While recent pandemic impacts are beginning to subside, the need and search for financial advice continues to increase. Uncertainty is guiding people in droves to search engines to find reputable financial advisors – but are the masses their ideal clients?
It’s safe to say that a large number of investors using the Internet to find advisors do not meet the minimum requirements of all financial advisors. Assuming that a majority of advisors have non-negotiable minimums, the above mentioned prospects are simply not high-quality leads.
This problem points to the call to action: digital marketing for financial advisors is needed more than ever to alleviate the plague of low-quality leads.
What is the source of the investor qualification problem?
Anyone can use the Internet to research and find financial advisors – regardless of their available assets, incomes, or net worths. While most Americans under the age of 54 have a net worth of well under $1M, and many financial advisors have at least that as a minimum requirement, you can see the underlying issue.
Is it an insurmountable obstacle for producing leads that meet higher minimum asset requirements? Absolutely not! Does it require some serious thought and effort to develop a strategy for overcoming this obstacle? Yes, it will!
In fact, it may require multiple digital marketing strategies to improve the quality of leads produced by financial advisor websites. That’s why working with a specialized digital marketing agency for financial advisors is paramount. Advisors can no longer ignore the apparent marketing stats for 2022.
Instead of spending time and energy rejecting large numbers of investors who do not meet minimums, financial professionals need to be delivered high-quality prospects with a fine-tuned process. By addressing advisors’ ideal audience, time can be saved for all involved. How interesting that the solution is part of the problem.
How big of a challenge is this for financial advisors?
At the turn of the century, there was a global report of 413 million Internet users. In January of 2022, an estimated 4.95 billion people worldwide used the Internet – equal to 62.5% of the world’s human population.
Clearly, the quality of financial advisor leads is a challenge due to more people surfing the web anonymously. Upon visiting advisor websites there has been no effective system for filtering them based on their needs and assets.
Out of the 31% of American adults saying they are online almost constantly, the financial professional must figure out a way to screen investors without alienating them.
Should financial advisors publish their minimum asset requirements on their websites?
Very few financial advisors disclose their Assets Under Management on their websites. Consequently, very few disclose their minimum asset requirement.
Why withhold this information? A financial advisor’s AUM may be too low or too high to appeal to certain investors. The solution is not publishing this information on financial advisor websites – they deal with it once the contact is established.
However, part of the problem is the willingness of financial advisors to disclose all of the necessary information on websites that are viewable by anyone.
Why is getting website leads challenging for financial advisors with higher minimum asset requirements?
Let’s answer a question with a question. What if financial advisors spent money on Internet visibility, website traffic, and a lead generation website? But, the only leads that were produced by the website did not meet the financial advisors’ hard minimums.
The higher the minimum, the bigger the problem. A lot of work and money was wasted producing the wrong types of leads.
How can financial advisor website landing pages address the minimum asset requirement challenge?
Let’s assume investors are filling-out landing pages when they want to initiate contact with financial advisors. A typical landing page will capture names and contact information (email address, telephone, etc.) – whatever fields are required.
A dropdown menu or an interactive form with options of available asset amounts could be available on a landing page: $100,000, $250,000, $500,000, $1,000,000, $3,000,000, more than $5,000,0000. Asking investors to pick one is a softer approach than a statement that says an advisor’s minimum is $1,000,000 when most investors do not qualify for their services.
How can the content on financial advisor websites address this issue?
Every financial firm website design should have a “Who We Serve” page that describes their types of clients. This is an opportunity to publish content that describes the characteristics of the financial advisors’ ideal clients.
For example, one financial advisor serves business owners selling their businesses and retiring. Another advisor helps business owners who are selling and retiring with more than $1,000,000 of investable assets.
This type of qualifying information is spread throughout the financial advisors’ websites.
How can financial advisors express the differences between HNW and UHNW investors?
Advisors are well aware that High Net Worth (HNW) investors have $1M+ in investable assets, excluding homes, businesses, and other types of illiquid assets. Ultra-High Net Investors have $30M+ in investable assets. So how do they express the differences within their financial services online?
Again, if financial advisors’ minimum asset requirement describes HNW investors, it’s best practice is to provide clarity under “Who We Serve.” This will minimize confusion and help advisors identify their ideal audiences without sounding too exclusionary.
How can website case studies help financial advisors describe their ideal types of clients?
Case studies should describe their ideal clients. One of the tidbits of information for lead generation strategies here is the financial advisors’ minimum asset requirements.
For example, an advisor may prefer to work with investors who are business owners with a goal of retiring in the next six months. The case study could disclose the business owner’s available assets as part of current circumstances and goals.
When visitors read case studies, they are being educated about the business practices of the financial advisors.
How can a junior associate help financial advisors solve the minimum assets requirement problem?
Why waste money producing leads you don’t want to process?
The simple answer is financial advisors cannot control who contacts them when they use inbound marketing tactics. This is also true for SEO, SEM, print advertising, and respondents to radio and TV advertising.
Why is this true? There is a risk that advisors will be contacted by investors who do not meet their minimum asset requirements.
The simple solution: bring on a less experienced sales associate and make it their responsibility to contact leads with smaller asset amounts. When there are numerous leads with smaller asset amounts, they can represent a source of significant assets and future growth.
This does not diminish the marketability of the firm, in particular when the firms do not publish their track records, AUM, or minimums.
How can a partnership with another RIA help financial advisors solve the minimum asset requirement?
This can be a tricky maneuver. Investors initiate contact with one financial advisor, and they are referred to another. There are several ways to spin this, so advisors do not offend investors.
For example, the referred firm specializes in working with millennials, Gen-Xs, and Gen-Ys. The assumption is that younger investors tend to have smaller asset amounts available for investment, but they will be inheriting trillions of dollars in the next decade or two.
Financial firms can even have an arrangement that enables them to be paid for referrals by other firms. This could be a one-time fee or a revenue-sharing agreement.
How can financial advisors’ email marketing systems build relationships with investors who do not meet minimums?
It’s pretty simple to relay a professionally polite “requirement not met” message, but the advisor will stay in touch if the investors’ circumstances change. Email marketing systems nurture all leads – qualified or not.
Even though they reject current relationships with investors, professionals say, “let’s keep in touch” because the investors’ needs and assets may be different in the not so distant future - think of them as deferred leads based on timing. Meanwhile, the financial advisors use the time to build rapport, credibility, trust, and competitive advantage.
