In today’s highly competitive landscape for financial advice, digital marketing allows you to scale your marketing efforts. Email campaigns, social media postings, blogs, newsletters and even in-person workshops and seminars are enhanced using technology. But while you may check all the digital delivery boxes, your marketing program will succeed or fail based on the quality of your content.
Advisor Content Marketing Tips
Developing content that will either attract new business or engage existing clients takes a commitment of time, energy and creativity. Here are a few tips you may want to consider when utilizing marketing to grow your business and nurture long-term relationships.
- Have a solid plan for your content. Determine early on if you will be creating the marketing content yourself or using other internal or external resources. Be honest when determining if you have the time and talent to create solid content yourself. People tend to overestimate their abilities in this area. If you decide to use outside help, you need to plan and budget accordingly.
- Know your goals. Like any other initiative worth doing, you need to know how to measure success. Before implementing a content marketing plan, you need to have a goal in mind. Are you looking to generate leads, book appointments or do more business with existing clients? Whatever your goal, your content marketing needs to support it. If you are focused on educating the public about financial wellness, then a sales pitch about your company is not the right type of content.
- Determine your audience. Knowing your target audience will help you determine your content and how it should be delivered. If your goal is to find new clients, take time to explore who you want to engage with and their preferred communication channel (email, social media, etc.).
- Think like your client, NOT like their advisor. One of the biggest mistakes financial advisors make is designing content around what they believe their audience should know. By knowing your audience and your goals, you should be able to create content that will keep them interested and engaged and ultimately lead to the action you desire.
- Don’t waste content. Your marketing content does not have to be one and done. It’s perfectly acceptable to use your old content as a foundation for new content. For example, take an old blog or newsletter story and turn it into an email, video or social media post. Refreshing and repurposing existing content will save you an incredible amount of time and effort.
- Use curated content. Curated content is content others have already published that you can use to enhance your marketing strategy. It doesn’t mean plagiarizing someone else’s work, it means sharing something you found interesting. For example, you can share a retirement planning graphic on Facebook from a respected source or include engaging and educational articles that are specific to your audience in a newsletter. Reposting engaging curated content on social media is easy and costs you nothing.
- Spend extra time on subject lines and calls to action. When developing an email campaign, the best content in the world will be wasted if the email isn’t opened. You need to focus on your subject line to grab your reader’s attention immediately. To increase your open rates, consider subject lines that:
- Creates urgency without being pushy
- Involves your audience (i.e., asking a question)
- Shares helpful content
- Warns them about a problem
- Personalizes the message to the reader
Implementing your marketing content plan
There are few things as intimidating as staring at a blank page. If you’re stuck for content inspiration, try thinking of your most frequently asked question and answer it in your head. Refine the answer and then do one, or all, of the following: write a short social media post; develop a well-thought-out email including supporting links; record a 30-second video; create an audio clip; design an infographic.
Creating compelling content is not always easy, but you don’t have to do it on your own. There are tools, services and platforms available that can help you develop highly impactful content and then leverage it across multiple marketing vehicles to engage and nurture prospects and clients and grow your business.
To learn how White Glove’s marketing solutions can help financial advisors attract, connect and engage with clients and potential clients, visit www.whiteglove.com.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.