If you've been practicing for a while, you likely have a good sense of your niche expertise and target clientele. But these days, we have the tools to push beyond preconceptions to better understand our customer base, illuminate our blind spots, and uncover insights that can help us double down on our unique formula for success.

That said, your customer relationship management system is a goldmine, providing a window into customer trends, from demographics to geographics. If well maintained, this database can help you identify patterns in your customer base that have emerged over time that you may not have noticed organically, whether that's a high concentration of employees in industries prone to layoffs, many divorced individuals or a strong group of retirees. planning transfers for their heirs.

In turn, this data can help you develop a highly tailored social media, content, and broader marketing strategy with messages geared toward reaching current customers and prospects who share their characteristics.

But that's the catch. As with any data set, the “garbage in, garbage out” rule determines its usefulness. An incomplete or messy data set in Salesforce or Redtail can negate any benefits you may have reaped.

Saving and then getting the most out of your data takes some effort, but the path to doing so is straightforward and well worth it. Here are the three most important steps to take.

1. Prioritize data integrity

Every advisor I know is strapped for time. In the rush and excitement of onboarding a new customer, this often means forgetting key details when entering them into CRM. Leaving fields blank or using a generic range for the salary field, for example, can leave you with inconsistent or incomplete records. An entry in the net worth field such as “$500,000+” can mean $501,000 or $2 million; it does not provide an accurate picture of the client's available assets. Not to mention, using different conventions every time you enter a new customer's information can leave you with different records that are harder for the platform's built-in analytics tools to understand.

While somewhat time-consuming, practicing good data hygiene early on can pay dividends in your ability to extract value from that data. But the work doesn't end with boarding. It's essential to update at key intervals, such as the semi-annual or annual client meeting, to ensure you're capturing changes in career/income, family situation and more. Once a year is a good baseline, but if you see a client announce a change in job status on LinkedIn or mention an upcoming move or big purchase during a regular check-in, recording those updates at this time can be 'give you more accurate data points. Most importantly, include spouses and children in your data entry; keeping up with their details can be essential in strengthening relationships and potentially accumulating additional family assets over time.

2. Take advantage of built-in AI features

AI tools like Salesforce's Einstein can be incredibly helpful in spotting trends from your data and designing personalized materials to engage customers and prospects.

But at this stage of technology development, AI is more of a means to an end than a magic wand. Again, its results rely on your inputs. By prioritizing data integrity, you give these tools what they need to give you what you need. Isolating concentrations on geographic location, occupation, age, gender, family status, net worth, etc., requires that these data be accurately recorded in the profile of each client and customer.

The other factor in the effective use of AI is providing the right requirements. AI isn't performing real-time searches, but it will give you the information you're looking for if your questions are specific enough. For example, you can ask it to pull from your CRM a list of clients and prospects who are physicians of a certain net worth level that you haven't spoken to in six months, so you can check and provide content tailored to their needs. Einstein has quick help in construction to make this even more foolproof.

3. When it comes to marketing, let data be your guide

Once you've mined your CRM and identified the niche audiences in your practice, you determine which topics to focus your outreach on and content for your website, LinkedIn, and email marketing.

For example, if you find that you have a significant number of clients who work for a large corporation in your area and that company announces a round of layoffs, there is an opportunity to seed the market with information on how to conduct family conversations, update resumes , network and manage finances/top up a 401(k) at a time of job transition. This can help you deepen connections with current clients while also getting in front of their networks, where prospects abound.

Also remember that what you thought you knew about your customer base may have changed over time. Perhaps your core demographic was once parents saving for college tuition, but as life has evolved, those same customers are now approaching retirement, thinking about long-term care for their parents and perhaps themselves, and may be thinking about their estate planning or philanthropy. inheritance. Certain areas of your customer base may have emerged as more profitable than others, such as business owners or technology workers. By identifying these pockets of opportunity, you can more effectively target your newsletters, direct mail, website, marketing materials, and other touchpoints—and put the right topics in front of the right audiences, showing you that “ you get them' and build credibility and affinity. The aforementioned AI tools can also be helpful in crafting such content for you, incorporating the specific concerns and priorities of each demographic group.

conclusion

Understanding your book helps you establish your value in the market. The way you do this is by leveraging your data. You are sitting on a gold mine; let it pay dividends.

Michael Lieberman is a partner at Advisors Capital Management