5 BRILLIANT Tesla marketing lessons for Financial Planners

If you follow me on social media, you’ll already be aware that I recently picked up my new Tesla Model 3.

So I want to share what I think are five key marketing lessons that Financial Planners can learn from Tesla.

1. You don’t need a budget. You need a buzz

I think it’s quite incredible that Tesla sells cars with very, very little advertising spend. The buzz of the brand itself drives sales volumes.

The excitement that comes with Tesla as a car ownership option is just exceptional, and this sets them apart from the competition.

Owning a Tesla, as I’ve discovered in the past couple of days, is nothing like owning a traditional car with a petrol or diesel engine.

I come from owning a Volkswagen, and before that, I owned a BMW, and I’ve had a Mitsubishi truck as well. So a wide range of different brands and vehicle types, but nothing has ever come close to this.

Owning a Tesla is absolutely an exceptional brand experience, and there is a real buzz around it.

Seth Godin talks about the purple cow philosophy and his book, “Purple Cow”.

He explains how, if you see a field full of black and white cows, you’re probably not going to pay any attention to them, but if you see something that stands apart and is completely different, for example, a purple cow, that is something to talk about.

Tesla has managed to create the “purple cow” buzz about their brand.

2. Rethink your traditional models

We’re all rethinking our traditional models right now because of the coronavirus pandemic. Still, one element of Tesla’s marketing, which is completely different from the traditional car-buying experience is that they don’t have dealerships.

When I bought my Tesla, I went onto their website and found the car that I wanted. I paid a £100 deposit online, and that was my order placed.

Next, it was a case of a few emails and some online app work to get a registration finalised.

When we went to the branch to pick up the car, it was like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

I walked in, gave him my order reference number, showed them my driving license as proof of identity, and that was it.

I unlocked the car as I walked towards it using my phone and the key card to drive.

It was nothing like a conventional car dealership experience.

I’ve been in car dealerships, looking for a new car, haggling over price. Again, that’s something that Tesla doesn’t offer. You don’t haggle over the price of a Tesla.

The price is the price because there are no car dealers, there are no salespeople trying to flog it to you.

You only go to a Tesla branch when you’ve decided to buy a Tesla, and they’ve got so much demand for what they do, they don’t need to sell it to you.

You’ve already made that decision to buy.

For Financial Planners, I think it’s the case of rethinking that traditional experience.

Do you need an office? I think that’s something that’s going through a lot of Financial Planners’ minds at the moment, given the fact we’ve worked remotely for the past three months.

Do we need that High Street presence that we’ve come to know and love as Financial Planners? Or is there a different, a better way of doing things?

3. Have a strong sense of purpose

Tesla has an incredibly powerful mission statement to create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s transition to electric vehicles.

This is what gets people behind Tesla as a brand. This helps them to create a tribe of loyal, committed followers.

One thing I noticed as soon as I posted on Twitter about picking my car up was that Tesla car owner clubs immediately followed me online.

When you see another Tesla owner at a supercharger, you exchange a nod and say, hello.

This mission is what brings people together.

4. Carve out your own niche, your own segment of the market

Tesla does this so effectively as there are very few car manufacturers who solely produce electric vehicles.

Tesla has decided to stick to manufacturing only electric vehicles, but it goes a step further in carving out its own niche.

With a Tesla, you can drive up to any charging station and with the right adaptor, charge your car.

I believe that Financial Planners can do this by deciding to only operate in a specific market.

5. Place the customer experience first

I’ve already touched on this with my earlier tip explaining how buying and collecting the Tesla was a very seamless process and nothing I’ve ever seen before from a car dealership.

The customer experience is permeated in everything you get with a Tesla; for example, there are no dials on the dash. There is a large 15-inch touchscreen monitor, and everything you do is on that screen.

Everything revolves around the customer experience.

As Financial Planners, that’s something we can think about as well when we’re compiling our proposition, our website and social media marketing.

How would I design that from scratch with a blank piece of paper, if it wasn’t just a case of doing it the way it’s always been done?

So there you have five lessons that I believe Financial Planners can take away from Tesla and how they do their marketing.