As a financial advisor, your business’s success relies on your ability to attract a steady influx of new clients. While 90% of financial advisors acknowledge the importance of marketing, only 23% have defined marketing strategies in place.
Failing to prioritize marketing can significantly impact profitability. After all, a 2023 survey found that advisors with marketing plans enjoy 168% more leads than those without.
If you want to ramp up your marketing this year, you’re in the right place. Below, we’ll break down the current marketing landscape for financial advisors. After that, we’ll offer 13 practical steps for implementing a successful marketing strategy in 2024.
The State of Financial Advisor Marketing in 2024
Marketing plays a vital role in building brand awareness, attracting new clients, and driving sales across all industries. However, due to the industry’s complexity and competitiveness, marketing is particularly important for financial advisors.
With that in mind, here are some interesting marketing statistics from a Broadridge survey of 400 financial advisors:
- Financial advisors spend an average of $15,900 per year on marketing.
- Financial advisors with defined marketing strategies onboard 50% more clients.
- 31% of surveyed advisors plan on increasing their marketing spend over the next year.
- Growth-focused financial advisors invest four times more than their non-growth-focused counterparts.
The Challenges of Financial Advisor Marketing
Investing in marketing is a must if you want to grow your financial advisor business. However, it can feel overwhelming if you don’t know where to start. That’s why most financial advisors procrastinate on developing a clear marketing strategy.
Some of the most common marketing challenges faced by today’s financial advisors include:
- Lack of time – From hosting client consultations to refining financial planning strategies, advisors have a lot of work on their plates. Thus, it’s unsurprising that 65% of financial advisors struggle to find time for marketing.
- Lack of support – While delegation is a crucial skill for any ambitious business person, only 20% of financial advisors leverage third-party marketing support, often resulting in subpar outcomes.
- Lack of understanding – Like finance, marketing is a complex field. Financial advisors who want to manage their marketing in-house must develop a foundation of knowledge about modern marketing principles and strategies.
13 Steps For a Successful Financial Advisor Marketing Strategy
Now that you understand the benefits and challenges surrounding financial advisor marketing, let’s dive into 13 tried-and-true steps for enacting a successful strategy.
Step #1: Outline Your Financial Advisor Marketing Objectives
Most financial advisors pursue marketing initiatives to attract more clients. While conversions are the ultimate goal, many other key performance indicators (KPIs) can help you determine if your marketing campaign is on track.
Here are a few other marketing objectives worth pursuing:
- Increasing your website traffic
- Growing your email list
- Educating prospective clients on your products and services
- Building brand awareness
- Staying top-of-mind with existing clients
- Garnering positive reviews and testimonials online
Once you’ve identified your top objectives, create SMART goals for each one. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. This goal-setting framework can increase the likelihood of success in your marketing campaigns.
Step #2: Define Your Target Audience
Defining your target audience is the next step to creating a successful marketing strategy. By clarifying the types of clients you want to attract, you can tailor every detail of your marketing campaigns, from your messaging to your mediums, to their unique needs and goals.
Here are a few questions that can help you narrow down your target audience:
- Who are your favorite clients to work with?
- What characteristics do they have in common?
- How old are they?
- What is their average income?
- Where are they located?
- What social media platforms do they spend the most time on?
Along with these basic demographic details, you also want to explore why these clients need your services:
- What are their primary motivations for seeking your services?
- What are their top concerns?
- What problems do you help them solve?
- By solving their problems, how do your services make them feel?
These psychological insights can help you construct your marketing messaging in a way that resonates with prospective clients on a deeper level.
Step #3: Segment Your Audience Into Distinct Buyer Personas
Chances are, you have more than one type of “ideal client.” For example, maybe you want to target Gen X professionals planning their retirement and young entrepreneurs seeking guidance about wealth-building strategies. If so, you need to segment your target audience into smaller subsets.
Marketers often call these subsets “buyer personas.” A buyer persona is a semi-fictional description of your ideal customer that factors in external market data. Here’s an example:
- Buyer persona: Gen X Professional Pre-Retiree
- Age: 45 to 60
- Occupation: Mid to senior-level professional
- Income level: $100,000 to $250,000
- Goals: Planning for retirement and maximizing savings
- Challenges: Balancing ongoing expenses with retirement planning
- Concerns: Ensuring they can retire comfortably and avoid financial risks
- Motivations: Peace of mind and financial security
- Preferred marketing mediums: Facebook, email newsletters, blogs, webinars, and in-person consultations
Step #4: Refresh Your Client-Facing Website
These days, the majority of investors start their financial advisor searches online. When prospective clients land on your website, they’ll immediately form a first impression of your company. Just take a look at these statistics:
- Visitors only take half a second to form an opinion of your website.
