One of the very few things financial advisors need to pay more attention to in this age is marketing. Marketing is the core of any successful business. Even if you are confident that you could help more people grow their wealth and get them prepared for retirement, you won’t be able to do much if you can’t reach them. And that is why marketing is important.
You need to devise effective marketing strategies for promoting your services to your potential clients, so you can easily convert them to a quality lead. Here in this post, we have provided 10 effective marketing strategies to help you get in front of the right people at the right time. These strategies are guaranteed to help you attract and convert prospects into clients and regular sources of referrals. So let’s get straight into business!
10 Effective Marketing Strategies Every Financial Advisors Should Know
#1: Research your target market
To be productive with your marketing efforts, the first thing to do is to identify your target market and target client. So do your homework and research who this demographic is. Don’t try to reach everyone because it may not produce the best result. So, identify the people that really need your services and zero in on them.
Knowing who you will be serving with your business will make it much easier to identify the perfect way to reach them. It will help you identify their pain points and how best to bring solutions through your business. If you are yet to identify your target clients, this is what you should do right away!
#2: Understand your client’s goals and motivations
When you already know your target audience, the next thing will be to understand what’s driving them. That will help you come up with the right message that addresses their need needs, and desires. You can ask some of your clients about their goals and motivations or get on social media to reach out to others like them.
Another way to know this is by studying your clients on social media. Know what groups they like to join and who they like to follow on social media platforms. This will likely give you a good clue into what most of them value, and hence you will know their goals and motivations.
#3: Focus on specialization
Don’t be all things to everyone. That strategy doesn’t work again in this generation. Instead, hone in on specialization and let your clients know you to be specialized in one particular thing. That will give them enough reasons to choose you whenever they need help in that area.
Consumer, these days, are empowered with amazing tons of information at their fingerprint. They love specialists and believe they are always better at what they do. So which area of finance do you specialize in? Divorce, asset management, or retirement? Just identify an area you are strong in and where you may likely have an advantage over the competition.
#4: Tailor your marketing message to your target clients
This is one mistake many financial advisors make with marketing. This post is about effective marketing strategies for financial advisors, so it is expected to clear the air on this. The basic rule of successful marketing is to market to your audience and no one else. So tone your marketing message to address only those groups of people you are looking to serve.
The marketing message to business owners will be different from that to an individual. At the same time, the marketing message to millennials will be different from the one to generation Z. you sure get the gist now!
#5: Optimize your website
In this present age, one way to make your first impression will be through your website. It is an express image of your brand and business ethics. And to be successful as a financial advisor, you just have to learn to always make a great first impression. So, optimize your website to educate, connect, and capture leads.
Your firm’s website should be simple and easy to navigate. You should have your contact information readily available on it and regularly update it with fresh content – this could be in the form of blog posts.
#6: Send regular newsletters
If you are not sending regular newsletters to your prospects and client, it means someone else is already doing that. A newsletter is important to keep your brand name fresh in the minds of your clients. When they always have your name in their face, it won’t be difficult to quickly remember your brand any time they need your service.
However, make sure your newsletters are relevant enough, showing the human side of your business to your prospects and clients. And this will hence create points of interaction with them.
#7: Avoid financial jargon
We can’t just emphasize this enough. Many financial advisors are not getting the most out of their marketing efforts because they are not speaking in the language their clients would understand. It is important you learn how to meet your clients in the right place and with the right message. This is not the time to sound like a professor teaching a graduate class. But you want to make sure you are able to communicate with your clients.
Cut the jargon and avoid being overly complex. Use a casual, professional voice when explaining financial concepts. A pro tip to go about this is to consider using eye-catching visual content, such as infographics, flyers, and social media posts. It is a fast-moving world, and your customers need more than just text to respond better to your content. So use visual content to attract and call them into yourself.
There are a couple of tools out there that can help you make good visual content for marketing your firm. You can try PosterMyWall. It is a great tool that has helped many financial advisors like you meet their marketing goals without having to hire a professional designer. Plus, the tool has several templates you can easily customize to make professional services flyers to get things rolling right away.
Also, you can use Canva for this purpose too. It is also easy and helps you produce great visual content for your marketing needs.
#8: Social media marketing
Social media is arguable an amazing tool for promoting your brand and building brand awareness. It is an excellent tool for reaching new customers, too. You can also use it to deliver your clients and target market personalized versions of your financial advisor’s marketing message. However, before you embark on using social media to promote your financial advisor firm, make sure you are in compliance with the many rules set by FINRA and SEC in regards to this.
Some tips to make the most of this for your firm are:
- Use great and relevant hashtags for your content
- Include as many hashtags as the social media platform allows – but don’t go too hard on this
- Share information about your events, articles, or webcasts
- Showcase your thought leadership
- Share third party information, especially the ones on other financial blogs
- Understand each social platform and create content accordingly. To have a good hang of this, you can use some tools that provides post templates, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram post templates.
#9: Start getting reviews
Reviews are important for building trust with your clients and prospects. Reviews play a critical role in their decision-making process too. So consider getting more reviews for your firm online. Take advantage of some platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook to gain the trust of prospective clients.
Luckily, this is one area many financial advisors are lagging in. Therefore, doing that will automatically be giving you an edge over many people in the industry.
#10: Leverage video content
This is another place you can gain some competitive advantage over your competitors because not many use it. Leverage video content to market your financial advisor firm. Start with a basic video commercial you can easily add to your homepage and also use it as an intro for your YouTube videos.
You can then take it a step further by making short informational videos you can post on your YouTube channel and social media profiles. Give useful advice and tips in your videos. Hone in on giving tips on how to manage savings and plan retirement.
Bottom Line
Getting started with marketing should not be overwhelming. You only need to stay focused and utilize effective marketing strategies for your financial advisor firm. Imagining it may make things intimidating. But fall for it; just get things started, and you will be surprised how easy it can be. Plus, it will bring great benefits to your firm.
Start with the tips mentioned in this post and use them as a roadmap for igniting your financial advisor’s marketing plans.
