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If you’re a financial advisor looking at marketing for 2023, I can’t blame you for feeling a little uncertain. It’s been a weird couple years, and while we’re largely getting back to “normal,” it seems like no one’s really sure what that looks like yet.
Recession seems certain. Inflation is rampant. The housing market is clearly drunk. The government is…probably also drunk (or at least very hungover).
Are people really going to be hiring advisors in 2023?
The answer is yes. That’s when people need advisors most. You are the calm, confident voice in the midst of chaos. You are the guides who have been there, done that. You are the guards who are protecting your clients’ assets.
In 2023, people need advisors more than ever. This is not the year to lower your flag – it’s the year to make your voice heard!
With that in mind, here are six winning marketing moves for financial advisors to make in 2023.
1. Publish Content Frequently
This might seem obvious – I’m from a content marketing agency, of course I’m going to encourage you to publish content frequently. But wait!
Content is really your best friend regardless of what the market does. It’s free to produce and publish if you do it yourself, but even if you pay someone to help you produce content, once you have it, it’s yours, and it will serve as a free magnet attracting prospects to your website for a long time.
Not only that, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and produces three times as many leads.
When you’re planning your content marketing for 2023, set a schedule for yourself that you can follow. Build a repeatable content-creation process and then a calendar that your whole team can help turn into a reality.
(Here’s a simple content calendar template to help you get started.)
One note: You may feel like you have to publish a blog every week and post on social multiple times a day. You don’t. Sure, the more you can publish the better, but the best content marketing schedule for you is the one you can actually accomplish.
Be realistic with yourself. The quickest way to derail a content marketing plan is to be too ambitious. Then, once you start missing deadlines, it’s easy to let it all fall apart.
2. Recycle That Content as Many Times as Possible
One of the greatest joys of content marketing is when you happen upon a “unicorn,” as marketing thought leader Larry Kim calls it. Kim developed a great analogy of content as donkeys and unicorns. Most content you produce will be a donkey – hard-working, reliable, but nothing special.
But every now and then you’ll publish something that really clicks with your audience, driving much higher traffic and engagement than usual – that is a unicorn.
When that happens, it’s time to stop the presses and start recycling the unicorn into multiple formats and additional pieces of content.
Say the unicorn was a blog with the title “When Should You Claim Social Security?” Once you see traffic spike, you could stop and start producing other pieces, like:
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A video where you talk through the main points of the blog. Share this on social media and embed it in the blog.
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An infographic outlining one section from the blog
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A handful of social media posts on the subject
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Additional blog posts on Social Security (e.g., Social Security 101, Social Security & Retirement Income Planning)
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An ebook that you create by bundling all your Social Security blog posts
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The best part? You hardly had to create anything new!
And it’s not just unicorns that you should be recycling. Pair your blogs with videos and vice versa. Turn your blogs into microblogs on Facebook. If you’re going through the process of creating content, you might as well get the most out of it!
Recycling content truly is the epitome of working smarter, not harder.
3. Invest in SEO
Building a website with bad SEO is like building a ship with holes in it: It won’t get you very far.
By putting in the work required to build a site with good SEO, you’re already leaps and bounds above many other advisors out there.
Here are five basic steps you can take to ensure that your website is the leakproof ship you want it to be:
A. if you haven’t already, set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console
B. Do some serious keyword research
Figure out what your target audience wants to know, where that intersects with your services, and then develop a solid list of keywords to incorporate into your site.
C. Install the Yoast SEO Plugin on your site
D. Evaluate all your pages and blogs using the Yoast plugin’s suggestions
A word of caution on this: While it feels very good to achieve a green smiley face in Yoast, their suggestions aren’t always right.
For instance, they might say your “Contact” page has too few words on it – so does pretty much every other advisors. Don’t add words just to add words, it will look weird. Use your best judgment to decide what to do.
E. Perform a content audit
This will help you understand the scope of content you have available, what performs well and what doesn’t. Believe it or not, removing poorly performing content from your website can have a positive impact on SEO.
Here are a couple tools to help you get started on your audit:
4. Invest Where You Can Win (and Kill Everything Else)
For many years, the prevailing wisdom in marketing was to be everywhere that you could possibly be. More and more, that strategy is proving to be more trouble than it’s worth, especially in regards to social media.
We recommend picking a single social media channel (two, tops) to invest your time and efforts in. Rather than posting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin – and trying to monitor conversations on all four channels – pick the one where you’re already seeing success.
The problem with constantly maintaining multiple social media pages is that you end up diluting your attention to the point where you can’t do any of them well. As an advisor, you’re already busy with client meetings, portfolio maintenance, reporting, etc.
Honest talk: If you’ve been trying Twitter for a while and it’s not working, it’s probably never going to happen. Good riddance anyway! You don’t have time for spinning your wheels – focus your attention where you know you can win!
5. Start a Podcast
Podcasts have been gaining in popularity among advisors for some time now. They’re easy, they’re quick and they’re (mostly) free.
Sure, there’s some upfront cost for mics and lights and whatever equipment you need, but publishing a podcast is surprisingly easy and affordable. If you do it yourself, it’s free!
Related: Check out Three Crowns podcasting services, coming in January!
A podcast is the ideal engine of your content-creation machine. All you have to do is sit down and talk for 30 minutes and voila! Jump back to tip #2 and recycle that content! If you do it right, you could have enough stuff to reuse for at least a month, like:
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Write a blog summarizing the episode
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Cut up the episode into audiograms to share on social media
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Film the episode and post it on Youtube
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Cut up the video into snippets to share on social media
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Write a newsletter using content from the episode
And again, that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
Not only that, but podcasts are one of the easiest ways for your clients to refer friends to you. Share your podcast with your clients, then gently nudge them to share it with anyone who would be interested. Once someone listens to a podcast hosted by you, you gain a whole new level of prestige (and trust) in their eyes.
Before you start a podcast, set some realistic goals and expectations for what your new show will accomplish. It can take a while to build a successful podcast, and you may never become the next Taylor Schulte, but if you understand why you’re doing it (to build trust with clients and prospects), then you can focus on the long-term strategy and keep at it consistently.
6. Make Referrals as Easy as Possible
Referrals are far and away the number one source of new clients for advisors, yet many advisors struggle with how to ask clients to connect them with their loved ones.
We find that the best way to approach referrals is to make it as easy possible for your clients to share your info. The best way to do that is simple: Put opportunities for referrals everywhere.
When you send out your newsletter, add a banner or button at the top encouraging readers to forward it to a friend. Add a form to your client login page that allows clients to input someone’s information and tell you a little bit about why they think you should meet them.
By implementing just a few of these strategies, you’ll be set up for a successful 2023 – and beyond!
Related: 11 Lead-Generation Tools for Financial Advisors To Help Build Your List