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Young professionals prefer face-to-face when buying financial products

By: Pierre Coetzee, Graduate Marketing Specialist at PPS

PPS has recently completed a study which substantiates that the process and finesse of building a personal or physical face-to-face relationship with clients is important to ensure that clients fully understand the products and services offered to them. This kind of interaction builds considerable and meaningful trust between the service provider and client and will subsequently lead to a loyal and sustaining relationship with the brand or product.

Today, young professionals, specifically Generation Y’s graduates, are constantly bombarded with high amounts of digital media and although this still proves to be the way they prefer receiving their communication and marketing material, face-to-face marketing continues to be incredibly valuable and certainly worth more than digital marketing when initially conducting an introduction between the company and client.

All forms of marketing are necessary, and our study clearly proves that when a company wants to share complex, ambiguous and technical messages, services and products, clients prefer to have these topics explained to them tangibly by a professional and via the unique benefits of face-to-face communication, before signing up into a digital relationship with their service provider.

Our study was conducted among 800 university students and young professionals such as doctors, lawyers, engineers and business majors, and 90% of them have indicated that it is easy to understand complex and equivocal financial topics and products, when someone explains it to them face-to-face. A further 85% of those surveyed added that they would consider buying financial products if these are presented to them. The study also shows that 72% of the participants still prefer to use a form of digital communication such as software Applications and interactive websites to manage and receive information about their policies and personal finances, after the relationship has been solidified on a personal, face-to-face basis.

The study, conducted by Pierre Coetzee for purposes of his Masters Degree in Marketing and Business Communication, also reflected that more than 90% of the participants prefer face-to-face marketing when buying financial products and services, and are interested in learning how to better manage their financial well-being and most suitable financial product for their needs.

We have been actively implementing face-to-face marketing through our Financial Advisory business since 2013 and recognise that young professionals want greater interaction with financial advisors when it comes to complex product offerings explained to them when determining their financial future. As proven, the graduate market at PPS has seen substantial growth and value through implementing this model which has contributed to PPS having some of the lowest lapse rates on policies in the market. More importantly, it’s not just the sales quantities that matter to us, but the quality of clients. We have achieved this growth because our members and specifically Generation Y young professionals, understand their products and our services, explained to them in great detail by building a face-to-face relationship.

Besides the exponential growth the company has seen in sales, which validates our approach, additional comments from young professional participants were overarchingly positive. We believe that the basis of building a sustaining relationship with financial providers is a form of trust and can only be built on a personal and face-to-face communication model, something that a digital relationship will not be able to achieve.

As we move towards the fourth industrial revolution, we have seen how the advent of digital communications has changed the way we interact and consume media, as well as the way we build relationships with our clients. However, we are certain that if you implement face-to-face marketing correctly and build a solid relationship with your client, your brand will be trusted in the market and maximise its reach.

I believe that marketing and more specifically personal marketing on a face-to-face basis, will be one of the last remaining professions to become obsolete in today’s technologically driven market.