Marketing can be very creative.  Thinking outside the box can create brilliant results and doing what everyone else is already doing defines you as an also-ran.  To be exceptional, perhaps to just be successful, you need to separate yourself from the pack.  You need to be different, but in a good way.  Not wacky.  No one wants a wacky financial planner.  But different enough to get noticed. 

We can’t be all things to all people. We can try, but most likely our success will be much greater when we know exactly what client base we are serving.  For some that might be high net worth individuals.  That would be a totally different segment than say, retired police officers or other union members.  Everyone needs a financial plan, but not everyone needs the type of service you want to deliver. Matching the service with the client means we have to know who the client is and how they need and want to be served.  

Does longer really work? Well, I had a client come in one day reading a booklet that they were sent about investing in gold. It was obviously an unprofessional piece of junk, but she had marked it up with different colored highlighters, underlined key words, made notes in the margin. She studied it harder than any document I have ever seen. She bought it hook line and sinker. She wanted to invest in some South American gold mine and wanted to know why I wasn’t the one to tell her about this great opportunity. She wasn’t very happy with me when I told her she wasted her time and it was garbage, but she did listen to me eventually and avoided the scam. Don’t discount the longer length just because people use it for scams.