anders Sorman-Nilsson is a global futurist, innovation strategist, keynote speaker at TEDx and author of the new book, Digilogue: How to Win the Digital Minds and Analogue Hearts of Tomorrow’s Customer. The book is published by Wiley and is available in bookstores nationwide and through Anders Sorman-Nilsson’s website at www.digiloguebook.com.
