Did you know that financial advisors with a documented marketing strategy are 313% more likely to report success in their marketing efforts?
With so many options for prospects, it’s not enough to post to your social media every once in a while anymore. To get the most out of your marketing, you need to have a plan.
That’s why we’ve outlined five tips for advisors who want to make strides in their marketing and pull in more prospects than ever.
1. Know Your Audience
One recent study reported that firms with a specific target audience achieve greater profitability than their counterparts who don’t—with upwards of 35% greater annual client growth. In short, you have to know who you’re talking to if you want to get your messaging right.
Rather than marketing yourself as an advisor fit for everyone, it’s worth it to know your niche and define your personas.
Build Your Personas
A buyer persona is a detailed, hypothetical profile of your perfect client. The key here is to be as specific as possible so you truly understand your ideal client’s needs, wants and mindset. A good buyer persona should include:
- Personal background information
- Lifestyle choices
- Challenges
- Motivations and goals
It’s important to be as specific as possible with your buyer personas. Is your client a retiree? A business executive? What are their pain points? Why should they hire you?
These details will form the basis of how you communicate your brand. You may also find it helpful in your process to narrow down your “negative personas”—the prospects you know for sure you don’t want to work with. The best marketing attracts the people you want, and repels the people you don’t want.
Once you figure out who you want to work with through your buyer personas, you’ll have a clear idea of what you should say and where you should say it.
2. Nail Your Value Proposition
A value proposition is kind of like your elevator pitch—it’s a short statement that tells a customer why they should choose to work with you over your competitors. A great value prop communicates the clear benefits you can deliver to your customers, as well as how it solves a challenge for them.
Some key questions to ask while creating your value proposition include:
- Which customers are you trying to serve?
- Which needs are you going to meet?
- What sets you apart?
A unique marketing challenge for advisors is the fact that while the world loves instant gratification, financial advisors offer a long-term service. There aren’t necessarily any immediate benefits your clients can take home, and you can’t guarantee that their investment will pay out. All you can do is prove you know your stuff.
So how do you combat these challenges?
A strong value proposition is your best tool, communicating the reasons why consumers need to engage with your firm right here, right now.
3. Think of Your Marketing in Terms of Campaigns
All too often, advisor marketing is done in tiny, disconnected spurts that make it difficult to gain any momentum. You could be tweeting, sending newsletters, and even blogging, but your efforts might not serve you best if your content isn’t connected.
By talking about the same topics across several of your platforms, your campaign can deliver better results.
For example, a successful tax planning campaign might involve all of these pieces published around the same time:
- A handful of blogs on taxes
- A Facebook poll asking your followers if they feel like they have ever paid more in taxes than they needed to
- A newsletter pulling together your best content on tax planning
- A Call To Action (CTA) in all of the above pointing people to your tax review consultation signup form
Hitting the same message from multiple angles ensures that you’re covering all your bases and reaching more potential and existing clients.
4. Measure Your Results
Some decisions shouldn’t be made just on those gut feelings—that’s why analysis is a vital component of successful marketing. Analysis allows you to accurately measure your ROI so you can make data-driven decisions.
With a multitude of free and low-cost tools available for measuring your digital marketing (e.g., Google Analytics and Bitly), tracking your results is easier than ever, but many advisors still don’t measure them at all.
So how can you know if your marketing is effective?
Choose the metrics that matter most to you. That could be site visits, an increase in followers, a better bounce rate, or something else. Once you’ve narrowed that down you can set specific goals and check in on your analytics regularly to see if your methods of marketing are paying off or if it’s time to adjust course.
5. Tweak and Try Again
Speaking of adjusting courses, there is always room for improvement, even on the best marketing campaign you’ve ever run. Whether your last campaign was a roaring success or a dismal failure, take time to review and reflect. Ask yourself these questions to get a better idea of how to move forward:
- What worked?
- What didn’t?
- How can we do better next time?
And whatever the outcome: try, try again. Keep what worked, throw away what didn’t, and run your next iteration to get better results.
Mix Up Your Marketing
Want to try a free marketing experiment? Sign up for a 7-day free trial of Holistiplan and start promoting tax reviews through all your channels—we think you’ll like the results.