- 75% of consumers judge a company’s credibility by its website design.
- 88% of visitors will leave your website if they deem it unattractive.
- Websites with excellent user experience enjoy 400% higher conversion rates.
- Nearly 90% of consumers will switch to a competitor after a poor website experience.
- 60% of people won’t recommend a business if its website renders poorly on mobile.
Since so much is at stake, you don’t want to skimp on your website design. Instead, you should ensure it’s attractive, professional, quick to load, and easy to navigate.
Ninety-eight percent of financial advisors are investing in their websites over the next 12 months. If you want to join their ranks, you can do so by:
- Enlisting the support of a professional web designer
- Planning out a user-friendly layout
- Ensuring your website loads quickly and renders well on mobile devices
- Showcasing content that satisfies your visitors’ search queries
- Displaying compelling client testimonials and case studies to build trust
- Featuring clear calls-to-action (CTAs) that guide visitors to take your desired next steps
Step #5: Enhance Your Financial Advisor SEO
Once you’ve spruced up your website, you must ensure it’s easily discoverable on Google and other search engines. This process is known as search engine optimization (SEO).
Effective SEO increases the chances that your website shows up on the first page of search results for popular search queries, such as “financial advisor near me,” “what should I invest in,” and “how much money do I need to retire.” You can target relevant keywords by basing your web pages and blog articles around them, a process known as on-page SEO.
The other side of SEO is more technical. It includes optimizing the following aspects of your website:
- Web page hierarchy
- Navigation
- Mobile optimization
- Page speed
- Meta tags
- Internal linking
- XML sitemap
- Structured data
Step #6: Optimize Your Social Media Profiles
Your website is the cornerstone of your online presence, but it’s not the only platform where potential clients will engage with your brand. Your social media profiles also deserve some attention.
As with your website, you should ensure your social media profiles are polished and professional. You can do so by:
- Using a professional headshot or logo as your profile picture
- Writing a clear bio that summarizes your services and expertise
- Showcasing a link to your website
- Sharing industry updates, financial tips, and client success stories
- Engaging with your friends, colleagues, and followers’ posts
So, what social platforms should you focus on? The answer stems back to your target market and buyer personas. Generally, LinkedIn and Facebook are considered the top channels for financial advisors. That’s because these platforms tend to attract older generations who have more wealth to manage. However, YouTube is also an excellent platform, as many people prefer learning about complex financial topics in video form.
A Putnum survey found that 92% of financial advisors on social media acquire more clients on the platforms they use to promote their businesses. Thus, regularly engaging on these platforms can bring prospective clients your way.
Step #7: Expedite Traction With Paid Advertisements
Growing your organic search traffic with SEO marketing can take some time. If you want an immediate surge of website visitors, consider investing in pay-per-click (PPC) ads.
PPC ads appear on Google and social media websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Here’s how they work:
- You select the keywords you want to target
- You bid on these keywords against competitors
- You craft the advertising copy, imagery, and landing page for your ad
- If you outbid your competition, your ad will be featured on your chosen platform
- Every time your ad is clicked, you’ll be charged a small fee
While PPC marketing requires an ongoing budget, you can tailor your targeting so your ads only show up in front of people who match your ideal client criteria or who have previously visited your website or social media profiles.
Step #8: Establish a Consistent Content Marketing Strategy
Although financial advising is valuable, prospective clients don’t always understand what it involves. These leads may want to research before contacting a financial advisor and starting the process. That’s where content marketing comes into play.
Content marketing is the process of creating and sharing helpful, relevant content that educates leads and nurtures them into becoming customers. This content can include:
- Blog articles
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Infographics
- Newsletters
- White papers
- e-Books
- Case studies
- Webinars
- Social media posts
No matter which mediums you prefer, you can use your content to break down popular topics related to financial advising, starting with your clients’ most frequently asked questions. Since you’re a subject matter expert, your perspective will carry a lot of weight.
As you demonstrate your expertise with this content, you can educate your audience and earn their trust along the way, increasing the chances that you’re the financial advisor they reach out to when they’re ready to convert.
Step #9: Use Gated Content To Build Your Email List
Sharing content on your website and social media channels is an excellent way to attract more leads and bolster your brand awareness. However, you can reserve some content for another purpose – growing your email list.
Here’s how this marketing strategy works:
- Create a compelling content offer – Some content is so good that people are willing to share their contact information to access it. Webinars, white papers, e-books, and personalized financial assessments are just a few examples.
- Set up a promotional landing page for your premium content – Once your content offer is ready to go, create a dedicated landing page that explains what visitors will gain from accessing it. This landing page should contain a form so visitors can submit their information and download the premium content immediately.
