A high percentage of the financial advisor firms that we work for are using the services of a digital marketing agency for the first time. Consequently, many of them do not know what to expect when they hire an agency.
This article will provide some background information that will help you develop a positive working relationship with a digital marketing agency.
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Realistic Expectations
Step one in building a positive relationship with an agency is creating some goals that are based on realistic expectations. In general, digital marketing agencies have three responsibilities:
- Increase your visibility on the Internet so investors can find you
- Increase the number of “relevant” visitors to your website
- Develop and maintain a website that converts more visitors into contacts
All three responsibilities have significant challenges due to the extraordinary amounts of competition on the Internet.
Contacts Versus Leads
You may assume your digital marketing agency is a lead generation company. That would be a bad assumption. The principal role of a digital marketing agency is visibility, traffic, and conversions.
Calling conversions contacts is more accurate than calling them leads. That is because leads are supposed to want to talk to you right now. They are in active search mode. They submit their information on your Contact Us page.
However, what if investors are registering for a free offer on your website? This could mean they are seeking information versus advisors. But they could be valuable contacts because they may be seeking advisors in the future after they complete their searches for information.
Advisors have told us some of their best new clients came to them after registering for a free eBook on their websites.
These contacts will end-up on your drip list where you will stay in touch until they are ready to talk.
A realistic expectation is some investors want to talk now and some will want to talk in the future when they are closer to retirement or some other target date.
Optimized Websites
You should expect your digital marketing agency to develop and maintain an optimized website that produces a steady flow of contacts for your firm.
Optimization means your website is designed to give visitors several reasons to give-up their anonymity and contact you:
- Website navigation, messaging, and content
- Free offers (eBooks, consultations)
- Blog articles
- Investment guides
Optimization can also describe the performance of your website:
- Meets all of Google’s performance standards
- Higher visibility on the Internet
- Local visibility
- A high conversion rate for visitors to contacts
- Low bounce rates
- Increased time-on-site and page views
Sales Activities
Digital marketing agencies know how to convert visitors into contacts, but they do not convert contacts into clients. That is the responsibility of your marketing process. Someone at your firm will follow-up with the contacts who want to talk now.
You should expect your digital marketing agency to facilitate your marketing process for you. That is because the agency is responsible for your online visibility that made it possible for investors to find you. Then the digital marketing agency is responsible for driving investors to your blog and website. And, most importantly, the agency is responsible for educating investors about your firm and giving them reasons to contact you.
Because investors are initiating contact you should expect them to be warm contacts or they would not have given up their anonymity to contact you.
They also spent time on your website learning more about you before they initiated the contact. They must like what they see or they would not initiate contact for a call or free offer.
These are reasonable expectations.
Timing of Results
You should expect to see gradually improving results over a period of time, in particular, if your online visibility is very low when you hire a digital marketing agency.
Time should be measured in months and years, not days or weeks.
It takes a consistent effort over time to build a substantial presence on Google for keywords that are used by your ideal types of clients. Keep in mind, a lot of other financial advisory firms want visibility for the same keywords, and everyone is competing for page one visibility on Google.
The skills of your digital marketing agency will impact the timing of your results. The more they know about the financial service industry and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) the more successful you will be.
If you are going to “try” digital marketing and track results you should allow at least 12 months. That does not mean it takes this long to see results, but 12 months will give you the time you need to identify trends that you can track and use to project future results.
Digital Marketing Budget
An important factor that will have a major impact on your expectations will be your digital marketing budget. Do you want to start small until you see your digital marketing agency produce results? For example, you could start with a package that includes:
- A custom website that converts visitors into contacts
- One blog article per month
- 20 social media posts on three channels per month
- Local SEO
- One drip email per month
Of course, the more content and social media posts the more exposure you will have on the Internet. Increased exposure means more website traffic and contacts. But, all of this depends on your digital marketing budget. Even a starter package will produce results, but it may take a little longer.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is replacing old, obsolete outbound marketing tactics that were based on advisors initiating contact with investors (cold calling, direct mail). Outbound marketing rejection rates approached 100% because advisors were contacting investors who did not want to be contacted.
Inbound marketing (investors contact advisors) fixes a lot of the problems associated with outbound marketing. A digital marketing agency can help you develop and execute an inbound marketing strategy that produces results.
