While financial advisors should invest the majority of their time in mastering their craft, the reality is your business won’t prosper if it doesn’t grow. It’s important to spend time and resources toward moving your advising practice in the right direction. Being strategic is crucial – focusing on the right tactics, spending your time wisely, and keeping a professional public image. In this guide, we’ll go over some of the fundamentals and specific strategies to get you started.
Capital and Time Investment
Marketing not only costs advisors in a financial sense, but it’s also a lengthy time investment. That’s why ensuring that your efforts are not wasted is critical. Focusing on high return-on-investment (ROI) marketing tactics is the best way to maximize your investment in marketing and prospecting.
As a general rule of thumb, you should keep financial resources invested between 5-10% of your income. It’s easier to justify this spending because if executed well, strong marketing campaigns, in the long run, will increase your bottom line.
It’s still important to be cautious that you don’t overload yourself with projects related to marketing. Do what you can in your time between working with clients and on evenings and weekends. However, you shouldn’t shy away from hiring help such as a marketing firm or freelance workers as long as it fits reasonably in your budget.
Premier Marketing and Prospecting Tactics
To ensure that you allocate resources wisely, we’ve put together some of the best tactics that you can use to grow your presence to potential clients. Developing these marketing channels with purpose and consistency will provide a solid foundation as you work towards bringing in more business.
Social Media and Digital Content
Building a presence online is an essential part of any marketing plan nowadays. Two feasible options as a financial advisor are to focus on growing social media accounts and creating valuable digital content. The two go hand in hand, as producing content will lead to growth, and having a following on social media gives you an immediate audience to publish new content to.
Creating educational resources and content provides immediate value to people with an interest in your services. Additionally, posting regularly will keep your name out there in the minds of people who were drawn in enough to follow you. Regular posts can include things like current economic events, infographics, and videos.
Word of Mouth Marketing
As a financial advisor, trust is one of the biggest elements of retaining clients and bringing in new ones. The reality is, people are more likely to trust someone that was referred to them by someone in their network. That’s why word-of-mouth marketing is such a powerful tool in a field such as finance.
Luckily, the strategy isn’t too complicated either. By providing value to your clients and exceeding their expectations, you’re already increasing the likelihood of them bringing up your services with people they know. Don’t be afraid to bring up referrals! If you’re comfortable with a client, it doesn’t hurt to mention that if they have someone they know who’s seeking an advisor, you’re available to bring on new clients. As your client base grows, word of mouth will become an increasingly effective marketing channel.
Outreach Campaigns
While this is probably the least exciting strategy of the bunch, it’s unarguable that it will work if executed correctly. Outreach campaigns are typically conducted through cold calling and email marketing campaigns. It’s important when conducting outreach to ensure you’re being personal with potential clients and providing value.
Don’t treat these people as numbers on a spreadsheet or an email list. Act as if they’re already considering your services, and do your best to push them in the direction of working with you. While it is hard to maintain this attitude after unsuccessful calls or email campaigns, it’s crucial to stay consistent and focus on improving efforts by analyzing data and refining your approach.
Creating a Plan for Prospecting and Selling Potential Clients
One of the first and most important steps of creating a plan is determining what strategies have worked for you in the past, and what tactics will effectively target your ideal prospects. Start by examining your current clients. Out of these clients, which ones would you group as your favorite ones to work with? Once you have some people in mind, think about how you obtained these clients. Additionally, if you were to start all over, what types of marketing would appeal to them? Learn more about prospecting tips for financial advisors on Taylormethod.com.
It goes back to the old adage – If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Sometimes it’s best to focus on what’s proven to work for you and refine your efforts in executing those tactics. If you’ve received most of your clients through word of mouth, focus on encouraging referrals. If you’ve obtained some stellar clients at in-person conferences, make an effort to travel to more financial events. The best prospecting plan is going to be different for every advisor, so be intentional when you’re reviewing past strategies.
Use Your Platform Wisely and Stay in Compliance with Regulations
As you work on growing your presence, especially in online spaces, it’s important to keep a clean public image. With a bigger platform, you have an increased responsibility to maintain relationships and improve the public perception of yourself as not only a financial advisor, but a person. It’s important to stay away from things like controversies and politics and focus on spreading optimism and positivity. According to research conducted by author Tom Corley, out of 177 self-made successful individuals, 54% of these people credited optimism as a critical part of their success.
This philosophy certainly applies to spreading positive messages through your marketing channels, but also to the success of your clients. As an advisor, you want to ensure you’re putting your clients in the best position possible to be successful. While it’s crucial to be realistic in the world of financial advising, radiating optimism and positivity instills confidence and is motivational to potential clients to make steps towards financial freedom and wealth building/preservation. At the end of the day, people are primarily driven by their emotions.
You also need to ensure that you stay within the guidance of SEC regulations to be in legal compliance. It’s necessary to brush up on any rules relating to social media, advertising, and client communication. Rule 206(4)-1 of the SEC Regulation of Investment Advisors specifically provides good general guidelines in these areas.