Find Out How to use Digital Marketing for Your Financial Planning Business

Table of contents:

• Introduction
• Digital marketing: What Is It?
• The Digital Marketing Funnel
• Digital Marketing Strategies For Financial Planning and How To Use Each
• Let The Experts Help You!

If you're a new financial advisor or seeking to expand your clientele, you'll need to put in some extra effort to advance. Regardless of your talent, you still need to build a reputation for dependability and reliability. While it's likely that you're skilled with money, advertising may not be your strongest suit. Digital rules the world in today's society. Therefore, you need strong digital marketing for your financial planning business.

The good news is that you may effectively use the internet world to expand your business without becoming an expert. So let's get right to the foundations of developing a digital marketing plan.

Digital marketing: What Is It?

Using digital platforms is at the heart of digital marketing. For instance, you can decide to use digital advertisements, social media participation, and personal business websites to grow your company. Paid, owned, and earned are the three different categories of digital marketing channels.

 

Paid

Any form of advertisement would be considered paid media, including Google AdWords, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn ads, as well as the standard digital advertising you find in sidebars within the body of content.

Owned

Owned media includes both your personal website and your own social media accounts. So, to put it another way, this is a digital platform that you own and are in charge of.

Earned

When you hear people talking about huge companies doing incredible things in terms of customer service, that is earned media. These businesses have earned that free publicity by excelling at what they do and going beyond the ordinary. Even more, people contend that earned media is the most beneficial type.

The Digital Marketing Funnel

Other marketing and sales methods use high-pressure tactics to persuade a potential client to commit immediately. In contrast, digital marketing is more concerned with gradually introducing a person to work with a company by offering various types of helpful content.

 

 

A person might be thought of as going through a funnel-like process known as "warming up" before they are ready to commit to becoming a client. Undoubtedly, the funnel and the volume of content sent through it are important. 

Let's examine the three sections, the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel.

 

Top Funnel

The top of the funnel is where all prospects first establish contact with a business. At this point, a company's content is to raise brand awareness rather than make a sale.

The top of the funnel is your advising company's first opportunity to persuade a potential customer that you can offer value to their financial life. Content created for the top of the funnel should address a problem that a prospect is having and offer a solution.

The best content to employ here is simple and quick to consume, such as a blog article, infographic, or even a problem-solving ebook, as top funnel marketing aims to increase awareness.

Middle of Funnel

Once they know your brand and understand that you offer answers for more than just one problem, a prospect will then go to the middle of the funnel through frequent contact with your business.

Potential customers are now debating whether your business is a good fit for them. They can also consider different businesses and determine which one is the best fit.

Content for the middle of the funnel might be more in-depth and focused than content for the top. You can start to supply more particular information in place of high-level issues.

An event like a webinar (which needs more effort than merely reading a blog) can also help you filter out who's actually interested in your business. Email nurturing campaigns can be particularly helpful in providing the targeted material right to a prospect.

Bottom of Funnel

Things start to become really serious towards the bottom of the funnel. When a prospect reaches the bottom of the funnel, they are prepared to choose the advisor they wish to work with individually.

Any information distributed towards the bottom of the funnel phase is extremely targeted to persuade a prospect to hire your financial planning business. So while you're still supplying educational value, you can now concentrate on why your company is the best option rather than just providing advice on setting up a budget or what kinds of investing techniques could suit their situation.

Digital Marketing Strategies For Financial Planning and How To Use Each

1. Branding

What exactly is branding? It explains what to expect from your products and services to current and potential clients. In addition to full-service brokerage businesses, registered investment advisors (RIAs), cheap brokerage firms, and even robot advisors, your prospects have hundreds, if not thousands, of options. The cornerstone of your financial adviser marketing approach should be what makes you unique. Your branding needs to make it obvious why a customer should pick you over another company.

 

• Experience

When choosing a financial adviser, trust is a crucial consideration. By highlighting your years of experience, the number of clients your firm has served, and the educational backgrounds of your personnel, you may strengthen this. Additionally, if you run a small business independently, explaining your company's history and the advantages of doing business with you will be helpful.

• A Niche Market

There must be a particular clientele you work particularly well with. For instance, retirement planning for local mill workers or asset management for corporate executives. While some advisors deal with millennials in the IT industry, others concentrate on healthcare professionals. You may stand out from the competitors by finding a niche.

• Credentials

The members of your team are skilled. Everyone has put forth a lot of effort to earn the required licenses, such as Series 7 and 66, or more prestigious credentials, such as CFP® and CFA®. Include them in your promotional campaigns for financial advisors. Show potential clients what your team is capable of and how their issues may be solved with the help of your credentials. Making sure your material is updated, and consistent is important when developing your branding.

This holds true for digital and printed assets and other social media platforms. For instance, a client receiving a postcard or visiting your website should have the same branding as a visitor to your LinkedIn page. Consistency improves brand awareness and strengthens the perception you and your services have in the eyes of your customers. Images and infographics should be used in digital content to make it more visually appealing. Additionally, the language should be simple to grasp and contain essential keywords and phrases for SEO.

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing is the process of producing digital assets, including blog posts, videos, technical and solution briefs, and a range of other digital content, to inform your audience.

