Advisors are constantly looking for a marketing edge to push them ahead of the competition. For many advisors that edge is right under their nose tax planning. Successful advisors focus on tax planning year around and heres whyin a recent CEG Worldwide survey, one of the services most requested by affluent investors was income tax planning.

It turns out that even affluent investors have substantial lack of understanding when it comes to avoiding taxes, said Catherine McBreen, managing director of Spectrem Group, in a recent issue of Financial Planning. These investors may be missing out on important opportunities to save tax dollars because they arent up to speed on many of the best approaches, including 529 plans, annuities and in-kind charitable giving, said McBreen.

Top Advisor Coaches Tom Gau and Ken Unger pointed out a couple of years ago that less than 10% of all advisors are currently offering their clients any tax planning.

Are clients confused about income tax planning issues? Apparently. Is this an area where you can differentiate yourself? You bet.

Where to start?

Income tax planning begins with the tax return, the form 1040. If you arent familiar with how to read a tax return then you need to go to BuildYourMarket.com and download Reading and Using the Tax Return training program. That streaming video and the accompanying handout will walk you through a basic reading of a clients tax return.

Many advisors tell us that they dont do tax planning for clients because they are afraid to ask for the tax return. Once you start asking you will be surprised how many clients gladly provide that information for your review. If you need assistance with building a script to help ask for the tax return, go to BuildYourMarket.com and you will find one there to download.

What are the main benefits of offering tax planning to your clients?

1. Differentiation. Adding this overlooked service to your practice will steer clients to you and will drive away competitors.

2. The tax return is a cornucopia of information about your clients financial situation that you can use to make better recommendations. It opens the books and shows you all the different types of investments in the clients portfolio. The Schedule D shows you the capital gains and losses. The Schedule E shows you any self-employed income, and so on.

3. Build stronger relationships. Its true that clients care very little for what you know until they know you care. When you walk through their tax return and discuss each item in their financial inventory you cant help but communicate concern and empathy. Your attention to their complete financial picture demonstrates more integrity and helps build trust. Understanding why they made certain investment decisions helps you understand how their money personality works. All of these insights will help you build stronger client relationships.

How do you communicate your new services?

Now that you understand the value in adding tax planning to your services, how do you communicate it? One of the best ways to communicate your new service is through drip marketing. The concept is simple, you send out several promotional pieces over a period of time to a subset of sales leads. Your objective is to get your message out constantly and consistently!

This concept was developed in response to the Law of 29 in which many marketers believe that an average prospect will not convert to a client until theyve seen your marketing message at least 29 times. Of course this is not an exact science, but converting prospects to clients and motivating current clients to reach their financial goals requires constant and consistent contact. You will not get the job done with a phone call or a meeting every now and then. You must drip on them to reach maximum success!

To effectively use drip marketing you must have a plan of action and follow it though. Dont just put one together and push it out the door! Take your time to develop a strategic and measurable plan. For the best results you should incorporate a drip marketing campaign into your yearly marketing plan.

You can use drip marketing in your postcards, newsletters, e-mail newsletters and any promotional or sales brochures. To get the best and most consistent results, automate the process. Your cards and newsletters need to go out automatically and at regular intervals.

Seminars are a great venue to promote your new service because you have a captive audience. People have chosen to come hear you speak, so incorporate your tax planning service at a prime opportunity in your presentation.

Highlighting your new service in routine client meetings is a two-fold, good measure. Not only do you pass this information to current clients, but you can ask them to do some word-of-mouth advertising for you.

Once you make the decision to increase your focus on income tax planning you will need an action plan. Heres an introductory To-Do List:

1. Find the training on Reading and Using the Tax Return.

2. Start the positioning for your tax planning services with your target market.

3. Decide how to handle processing the tax returns and reporting the observations and recommendations.

4. Create the marketing pieces and strategies to announce and follow-up on tax planning leads.