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Marketing your
‘at retirement’ proposition
How to get great results
In an increasingly competitive marketplace, it is vital to give
your business the best possible chance of success by clearly
differentiating yourself from your competitors, establishing
the value of your service and advice and marketing yourself
effectively to both existing and potential clients.
Defining your company’s proposition, as well as identifying
and communicating with clients efficiently using appropriate
segmentation models, will help you develop effective
marketing that evolves and grows your business.
In this guide, we take you through the different steps
involved in marketing – and growing – your ‘at retirement’
business. From deciding on the best contact strategy for
your clients, to making the most of those contacts using
cross-selling and referrals. We’ll also show you how to
evaluate the impact of your marketing strategy, so that you
know what works for your business, and what to change
for the next time.
Develop your proposition
Why should a client choose you over another
intermediary?
If you can answer this question in one short sentence, then
you have a strong business proposition which differentiates
your service from your competitors’. You’ll often see this
referred to as a ‘value proposition’ or an ‘elevator pitch’
which is the short, high-impact description of the value you
can deliver to your clients.
Once you can explain why they should consider taking
your service over that of your competitors, you can
demonstrate it in more detail by explaining the advice
process that you would take a client through and how
that process maximises the chances of them making
better-informed decisions. It’s also important to define
and explain all the work that will be required to provide
the advice.
Focus on benefits, outcomes, and results. Your proposition
should tap into a customer need and provide a solution.
Financial advice can be highly complex but the outcome
should be defined simply. For example, in the case of
retirement business, the resulting benefit could be extra
retirement income or greater financial security.
Why is your ‘elevator pitch’ important?
Following the Retail Distribution Review (RDR), clients can
now more easily compare the costs of advised and specialist
services with non-advised services, where fees are not
charged but commission is taken.
That’s why it’s important to be able to succinctly define the
value of your service to a client, over the alternatives that
they may be considering.
The difference to the client of receiving advice that they pay
a fee for and the cost of a non-advised product may not
be that great.
But as well as telling your target audience what you can
do for them, it needs to include the reasons they should be
interested – what’s in it for them?
It is vital that when you are planning and implementing your own marketing and promotional activity you
follow the rules and guidance set by the regulator or other relevant authority.
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Marketing your ‘at retirement’ proposition
Your value proposition in action:
Things to check:
Is it clear which market
your value proposition is
aimed at?
Done
Specifically, if you want to promote your retirement income planning expertise,
your broad target audience is the over-50s. In terms of segmentation, you could
be thinking about:
• People close to retirement: potential to generate leads for a Guaranteed
Income for Life and drawdown.
• People who have already retired: potential to generate leads for equity
release and clients who are in drawdown that may be looking for advice on
an exit strategy.
Is it obvious which
products or services
you are offering to your
target audience?
Be clear about your offer, and include the benefits of the product or service:
• For people close to retirement: a Guaranteed Income for Life solution
(provided by an annuity) provides a regular income for the rest of your life.
• For people who have already retired: equity release could unlock the potential
value in your home to boost your retirement income.
• Guaranteed income for life solution may also be suitable for people who are
looking to exit or phase their exit from drawdown.
Can you back up your
claims with case studies,
customer testimonials
or feedback?
Positive feedback and glowing testimonials are invaluable to a growing business.
People like to hear what other customers have to say – and this is especially true
of an older audience. Use every opportunity to back up your statements with
real life examples eg. how you helped Mr. Smith increase his retirement income
by x%. Customer quotes act as proof that what you say about yourself is true.
Make sure that you include these in the testimonials section of your website,
and keep them up to date.
Developing your ‘vision’ or ‘mission’
statement
Top tip
When you’re thinking about your business, one of the most
important things to consider is your ‘mission statement’. In
many ways, it’s what brings your proposition to life – and
sets you apart from your competitors.
The five key things to consider when
you’re writing your mission statement:
It should drive everything your business does, and again,
you need to be able to sum it up in a clear and simple way.
It’s what you stand for – so think of your mission statement
as the rock that underpins all your business activity and
explains to your clients why you are in business, offering
the services you offer.
What you do –
the nature of your business
Who you are –
the name of your business
Who you do it for –
the customers of your business
How you do it –
the scope of your business activities
Why you do it –
what makes your business special
2
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Marketing your ‘at retirement’ proposition
Here’s how some famous brands get their message across:
Nikeiration
insp
To bring tion to every
va
and inno in the world.
e
t
le
ath
Gooe gthle
e world’s
To organiz nd make it
information a ccessible
universally a l.
and usefu
Starbucks
To inspire and
nu
the human spir rture
it
person, one cu – one
p
neighbourhood and one
at a time.
ent
Just Retireedm
Limit g
din
To be the lea known
d
n
ra
retirement b r enriching
fo
and trusted ers’ lives.
m
to
s
u
c
r
ou
As you can see, you get a good impression of the values
and personality of each company from the way they
express their mission statement. Not only that – your
statement can be concise and still get your message
across successfully.
