Last week’s 7 day campaign, which was run by the CISI, attracted national media coverage in a range of newspapers and websites.
Jackie Lockie CFPTM Chartered FCSI , the CISI's deputy head of Financial Planning, told FP Today: “It went amazingly well, we were delighted with how it went.”
There were 87 firms that offered free surgeries, beating last year’s total of 51. Ms Lockie said firms were still honouring agreements for free sessions for consumers for the next few weeks.
Articles on Financial Planning Week were run in the Times on Saturday, the Telegraph, the weekend FT, Daily Mail and The Sun. The latter mentioned Accredited firm Mazars, which took more than 100 bookings for the free Financial Planning surgeries.
Ms Lockie appeared on the podcast of Claer Barrett, personal finance editor at the Financial Times and editor of FT Money. This reaches 800,000 listeners.
Mumsnet and other interest websites for mothers also got involved, sending questions to be answered on the ‘ask a planner’ feature, with a selection covered on a Facebook Live webcast.
Ex-IFP President Julie Lord CFPTM Chartered FCSI and former IFP branch chairman Francis Klonowski CFPTM Chartered FCSI answered questions on Facebook live video.
Ms Lockie said: “Facebook live was great we had more than 858 viewings who stayed on for the full hour.”
On the firms offering free surgeries, she said: “We’ve had some feedback from some firms, 4 or 5 so far, saying they’ve been inundated with a whole spectrum and mix of clients. It’s too early to say if they are taking on any of them but there were expats, non-doms, all sorts of different people have been contacting us and we’ve had a good number of questions to the ask a planner website.”
The Money Advice Service website and Share Radio also provided coverage of the campaign.
The CISI’s phone lines were “very busy”, Ms Lockie said, but calls were more evenly spread out through the week than last year. She said the campaign reached more remote areas such as Northern Ireland and Cornwall rather than being south-east focused.
Ms Lockie said: “I want to thank all of the firms for getting involved.”
She said that the campaign had benefited from the bigger marketing team that the CISI can provide, compared with the Institute of Financial Planning, which ran it before the merger in 2015.
Financial Planners across the country ran various initiatives themselves.
Pete Matthew CFPTM Chartered MCSI and Martin Bamford CFPTM Chartered MCSI produced special versions of their podcasts. Mr Bamford said there had been 1,400 downloads already as of two days ago.
Mr Matthew, whose podcasts have been downloaded over 500,000 times by August last year, interviewed Paul Armson of Inspiring Advisers, as a guest on his show. As part of this, Mr Armson gave away 1,000 free copies of his consumer personal finance book, 'Enough?: How Much Money Do You Need For The Rest of Your Life?' including paying for postage.
Mr Armson, who is also organiser of the annual Back2Y event for Financial Planners and advisers, said: “Each copy costs just over £2 to post and pack plus the cost of the books. The book retails at £12.99 through Amazon and bookshops. I had 10,000 copies printed and I've currently given away over 4,000 through various initiatives although I don't normally pay for shipping and handling, this was an FP Week initiative forged with Pete.
“I'm doing this because I'm on a mission to help consumers understand the difference between Financial Planning and financial advice and helping them to reach out for it when they understand what it is. So I intend to get the book into the hands of tens of thousands to spread the word about proper Financial Planning.”
He added: “Podcasting is a great way to help people and build a tribe by giving first. That's what Pete is great at. With his Meaningful Money he gives, gives, gives.”