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Last week, the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Board of Standards launched a four-year, $36 million dollar national public awareness campaign called “Let’s Make a Plan.” Let’s Make a Plan aims to raise general awareness of the 63,000 CFP professionals practicing in the US, serving the demographic the CFP Board calls mass affluent initiators.
From a psychographic standpoint, mass affluent initiators tend to 1) trust experts; 2) prefer to work as part of a team; 3) be responsible and practical; and 4) think managing their finances is complex and time consuming. They fall between the ages of 35 and 64 and have investable assets between $100,000 and $1 million. The CFP board has identified 14 million or 6% of US adults in this mass affluent initiator category.
The Let’s Make a Plan campaign combines television, print and online advertising to communicate the message that “If you need your whole financial life pulled together, a CFP professional is uniquely qualified to help.” The distinctive ads aim to rise above the clutter of other financial services advertising and communicate that CFPs are ethical and are focused on overall planning through the comprehensive evaluations they provide to clients.
If you are a CFP, you will be directly affected by this campaign, even if you take a passive role. CFPs who take a more active involvement in the campaign can use the toolkit provided by the CFP Board to promote themselves in local markets.
Let’s take a look at what Let’s Make a Plan entails and what you can personally do to take advantage of the campaign.
TV commercials
The Let’s Make a Plan campaign kicks off with a three month run of 30-second TV spots broadcast nationally on both cable news and lifestyle stations, including HGTV, Travel Channel, History Channel, ESPN, ESPN 2, Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, and MSNBC. The commercials were created by the same agency that created the poster for the Broadway musical Wicked and the original iPod commercials with the silhouetted figures dancing on colored backgrounds. The Let’s Make a Plan ads follow along this same vein and are distinct and memorable. An upcoming broadcast schedule for the television ads can be found at here.
What You Can Do: The CFP Board has posted the TV commercial on YouTube and their website for CFPs to use. This enables you to embed the video on your website, share it on your social media accounts or include it in an email campaign. The shareable video can be found here.
Print magazine ads
The Let’s Make a Plan campaign includes the placement of print ads in nationally distributed magazines including Smart Money, Kiplingers, Money, Barron’s and Wall Street Journal. These ads will be placed in the different publications throughout 2011 with at least one ad running in a major publication at all times. For a complete print advertising schedule, go here.
What You Can Do: You can download editable versions of the same print ads that will be published in the national newspapers and magazines to customize with your company name and contact information. These ads can then be placed in your local publications at your own cost. The white space provided for the editable ads is somewhat awkward, so you may want to consider hiring a professional graphic designer to help you edit the advertisement.
Online advertisements
The majority of the activity of the campaign will focus on online display ads and paid online searches. Display ads will appear on websites such as Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Morningstar, Bloomberg, Kiplingers, AOL, MSN and LinkedIn. Paid search results will be placed on Google, Bing and AOL.
What You Can Do: The CFP Board has provided the banner ads in the Toolkit for CFPs to include on their own website. The ads will direct visitors to letsmakeaplan.org where they can find out more about the importance of financial planning and choosing a CFP. There are three banner ads to choose from including two flash versions and one static version. Directions on how to install these banner ads can be found here.
LetsMakeAPlan.org
A new website at www.letsmakeaplan.org has been established to help consumers understand why they need a financial plan and the steps they can take to start a plan. All television, print and online ads associated with this campaign direct consumers to this website. An important function of the site, which is accessible from each page, is the CFP® Professional Search which allows consumers to find a CFP in their area. The site does not provide direct referrals to CFPs, but instead includes information for consumers to directly contact the professional of their choice. At this time, very little information is provided to consumers to help make a decision as to which CFP to choose other than name, address and the advisor’s status with the CFP Board.
What You Can Do: As a CFP® professional, you should be listed on the search directory. Go to www.letsmakeaplan.org to verify that you are listed and that the information is correct. If any information is inaccurate, update your profile by logging on to http://cfp.net/login and clicking the “Update Profile” link. In addition to updating your profile, you may also want to provide a link on your website to www.letsmakeaplan.org in order to educate your visitors on the value CFP® professionals bring to their clients.
Other tools
In addition to the advertisements and Let’s Make a Plan website, the CFP Board has provided several other tools to help individual advisors promote the campaign in their local market. These tools include:
Talking Points – A one page sheet that coaches CFPs on how to discuss the Let’s Make a Plan campaign and the CFP® certification with their clients and prospects.
News Release Template – A press release template that can be used to distribute to local media outlets or posted on firm websites.
New CFP® Marks – The new versions of the CFP® marks used in the campaign have been made available for use, but are additions, not replacements of existing marks.
What You Can Do: These tools have been made available to help you better communicate your value as a CFP. First, include the talking points in your marketing collateral and website as well as in your discussion with prospects, centers of influence and clients. Next, publish the news release on your website to provided fresh content to your site. Finally, consider replacing the existing CFP® marks you are currently using with the one used in the campaign since it may be more recognizable by consumers. These three tools are simple ways for all CFPs to actively participate in the campaign.
The CFP Board’s Let’s Make a Plan campaign will be in effect for the next four years and is funded by your annual fees. As a CFP, you have paid for this campaign, so it makes sense to take advantage of all the tools and opportunities provided to you by this campaign to help differentiate yourself among the hundreds of thousands of financial advisors currently practicing.
The term CFP is a registered trademark and all references above are to CFP® professionals.
Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, Inc., a firm dedicated to providing marketing strategies and support for Registered Investment Advisory firms. Her firm enables independent advisors the ability to market with the same quality and consistency as their larger competitors by providing the resources of an entire marketing department at a fraction of the cost of a single employee. For more information, visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.
