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Written by: Samantha Russell
Financial advisor marketing is a challenging topic. It takes a lot of time and effort, and sometimes it can be hard to know where to start. But without marketing, an advisor’s business is missing out on a proven and powerful lead-generation tool and brand-building opportunity.
Read on to explore the foundation of marketing for financial advisors.
1. Start With a Traffic-driving Website
Your website is often a customer’s first engagement with your business. Statistics from Cision show that 76% of consumers look at the online presence before ever engaging or visiting a business. For financial advisor marketing, it’s necessary to have a website that goes above and beyond. Site visitors want to be greeted by a website that not only functions well but looks pleasing to the eye. Navigation should be intuitive, and pages should be labeled properly.
Follow the 5-Second Rule
Just over half of website visitors spend less than 15 seconds on a page before leaving. To keep visitors around, your homepage needs to provide enough information to help visitors self-qualify as quickly as possible. One of the best ways to ensure this is to test your website for the 5-second rule.
The 5-second rule is a quick way to test how effective your site’s homepage is. Here’s how you can perform it:
- Navigate to your website’s homepage.
- Without scrolling or clicking, give yourself 5 seconds to take everything in.
- Then, see how many of the following questions you can answer:
- Who benefits from your service?
- What distinguishes your firm?
- What is a visitor’s next step?
- If you can’t answer these questions, you will want to make edits to your homepage.
For example, Let’s Plan! has a homepage that is sure to impress. It starts you off with an eye-grabbing image that leads into a CTA, leading you to “Learn More.” And, of course, it has an easy-to-use navigation bar with perfectly labeled pages.
Keep Navigation Simple
A site visitor is always greeted by the homepage first, so it’s essential to make sure its impression is good. The homepage is the gate to all website content, so remember to include all essential elements within, such as a navigation bar, eye-catching images, and a CTA of some sort.
Always Provide a Fees Page
We often assume a service is more expensive when it doesn’t come with a price tag. So why do the same on your website? A fees page gives visitors expectations. It shows them exactly what they’re getting for their money and can save time for you and your team. When crafting your fees page, consider your audience. Work with retirees or pre-retirees? A more traditional AUM approach might be best. Are millennials your ideal audience? Consider a subscription or one-time fee structure.
Don’t Forget CTAs
Your CTAs or “calls-to-action” offer visitors an opportunity to engage with your site. Many advisors include CTAs only for contacts. But they can be used to accomplish much more, especially if a visitor is not ready to reach out. Therefore, when including CTAs, be sure to consider the purpose of the page and add CTAs where appropriate. They don’t always need to be at the bottom.
Provide CTA’s throughout your content in key locations such as:
- Your “About” Page
- On blog articles
- Within top-performing pages
- On your testimonial page
- Within your homepage
You could even include a CTA that follows users from page to page.
Of course, creating a website that meets this criterion can be a little difficult. That’s where FMG comes in. FMG’s website creation service is guaranteed to provide you with a gorgeous, traffic-driven website. With built-in SEO tools, lead generation, and more. Find out what FMG’s website building can do for you!
2. Invest in Content Marketing
Content is the fuel to keep your financial advisor marketing going. Whether it’s an article, a video, or an infographic, the information you share with clients and prospects helps to position yourself as a thought leader and build your authority. There are a variety of content types to leverage, though, and each can offer its benefits. Here are a few things to consider with content marketing.
Prioritize Timely Content
Responding to current events is one of the best ways to build trust with clients and demonstrate your expertise. Advisors should prioritize a timely response to get the most out of this approach – the sooner, the better.
Establishing a daily content schedule helps. However, creating content on a quick turnaround can be stressful. We designed the FMG mobile app to solve this very problem. With the app, advisors can share timely content with their contacts in a matter of minutes using their mobile devices.
Build a Blog
Blogging benefits advisors’ marketing in multiple ways. First, it assists with SEO by helping your website rank for more keywords and demonstrates to Google and other search engines that your site is updated consistently.
Second, blogging can help fuel your marketing engine, providing you with a resource to repurpose and use in social media and email communications.
Consider Your Audience and Content Types
Some content can be more effective depending on your audience and goals. Beyond the above, consider alternatives to reach your target audience. Though larger pieces of content can require more time, they can often be repurposed to provide resources for other content channels, similar to blogs. Consider using the following alternative content types in your marketing.
Consider these alternative content types:
- eBooks/Whitepapers
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Quizzes
3. Engage Your Audience on Social Media
Social media is one of the biggest industries in the world right now. With over 3.96 billion users spread across multiple platforms, financial advisors should not ignore social. The first thing an advisor has to know is that social media is a long-term investment. It does not provide an immediate return but does with time and effort.
Here are some ideas that might improve your social media game:
- Create a schedule of when you regularly post on social
- Focus on quality over quantity. Higher-quality posts gain more traction
- Make posts for your audience (know whom you’re creating for)
- Vary your posts by using different media such as video, audio, images, etc.
Get Social
People are on social media to relax and be entertained. Though you might be inclined to stick to industry topics, don’t shy away from posts that highlight your personality, they can be some of your most successful posts. Engaging other users can also be done by commenting on other users’ posts.
Prime Your Referrals
Content shared on social media can often make its way to your current client’s friends and family. Such individuals are often the first to become referrals. By being active on social media, such referrals will already be aware of your brand and may be more prepared to become a client.
