Effective advisor marketing requires a strategy that fits your firm, audience and goals.
FiComm Partners CEO Megan Carpenter works alongside advisory firms and wealth management businesses, helping their leadership teams identify meaningful growth opportunities through the lens of marketing, PR and advisor marketing.
I had the opportunity to ask her about the latest trends in advisor marketing. Click on the video below to watch the full interview.
Transcript:
The first big trend for financial advisor marketing is all things video.
And how really advisors can use video beyond social media, which is where they initially first go when they think about recording video; they think about YouTube or what they see on Facebook or LinkedIn. Where we really see the trend with video picking up steam is how advisors can use video across the prospects and client experience to really increase meaningful touchpoints throughout that journey.
The second trend that we're seeing in financial advisor marketing is really thinking about how to approach client communications as part of your marketing strategy and plan. So traditionally, advisors think about marketing as ‘How am I attracting new prospective clients to my business?’ And we're seeing this trend pick up – which we are in total alignment with – around really, how do you focus on integrating sort of a marketing mindset to your client communications so that you are consistently providing them with moments of delight, with education, with opportunities to engage on their own terms and just really consistent and meaningful interactions that can be scalable from a digital perspective, but that is also really human-centered and sort of heart first.
Then the third trend that we're seeing with financial advisor marketing is what we call social proof. And that really is when you think about Googling – we're in Vegas right now, so like, what are the best what's the best pizza restaurant in Vegas – we all do that regularly in our day-to-day lives. And we will go and we look at user reviews. And we read user reviews about restaurants or retail products or vendors within our community. That's what we call social proof. Right? There's proof that this vendor or retailer or whoever is good, based on the community around you. And so this is a trend social proof is a trend that we're seeing pick up momentum. And it really has a lot to do with the new SEC marketing rule, which has gone into effect this year, where financial advisors can finally use and leverage client testimonials and endorsements within their overall marketing strategy.
There's a lot of hesitation for sure around how to leverage that and an advisor's business. And there are compliance considerations that do need to be taken into account. But we're seeing the trend and we're really pushing hard and encouraging advisors to think about how you can leverage that social proof as a way to accelerate your marketing efforts.
The one big idea that we're talking with advisors about in 2023, as it relates to their marketing, is how can they reduce uncertainty with their marketing efforts; it's clearly tied to where we are in the markets. And, of course, how our industry, specifically within the independent wealth management and financial advice space, is impacted by the volatility in markets. Financial Advisors are business owners; they have to think about their P&L and their bottom line. So as it relates to marketing, they need to think about how they're reducing uncertainty with their marketing efforts – and so let me tell you a little bit more about what that means. That means, and this is sort of what we think the one big thing is, is an advisor needs to get really clear and really focused.
So, from a marketing perspective, why are you doing what you're doing – whatever marketing strategy it is – whether it's increasing activity on social media, launching a blog, or a podcast, or building out a digital prospecting experience, or thinking about how you are amplifying referrals from clients through marketing strategy, get really clear on why are you doing it? So why are you doing what you're doing? Who are you doing it for? Get as narrow as possible and then what is the change that you're trying to create? Three simple questions, but this allows advisors to reduce uncertainty in their marketing because they're really clear. This is why I'm doing what I'm doing. This is who I'm doing it for. This is the change I'm trying to create. And if I'm if it doesn't hit those three buckets, if it doesn't fit in, then I'm not going to do it. Because that will allow advisors to reduce uncertainty and have more confidence in this is why I'm making these investments – time and money, energy as well – this is what I'm expecting out of it. So that's sort of the one big thing that we're seeing for advisors is how do you reduce uncertainty with your marketing efforts, which ultimately helps yield better results.