Financial planning businesses need content marketing because it helps them establish credibility and trust with their target audience. It is possible to use content marketing to inform potential customers about the characteristics, advantages, and values of a company's products and services. Additionally, it enables businesses to show that they are thought leaders in the financial planning industry and to position themselves as authorities.

• Understand Your Target Market

You must choose a target market and customer for your financial adviser marketing campaigns for them to succeed. Once it has been determined, concentrate just on that area. Many newbie planners who aren't aware of marketing techniques for financial advisors believe they must reach everyone. Try concentrating on just one type of client instead. Unfortunately, trying to satisfy everyone frequently results in no one being satisfied. Customers want to know why they need your product because they can access the entire world with their fingers today. They are curious about how you can help them. You may achieve this customization by choosing content that focuses on how your clients will benefit from your products and services.

• Develop trust with younger consumers

According to research, Gen Zers are less trustworthy than previous generations. Therefore, your wealth management content marketing should prioritize educating consumers and positioning yourself as a financial mentor if you want to gain their trust.

3. Social Media Marketing

You probably already know that using social media to promote your company and create awareness is terrific. However, did you also know that it's one of the best methods for attracting new clients? Social media is perfect for sending customers a customized version of your financial adviser marketing message because of its features. Your attraction to potential new customers can be increased by using targeted, on-brand messages across social media channels. However, due to the tight compliance guidelines established by FINRA and the SEC, social media participation can be a challenging environment for a financial advisor.

Despite these limitations, there are numerous valuable methods to include social media in your marketing strategy for financial advisors:

• Make use of relevant hashtags for your content. 
• Share details about your webcasts, events, and articles.
• Share data from outside sources, such as articles from other financial blogs.
• Display your ability to think critically.
• Social marketing.

4. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a crucial component of any financial adviser marketing strategy since it enables you to maintain contact with both your current and prospective clients. Aside from using email to cross-sell relevant financial items, you can also use regular newsletters to establish continuous touchpoints. Don't worry if that sounds intimidating. Services are offered to help in automating these marketing initiatives. These tools and services can also be used to monitor crucial metrics like open rates and clickthrough rates. With this information, you can follow up with interested prospects, eventually increasing your assets.

Newsletters

You can inform your consumers about recent developments in the financial sector with electronic newsletters. Here are some helpful hints:

• Publish relevant content from your business and other sources. For example, don't just advertise your products and services; instead, try to inform your audience with information they can use.
• Consider segmenting your audience depending on age or niche, which would entail sending different newsletters to various investor types. 
• Maintain open lines of communication, especially in difficult situations like the COVID-19 pandemic. Inform your clients that you are ready to talk about any issues they may have and that you are taking action to protect their accounts.
• Remember to communicate when things are going well! Send greeting cards for festivals or birthdays, including strange occasions like "Star Wars Day." These messages encourage loyalty by demonstrating your concern for the relationship with your customers. In addition, they can be automated, saving you valuable time.

5. Podcasts

Without a podcast presence, no financial adviser marketing plan would be complete. The popularity of podcasts has greatly increased during the past few years. You may do it yourself (DIY) or hire a business to assist you. Getting started is simple and costs only a modest amount of money. Additionally, they provide the listener with another excellent touchpoint that is convenient. While they are driving or cleaning the dishes, people also feel as though you are speaking directly to them.

With the help of a podcast, you can share your knowledge and skills with both current and potential clients, which will help to establish trust. Send webcast invitations via email, and advertise on social media. In addition, you can create content for several platforms at once by transcribing a podcast and publishing it as a blog post. These can also be posted on your social media channels.

6. Blogging

Many financial advisors appear the same to outsiders and provide comparable services. Therefore, a blog should be one of the foundations of your financial advisor's marketing strategy. This will help your business stand out from the competition and improve branding.

The capacity to go deeply into the chosen subject is one feature of blogging that makes it so beneficial. You can look at a certain stock's performance or the whole market. Clients enjoy hearing about the latest developments at your financial services company. Make sure to highlight the following:

• How you're managing your affairs in the face of uncertainty
• Events for networking or speaking engagements that benefit clients' understanding.
• Charitable activities in which your organization participates.

The six techniques mentioned above provide a great road map for starting your financial adviser marketing initiatives. But, like with most objectives, the key is to start going in the right direction.

Let The Experts Help You!

If you are a large financial company or independent financial advisor considering launching a digital marketing campaign but are unsure of where to start, let Winterplay Studios help you. As a digital marketing agency, we have the expertise to enhance website traffic and brand awareness in order to provide high-quality leads that will ultimately boost your sales. These are some of the services we offer:

• SEO Backlink Services –We will assess your website's backlink profile and create a strategy to improve its ranking in search engine results.

• Content Writing Services –By developing content that resonates with your audience, we can elevate your brand's reputation and create a more positive online presence.

• Social Media Advertising –We can help you maximize the power of social media to reach potential clients, build relationships with them, and increase conversions.

Winterplay Studios understands that financial planning is a very competitive field and requires specialized knowledge. That's why we offer customized solutions for each client, so you can always be sure that the strategies we implement will meet your goals and objectives. Contact Winterplay Studios today to learn more about how we can help you reach success!