- Ask for their email address in exchange – Your form should always contain a section for email addresses. Depending on the value of your content offer, you can also request additional information. Just make sure you don’t ask for too much information, as it may deter visitors from filling it out.
With this simple strategy, you can provide your prospective clients extra value while padding your email list for future email marketing campaigns.
Step #10: Enhance Your Financial Advisor Email Marketing
Emails may seem obsolete in the age of social media, but email marketing still boasts an impressive ROI. Every dollar spent on email marketing earns businesses an average of $36, making it one of the most effective forms of digital marketing.
Your email campaigns allow you to reach your audience regularly and remind them about your services. While you can feature CTAs in your emails, make sure they share information your clients want to read, such as market updates, financial education, and personalized service offerings.
The keys to effective email marketing in 2024 include:
- Consistency – Many financial advisors wonder how often they should email their list of recipients. The right cadence can vary from one advisor to the next. Whether you send your emails weekly, monthly, or somewhere between, just stick to a consistent schedule.
- Personalization – Personalized emails are more likely to be opened and drive more revenue. Luckily, personalizing your emails is a breeze with modern software. You can customize your emails to greet recipients by name, reference past interactions, and promote the content most relevant to their interests.
- Proper targeting – Your email list will most likely contain a mix of past, present, and prospective clients. These groups naturally have different needs and interests. They may also have varying levels of engagement with your emails. Segmenting your email list by client status, demographics, and engagement levels can help ensure your emails resonate with the right audiences, improving your open and click-through rates.
Step #11: Host In-Person Events
So far, we’ve discussed several powerful digital marketing strategies. While the online world can help you connect with potential clients across the country, there’s still value in taking an in-person approach.
For instance, you can host local events, such as seminars and workshops. These events allow you to forge direct connections with prospective clients, educate them in real time, and establish trust.
Along with meeting with potential investors, you can also attend networking events with fellow finance professionals, such as certified public accountants (CPAs), attorneys, and small business owners. Building relationships with these professionals can spur more referrals for your business.
Step #12: Partner With an Established Investment Group
Another way to generate steady referrals is by joining an investment group like Alden Investment Group. We provide valuable referrals and marketing support for our advisors.
By joining Alden Investment Group, you can also access our broad suite of tech solutions, including secure email software, compliance and reporting tools, research and trading systems, and much more. These convenient solutions are designed to increase your business’s flexibility and efficiency, enabling you to focus on servicing your clients.
Step #13: Track and Optimize Your Marketing Campaigns
No matter what mix of marketing campaigns you employ, you need to monitor their performance to implement improvements over time.
Fortunately, there’s a plethora of tech tools that can track and analyze your data for you, including:
- Google Analytics tracks website traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates.
- Hotjar is used to understand your website visitors’ behavior via heat maps.
- SEMrush is used to analyze your SEO and track keyword performance.
- Meta Ads Manager for your paid Facebook ad campaigns.
- Mailchimp for your email marketing performance, open rates, and click-throughs.
Review your marketing metrics regularly for the best results to see how they compare to your pre-set KPIs.
Grow Your Financial Advisor Business With Alden Investment Group
A well-defined marketing plan can enhance your lead generation, boost client acquisition, and increase revenue over time. While implementing such a plan can seem complex, you don’t have to navigate it alone.
At Alden Investment Group, we offer specialized support for our financial advisors. Our firm is unique because we operate as a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) and a Broker Dealer. If you’re the right fit for our RIA, we can help you grow your business with comprehensive support services and cutting-edge tech solutions.
Interested in joining Alden? Reach out to our team today.
Sources:
AOL. Why Most Financial Advisors Are Doing More Client Outreach.
https://www.aol.com/why-most-financial-advisors-doing-130027440.html
Broadridge. Only 23% of Financial Advisors Have a Defined Marketing Strategy, According to Broadridge Study.
https://www.broadridge.com/press-release/2020/23-percent-of-financial-advisors-have-a-defined-marketing-strategy#:~:text=The%20survey%20found%20that%20that,within%20the%20next%2012%20months.
Broadridge. Financial Advisor Marketing Trends Report.
https://info.advisorstream.com/financial-advisor-marketing-trends-report-2024?submissionGuid=26e6bc3b-6b4b-471b-8bae-a3da0d728a05
WordStream. 180+ Strategy-Changing Digital Marketing Statistics for 2024.
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BusinessWire. Use of Social Media Nearly Universal among Financial Advisors, According to New Putnam Investments Study.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190408005108/en/Use-of-Social-Media-Nearly-Universal-among-Financial-Advisors-According-to-New-Putnam-Investments-Study
Hubspot. The Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats That We Think You Should Know.
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