Is Content Marketing the Most Effective Marketing Spend for Advisors?

Everyone wants business to be as easy as possible, yet we so often make it harder than it has to be.

What’s wrong with living on some low hanging fruit if there is more of it than you can eat?

Nothing is wrong with it – it’s smart business. And it is a pretty easy way to start a new production period, such as when returning from holidays, it must be said.

It’s not always simple to recognise where the easy business is, but some very interesting numbers provide the answers as to where the “easiest” business is to be had for most advisers .

81% of New Zealand consumers get their primary financial information from somewhere other than an adviser

60% of advisers describe themselves differently to what they actually do.

79% of marketing generated leads never convert to sales/customers

Snappy conlusions:

* The majority of new prospective customers are unlikely to be talking to you first. They are more likely to be talking to the people who already do know you though or know of you, so the impression THEY have of you matters enormously.

* How the typical adviser describes themselves professionally causes confusion or doesn’t seem right. That is not helpful.

* Most advisers are too impatient to let the prospect move along the decision-making path at their speed, and either lose touch or push the prospect away through trying to force decisions before they are ready.

Add to that, we know instinctively that the more time we spend with people giving them good practical help without pressure, then the more likely they are to turn into good long term customers that trust us and and follow our advice.

Finally, there is strong international evidence showing that generally “nurtured” leads make 47% larger purchases than newly qualified people who are being “sold to” immediately. Those nurtured leads also have higher conversion rates – 50% more of them result in sales. From a cost per client perspective the research says nurtured leads actually cost about 33% less to acquire in marketing costs, than quick one-off sales.

Several conclusions stand out:

1. There HAS to be a massive opportunity for advisers to engage better with their existing clients. There is quite a bit of research which suggests even our own clients don’t see us as their primary information source. Do you have a content strategy within your marketing to ensure that you are delivering the right sort of information consistently to be THE trusted source? If not, why not? It HAS to be where the easiest wins are – or the “low-hanging fruit” (and lots of it too it seems). Spending more time delivering value to our existing clients will undoubtedly (in my mind) deliver higher returns than many alternative uses of our time.

2. There HAS to be a trust-barrier between the consumer and the adviser if what the adviser says they do, is not what the consumer sees in action. That HAS to affect the advisers ability to do the business. Is your marketing, information, branding and labelling actually consistent with what you really do? If you have a clever and grand-sounding title is it consistent with what the consumer sees and hears you talking about? If not, change the title. Or do what you say you are. But whatever you do, get it consistent and on point and remove confusion from prospects and customers minds.

3. Given the choice between spending limited marketing budget on generating new leads – most of whom you will never get across the line it seems – or spending it on existing customers, which is logically the best allocation of your limited resource? If you dare, work out how much you spent on marketing for new clients, and how many new clients you actually got for it. Compare it to how much you spent on “marketing” to your existing clients – and how much you got from that.

Related: The BEST Prospecting Question Ever

The conclusion is a simple one, and so simple it is almost unbelievable. But the evidence in the form of pure sales results and client engagement that are being generated by advisers who have tried it – who do this regularly – is compelling.

Here is their formula:

Talk to your own clients and networks .

Tell them what you do.

Try to help them and give them useful information – be there for them.

Be the person they trust for reliable and practical financial information.

Do your job well, and place their interests first.

Do it all constantly.

Be present without being a nuisance.

Simple and consistent content marketing of useful information to build trust and credibility, within your own network and clientele to begin with, is the most effective marketing spend. It is also the most effective way to get the low hanging fruit – and there is a lot more of it ready to be picked than most advisers realise.