Make Financial Services More Relatable
Most people know what to expect from the services they seek. However, the services of a financial advisor are often unclear for first-time clients. Being active on social media can help make financial services more transparent and help to emphasize the benefits of having a financial advisor.
Always remember that social media is all about engagement and connection, whether on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Connect with your audience, and form a bond that lets them know you’re not just here to sell them a service or product. You should genuinely enjoy the content you post and the conversations you have. Authenticity is the key to really understanding social media and getting the most out of it.
4. Increase Client Satisfaction with Email Marketing
Another great tool for your financial advisor marketing toolbelt is email marketing. Email marketing allows advisors to get in touch directly with their clients and prospects. Not only is it an efficient line of communication, but also an investment in your business. One of the most important factors for financial advisor marketing is establishing a sense of authority and trust with clients and prospects. Research from Litmus shows that emailing generates $42 for every $1 spent.
Here are a few things to keep in mind with advisor email marketing.
Focus on the Subject Line
According to Convince and Convert, 35% of email recipients open an email based on the subject line alone. Your subject line is one of the first things a client will see and is critical to your open rate. But that does not mean a good subject line needs to be complicated. Strong, client-focused subject lines evoke emotion and imply benefits, leading to an open.
Here are a few other ways to quickly create a compelling subject line:
- Questions: Asking a question engages your reader and implies a solution. Try to direct your inquiry towards the benefit of your body text or the reader’s primary pain point.
- Checklists: Quantifying your tips, like this article, is an excellent way to show how much value you’re bringing. Long lists offer more opportunities for solutions, while shorter lists offer time savings.
- How-To’s/Guides: Guides offer to simplify a complex topic, allowing your reader to receive the benefit without the need to figure things out as they go.
- Alternative Media: Most readers are used to receiving text-based emails. Highlighting when your content is different can be great for attracting attention. You can do this by adding a tag in brackets at the beginning of your subject line.
- Emojis: Using emojis can be a great way to catch the reader’s eye in a busy inbox, but be sure to use these conservatively and appropriately.
Communicate with Consistency
YCharts client communication survey asked clients of advisors, “Would more frequent communication give you more confidence in your advisor?” Seventy-seven percent of clients said “Yes,” and eighty-seven percent stated email as their preferred method of communication. Consistency is critical when communicating with clients. However, as the data above shows, many advisors fail to communicate enough. Having a communication schedule can help, and newsletters and emails containing timely content can be a great place to start. Email marketing is a wonderful way to contact your clients and prospects, whether you’re a small business or a large company.
5. Help Prospects Find You With Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization is crucial when it comes to financial advisor marketing. It considers various ranking factors to determine where your site lands on the results pages. The higher ranking you are, the easier it is for clients and prospects to find your site. Since SEO is an algorithm, it’s constantly changing making it much like a puzzle that has to be resolved repeatedly. It can be a challenge for even the most experienced financial advisor.
Since SEO is like a puzzle, there are multiple solutions to finding out what works for you. Keywords are a big defining factor for ranking as certain words have more pull than others. Things such as “marketing for financial advisors” or “local SEO” tend to rank better because of the high search volume. Factor in keywords when creating articles, blogs, videos, and even images to ensure that it helps improve your ranking.
Other ways to improve SEO are as follows:
- Choose keywords aimed at attracting your ideal client
- Write strong title tags and meta descriptions
- Hire an expert who specializes in SEO
Focus On Local SEO
Many Google searches for financial advisors will produce location-based results. For example, when searching the keyword “financial advisor,” it is likely you will receive a map in your results, indicating the search intent behind this query is to locate a nearby advisor. It’s important to prioritize local SEO for this reason, emphasizing your location in content and metadata when applicable.
Keep an Eye on Your Analytics
Google Analytics and Google Search Console are used to help track your website’s performance. By tracking specific pages, you can see what content performs well and what doesn’t. This can help you create more of what works and cut back on what doesn’t. Keep in mind that Google Analytics and Google Search Console provide different benefits and features. This article can provide further information on each tool’s differences and use cases.
FMG’s platform contains built-in SEO tools to support your financial advisor marketing. You can learn more about the benefits FMG provides here.
6. Build Your Brand
Your brand is your business’s identity. But your brand goes beyond your company colors and logo. And though these items are important, it’s the values and personality projected through your website, content, social media, and email communications that can make the largest impact. Your brand identity serves several important purposes, and being intentional about it is critical to attracting the right clients and standing out in the industry.
Consider the Results of Branding
Your brand evokes specific emotions and sets a tone for your business. Consider what emotions and tone you would like to set when building your brand and ensure the resources you’re creating and using emphasize your goals. To further emphasize the importance of branding, take a look at some of these branding statistics:
- Presenting a brand consistently across platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%
- Brands that blog generate 67% more leads
- 73% of consumers love a brand because of helpful customer service
- 61% of people are more likely to buy from companies that deliver unique content
Here are some things to consider when it comes to branding.
Help Prospects Self-Qualify
Your services are designed to meet specific needs, and not every prospect is right for every advisor. Your brand can help project your value proposition across multiple channels, from your site to your social channels, it displays who your ideal audience is. This can help prospects self-qualify, saving you, your team, and the prospects time. It can also help you stand out from competitors by emphasizing the unique elements of your firm.
Related: How To Create Financial Advisor Marketing Campaigns