Following presentations to 1,000 IFAs over a three week period in September 2009, IFA Life has discovered that whilst almost all IFAs believe that marketing is important to their business, only 5% have a formal marketing plan.
And whilst the majority of IFAs now accept that the Internet is becoming increasingly important in finding new clients and professional connections, a staggering 99% admit that they do not have an Internet marketing plan. Many IFAs are now making greater use of Internet marketing tools such as social networking websites, but for the most part it is unstructured and without a plan.
An earlier marketing survey by IFA Life revealed that whilst 95% of IFAs believed that networking was an important marketing activity, only 5% consciously made the effort to attend a weekly or monthly networking meeting.
Founder of IFA Life and IFA Internet marketing expert Philip Calvert said: "There's no doubt that IFAs believe that marketing - both online and offline is an important business activity. But for some reason, the majority are not doing anything about it."
"The vast majority of IFAs still rely on ad hoc referrals from clients and professional connections, but are not formalising or measuring their approach to lead generation. This will inevitably cause problems for them in the future if their approach to marketing is not structured."
