Tuesday, March 01, 2011

How To Build & Strengthen Referral Relationships

Education-Based Marketing is a powerful marketing approach that delivers value while establishing credibility and thought leadership among key audiences, such as referral sources and prospecting clients.

There are a number of ways to deliver your educational message and start building relationships with your key audiences. Today, we will discuss how education-based marketing establishes and strengthens relationships with referral sources.

Say you are a Trusts and Estates professionals whose referral sources are CPAs, Financial Advisors, Bankers, Insurance and Real Estate professionals. What can you do to establish new and strengthen existing referral relationships with these professionals?

Our favorite approach is delivering an educational presentation, addressing a topic of interest to your referral sources. This presentation can cover a number of issues, such as addressing recent changes in the tax law and their impact on consumers; discussing the importance of updating your estate plan and other relevant topics and issues.

Organizing educational events and inviting existing and potential referral sources to learn from you is invaluable in establishing relationships, becoming a thought leader and winning the trust of key advisors that serve the same client market.

After attending your educational event, not only will attendees be thinking of you when their client needs to plan their estate, but they will be more likely to discuss estate planning and issues you educated them on with clients because you empowered them with knowledge to better serve their clients.

What about the details of event planning, such as topic selection, invitation, RSVP process, confirmation, follow up and all the good stuff that goes along with planning a successful event and getting the most out of your marketing efforts? The truth is, it takes thoughtful preparation and event planning “know how."

We will be happy to share best event marketing practices, in a way that is relevant to your practice, in a complimentary consultation. Schedule yours today!