On the flip side, some big brands have watered their
mission statements down to the point where they are
virtually meaningless. This is often a reflection of a loss
of corporate identity, poor public image, a downturn in
profits, or unrest within the company.
Successful companies are customer-focused, confident,
and recognise the importance of communicating their
values to the outside world – and that goes for small local
firms as well as international organisations.
Amazon
st
Our vision is to be earth’s mo
y;
pan
customer centric com
to build a place where people
can come to find and discover
anything they might want to
buy online.
Tesco
To be the
customer champion for
enjoy a b s, helping them
e
and an ea tter quality of life
sier way
of living.
Where you would use your mission statement
It is not something that you need to actively promote.
One place to feature it would be on your website, perhaps
as the strapline on your home page. Or you could use
it effectively at the start of a presentation to give your
audience an insight into your approach and what you
stand for.
Most importantly, it’s something you should live and
breathe and include invisibly in all your business activities
as a springboard to help you grow your business.
Top tip
Be inspiring!
Use words that inspire action, positivity, and confidence.
Read your statement aloud, to make sure it sounds
natural and something you can believe in. Keep it short!
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3
Marketing your ‘at retirement’ proposition
Getting to know your clients better
Getting started
How to segment your clients
You can buy sophisticated software to help you track and
sort your client data, but one quick and simple way to do
this is with a spreadsheet.
Whether you have a small or large number of clients,
segmentation allows you to tap into opportunities that may
be hidden within your client base. The key is to understand
and identify the features that group clients or potential
clients together, so that clients fall into distinct groups,
each significantly different from the others. Clients may
move between segments depending on how their personal
circumstances and/or requirements change over time.
Segmenting your client database involves dividing a broad
target audience into subsets of clients who have common
needs and uses of your company’s services.
These subsets can then be divided further, using criteria
such as age, life-stage or gender, or other distinctions
including their needs, location, or income.
Once you’ve done this, you can select groups of clients
and tailor your communications accordingly – and avoid
situations where you’re marketing a retirement message
to young people.
Understanding who your clients are and what their
requirements are will help you:
• Identify clients effectively, using segmentation to group
them into meaningful segments that you can target with
different messages/models.
• Decide which is the best contact strategy for each of
your segments and make the most of those contacts,
with targeted messages, cross-selling, and referrals.
• Evaluate your marketing strategy’s effect and continue
to grow your business.
Keep the information up to date, and think about including
the following, as well as any other criteria that would help
you segment your client data in a meaningful way:
Personal details – name, age and address
Family details – married or single, age and
number of children
Life-stage – young families, empty
nesters and so on
Employment and salary
Products held – savings and investments,
pensions and income solutions etc.
Value within each product – overall totals,
plus regular payments in/income payments out
Start dates, plus renewal or maturing dates
Date of retirement – actual and planned
Attitude to risk
Chief concerns – eg. tax-efficient
investments, inheritance tax etc.
For business clients – type of business,
size of company etc.
Marketing permissions – are they happy
for you to contact them in the future?
Chief concerns – eg. tax-efficient
investments, inheritance tax etc.
Channel preference – would they prefer
you contact them by phone, email or post?
4
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Marketing your ‘at retirement’ proposition
Using segmentation
Once you have segmented your clients and identified
the characteristics and requirements of each group, you
can use this information to engage them with relevant
products, services, or information.
You can also use segments to spot particular client needs,
which you can then act on with a phone call, email, or
letter. For example, if you have several clients expressing
concerns about their retirement income or long-term
financial security in retirement, this could prompt a
discussion about equity release.
Now make better contacts
Once you’ve decided who you want to talk to, you
need to decide when to talk to them.
Getting the timing right can have a huge impact on
response rates – perhaps even more than an offer or
incentive. The reason is that it’s always easier to sell to
someone who has already started the purchase process
than someone who isn’t in the market. So think in terms
of seasonality, event-targeted communications, and eventtriggered communications.
Event-targeting
Top tip
Look for clues
Think how the products you offer can relate to the
client segments you’ve identified:
• A wedding, a divorce, a new baby, a new job, a new
home, retirement, new business start-ups – clients
undergoing change in their life often benefit from a
full financial review (pension planning, tax-efficient
saving, Guaranteed Income for Life solution,
drawdown, insurance, equity release).
• Look for common factors – eg. people who
retired five or more years ago who may now
require more income.
This allows you to time your communication around
something you know about your client. For example,
it could be a year since the client purchased or enquired
about a product or service. Perhaps it’s a client’s birthday,
or they’re about to retire, or they have an investment bond
that’s about to mature.
