It is crucial for financial advisors to continue to develop their business to increase their bottom line. The more clients that a financial advisor takes on, the more profitable their business will be. This seems like a simple fact, but it can sometimes be hard to manufacture new leads in order to increase revenue.
A common way to garner new leads could be through existing client referrals, either through asking directly for referrals or indirectly through certain marketing efforts. There are also many other avenues advisors can take to boost their profiles to entice new business, which include using the internet to boost their presence. Let’s take a look at 10 marketing strategies that financial advisors can implement to help market themselves.
Invest Effort Into Existing Clients
Word of mouth is free advertising and it can be the best kind out there. Clients that feel special will often provide referrals to their friends and family which can be extremely valuable. If you write a personalized note to clients on anniversaries of your partnership, or other major milestones, you could see an uptick in referrals that you wouldn’t see otherwise (without potentially paying handsomely).
One thing you can do to celebrate clients who reach financial milestones is to send them personal congratulations when they purchase a house, have children graduating, reach retirement, etc. This puts on that personal touch that can help keep your relationship engaged and possibly lead to more referrals.
Embrace A Speciality
A niche is easier to market than just a broad term given that people within a niche have similar interests, desired outcomes, concerns, wants and needs. Investors prefer to work with specialists who understand specific circumstances as well. Potential clients tend to seek out someone who has experience with a specific occupation, life event, companies or products.
You should embrace a specialty by doing the following -- review your client base, analyzing your best clients to see if you have a niche, and finally test out your specified niche. Can you find them easily, are they easy to talk to and work with, what is their typical capital, are you able to beat the competition (if any)?
Create A Professional Looking Website
Having a professional-looking website is critical if you are a specialist and want to be looked at as being an authentic player in that niche. You must create a website that is flexible, functional, easy to use, aesthetically designed in a way that is pleasing to potential clients, and is customer-service oriented; you also want to offer great content, somewhere to sign up for email newsletter and a contact us section. Today, you need to create something that is mobily responsive, since most consumers use cell phones as opposed to CPUs.
The best way to impact your marketing profile is to promote yourself, your team, your office with original photography. Original, not stock photographs, can enhance your website, presentations and social media profiles. In addition to a professional aesthetic, solid website structure and great content sells; you should add the personal touch of your original photography to your website so that it sticks out from the rest.
Focus Your Message On Your Clients
Most financial advisor websites can be layered with information about their credentials and the services they offer. This can be an issue as a lot of advisor websites are set up in that fashion. Instead the focus of attention should be on the value that is brought to the clients.
Instead of the marketing materials on the site focusing on the financial advisors and services that are likely saturated in the market, talk about the specific expertise you can offer to your clients, problems you can solve and how you can provide them with the best service possible.
Send Monthly Newsletters
Ever heard the expression “out of sight, out of mind”? This applies to many aspects of life, and certainly applies to marketing. It is best to stay fresh in investors minds by sending out regular updates via a newsletter.
Newsletters are a cost effective and less intrusive way to provide your existing clients and potential prospects with valuable content which will double as a reminder to enlist more of your services. If you are reaching out more often, chances are that you can retain clients, get more referrals, and potentially gain new leads.
Generate More Traffic Using SEO
Enlisting a company to handle your search engine optimization (SEO) services will drive traffic to your site, and ultimately lead to more conversions. Getting more visibility to your website by getting it placed higher on the search engine results pages for a given search is the primary goal of SEO.
Content generation is a major way of increasing your organic traffic, and this is one tactic that they may employ to do so. There are other methods that you may not know about which can help, that is why it is recommended to use someone who specializes in SEO to stay ahead of the curves and drive an increase in traffic to your website.
Offer Free Advice Regularly
Financial advisors should establish themselves as leaders or experts within their niche or field. You do not have to work for a major firm to make a name for yourself, you can do so by dedicating yourself to providing free valuable advice. Use frequently asked questions, or “FAQs” related to your specialty and write articles on your website that will be valuable to your intended audience. This will lead to an increased SEO and more potential for new clients.
Boost Social Media Presence
Social Media can be crucial in today’s age to find potential prospects, qualifying your prospects and getting the conversations started. Such a large percentage of the world’s population is on social media, which means it is easy to reach a large audience virtually at any moment. You can use inbound marketing through various social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Social media can help people find you by providing people with your great content that is educational, valuable, current, feels like a “gift”. The goal of marketing your speciality through social media is to establish yourself as the subject matter expert and to prompt questions and hopefully start a conversation within your desired industry, employer, interest or demographic.
Create A Webinar
A great way to get your face out there and to grow your business is by using webinars. Webinars are effective ways to build a network, present yourself as a subject matter expert, share knowledge to engage with prospects, and get a lot more interest and attention. Instead of meeting with hundreds or thousands of people individually, you cast a wide net of potential clients.
Webinars present a chance to provide efficient and personal client education. You can join with other professionals to grow your network as well. You can bring in a guest speaker (CPAs, CFP®s, etc. for example) to give a speech on specific topics that may garner massive interest. For example “what the election will do to markets” should gain more traction than a basic general “how to invest” type of webinar.
This is a great alternative to seminars, which can be costly. Webinars are unique and powerful since they can cover so much ground. They are scalable for any audience size, effective for complex ideas, can help you capture email addresses, have much higher conversion rates, showcase your expertise, can function on an annual basis, and add much more of a personal touch.
Sponsor Local Events Or Teams
Sponsoring lets the community know that you are invested locally. This can be a great way to put your name out there and establish trust in your area. Most people would prefer to make a personal connection with their financial advisors, since they want to be able to trust that person handling their money. By sponsoring local events or teams you can put a face to the name and look to make connections with potential clients.
What Marketing Strategies Should I Use?
Any advisor looking for additional opportunities to increase their presence should try to implement as many of these tactics as possible. Treating existing clients with special care, investing in your local communities as well as expanding your net through social media are all proven methods to helping grow your business.
If any of these strategies are used, you should start to see an increase in interest in your services. If you use more than one strategy, you absolutely should see an uptick in conversions.