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For the past several months we have been surveying advisors about their marketing programs. When we ask them which marketing tools they use, it amazes us that only about 21% use a client newsletter.At a recent conference for financial advisors, we heard from several elite advisors on the subject: One said, “I had an existing client transfer an additional $700,000 IRA account to me after reading an article in my newsletter this spring about the charitable IRA strategy allowed by the Pension Protection Act.”Another said, “We have a top prospect who received our monthly newsletter for almost 18 months before they moved their accounts to us.”We heard from another advisor, “I started with about 100 newsletters a month and now I’m up to over 250. It’s my primary means of marketing. I am averaging over 3 new accounts a month and each new account is over $300,000.”So why don’t you do a newsletter?They don’t work. It’s too hard. I can’t write. I never got around to it. We’ve heard them all. Let’s look at just a couple of reasons why you should make newsletters a core part of your marketing and how you can easily add a newsletter to your marketing without multiplying your staff.1. Clients are dissatisfied.31% of financial advisors believe that their clients are extremely or very dissatisfied with them. 40% of wealthy respondents reported some level of dissatisfaction because their advisor was not proactively maintaining contact and 11% stated that their advisors were difficult to reach.(Phoenix Wealth Management Survey, August 2002, Net worth of $1M+ excluding debt and primary residence; Financial advisors who manage at least $50 million of assets and have 10+ years experience)For advisors intent on improving their showing in this realm, excellent client service appears to begin with a high level of client contact. As a snapshot of the industry standard today, and perhaps an indication of where there is the most room for improvement, nearly half of high net worth investors claimed to be either somewhat or fully dissatisfied with the level of contact they have with their financial advisors. Only 55% of investors stated that they are somewhat or completely satisfied with the amount of contact they have with their primary financial advisors.Satisfied clients hear from their primary financial advisors on average more than 28 times per year, or better than twice per month. This contact can either be in person, over the telephone, or in personal correspondence through the mail or electronically. On the flip side, dissatisfied clients hear from their primary advisors less than 17 times per year.The most telling statistic about the vital importance of client contact is that advisors’ income runs directly parallel with the amount of time they spend speaking or meeting with their clients. Advisors who spend two-thirds of their time with clients have an average income of $160,000 annually. Those who spend between one and two-thirds of their time with clients average $50,000 and those who spend less than one-third of their time with clients average only $30,000.(Tiburon Strategic June 3, 2005)2. Position yourself to KO the competition.Largely due to these rates of dissatisfaction, nearly half of investors have given recent consideration to changing their primary financial advisors. Specifically, 43% of investors responded that they had recently considered a change, whereas 57% stated they had not been considering a change in the near future.(Tiburon June 3, 2005)The landscape is covered with competition. How do you stand out and attract the kind of ideal clients that will make your business thrive? Give the customer what they are looking for. It ain’t rocket science. Clients today are looking for answers. They are smothered with retirement, IRA, estate planning, long-term care planning, college funding and tax issues. This morning your best prospect woke up and wanted an answer to his problems and not a financial product. Give them what they want. You need to be a problem solver. You need to position yourself as the leading expert in your target market. Step One is to tell the audience how you can help them solve their challenges. Isn’t that the point of a good newsletter? It is relevant to the target market in terms of content and it educates them about their financial concerns while demonstrating your expertise in solving those problems. Voila – you are their problem solver.Newsletters made easy.If you are like most financial advisors you have two to three hundred clients in your book. You also know that if you want to make an impression you need to have a consistent process for delivering the newsletter. Finally, you need to make sure the newsletter is getting read, the probability of which you can increase through branding so your clients know the newsletter is from a trusted source. And finally, you need to make a personal connection, so you’d better make sure it’s personally addressed. Oh, did I mention you’ll need to have 3 or 4 articles a month for your newsletter.Before you hit the panic button, there is a solution – BuildYourMarket.com [http://www.buildyourmarket.com] can handle all of this for you. Every month, they create a professionally designed and written 4 color newsletter with content that speaks to boomers and seniors. Each newsletter has a personal message from you addressed to the client or prospect.In case you’re thinking, I’d like to write something about what’s going on in our business, the answer is yes, you can customize as little or as much of the content as you desire.Now what’s your excuse?