As you’ll know about these events in advance, you can
plan and prepare around them, using them to make your
client communications highly personal. That element of
personalisation can help you achieve much better results.
Even something as simple as acknowledging the length of
time a client has held a product can have a positive impact
on response. For example, you might want to arrange a
review for a retired client where you can talk to them about
equity release, or even invite them to a seminar you’re
holding on ways to boost retirement income.
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5
Marketing your ‘at retirement’ proposition
As an example, you could start a letter – or even an email –
with this in mind:
“You’ve been retired for two years now, with the
security of a guaranteed regular income. In the past,
you expressed an interest in how you might be able to
boost your retirement income. So I’m writing to invite
you to a seminar I’m holding on additional sources of
income in retirement including downsizing and equity
release. I really hope that you can attend. It would be
a great opportunity to find out how you can make the
most of your existing assets and potentially unlock
some of the value in your home to provide the extra
retirement income you might still be looking for…”
Event-triggered communications
As well as initiating contact with your clients based on
what you know about them, you can also respond to their
actions. This could be a request for information about a
product or service, a web enquiry, or a download. It could
also be a change of circumstances (such as an address or
surname) or an action the client has taken (switching funds,
cancelling a purchase, or making an early repayment).
Respond quickly and you’ll increase your chances of
engaging a prospective client. As well as proving that you
are proactive when it comes to client service, you might
find that event-triggered communications often produce
highly profitable new business.
In fact, event-triggered marketing activity can often be
much more successful – and a lot more cost-effective –
than traditionally targeted communications such as direct
mail, email, and public relations. So, if you receive an online
request from your website, act fast and you could easily
gain a new client.
Event-trigger example
6
Client reaches age 50
Send out a letter to arrange a review
meeting, to confirm planning for retirement
is on track and performing as expected.
Client approaches retirement
Call to arrange a review meeting
and discuss options.
Client develops
medical conditions
Contact to review requirements – are they
now eligible for an enhanced Guaranteed
Income for Life?
Client’s grandchild
approaches 18
Email client about the potential for
equity release to help with university fees.
Client is taking 4% from a
drawdown plan, but market
has become reliable
Call client about the potential for a
guaranteed income for life solution
provided by a Guaranteed Income for Life.
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Marketing your ‘at retirement’ proposition
Building a long-term, strategic contact strategy
Top tip
From here you can build on your contact strategy to
interact effectively with your clients as they move through
Take your time
different stages: enquiry, purchase, renewal, and so on. You
Accurately targeted client communications almost always
might
want to develop separate contact strategies for these
get great results. Event triggers work because they allow
different
you’ve
identified
any reliable
triggers
you to stages,
talk to aonce
receptive
audience
– making
it easier
to
that
are
associated
with
each
stage.
increase engagement and response.
The longer-term rewards of marketing
your business
Organic growth
Understanding what your clients need is of vital importance,
as this will help you promote the right products and services
at the most appropriate time. A deeper understanding of
how your clients think, feel, and live will help you choose the
most appropriate way to connect with them and get your
message across.
Organic growth comes from your existing business and
should be an important consideration in your contact
strategy. New business is important but there can be
great value in growing your business through your existing
client base because these individuals already know you.
That’s why it’s essential to build strong relationships with
your clients.
A great value proposition will provide your clients and
potential customers with convincing reasons why they
should choose you above your competitors. By attracting
attention and engaging with clients, you stand a better
chance of gaining sales and profitable new business.
These points combine to give your business a competitive
edge for the future based on strong supporting values.
Cross-selling
One of the ways you can strengthen ties with your existing
clients is by cross-selling other products to them. Crossselling helps you meet more of your client’s requirements,
increasing their reliance on your services and reducing the
likelihood of them going to a competitor. You can use
segmentation as a springboard for effective cross-selling.
Referrals
Referrals are highly valuable to any business – yet while
many advisers recognise the importance of advertising,
email marketing, telemarketing, PR, and direct mail
campaigns, they often take a much more passive approach
to referrals. Be more proactive in seeking referrals by
cultivating people who could champion your services
and you could reap the rewards.
For more marketing guides and free sample
marketing material, visit:
www.justadviser.com/support/guides-andtemplates/marketing-guides/
Remember that all marketing material should be fair, clear and not misleading to comply with the
Financial Conduct Authority rule requirements and ensure that you continue to treat customers fairly.
You can find out more about both of these requirements at www.the-fca.org.uk/firms/financialpromotions-adverts
Just Retirement Limited. Registered Office: Vale House, Roebuck Close, Bancroft Road,
Reigate, Surrey RH2 7RU. Registered in England Number 05017193. Calls may be monitored
and recorded, and call charges may apply. Please contact us if you would like this document in
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07/2016