The single biggest marketing need for most financial advisors is getting enough qualified prospects to talk to each month. They need a strategy that will produce a steady flow of leads to convert into revenue-producing clients. Increasing numbers of investors are using the Internet to find professionals who provide the services they seek and to learn more about each team member or firm.
Digital marketing for financial advisors is the process that uses the Internet to connect investors to advisors. Use this guide to understand what your strategy should include.
This article covers:
- When financial advisors should start their digital marketing efforts
- Financial advisor client acquisition
- How digital marketing produces higher quality leads
- How digital marketing and sales funnels work together
- The importance of SEO for financial advisors
- The need for a higher quality website for advisors
- How digital marketing helps investors make better decisions when selecting a professional to work with
When should financial advisors start their digital marketing efforts?
As increasing numbers of financial professionals use digital marketing, it stands to reason, the longer you wait to launch a digital marketing effort, the longer it will take to produce meaningful results. It takes time to build Internet visibility for the keywords that your ideal types of clients use to find advisors. This visibility produces the traffic that your website will convert into leads (seeking advisors) and contacts (seeking information).
Because it takes time to build a presence on the Internet, it also takes a commitment and a digital marketing budget. The budget impacts the amount of time it takes to produce the presence.
The sooner you start the better.
How does digital marketing produce new clients for financial advisors?
Internet visibility for keywords that drive the right types of traffic to your website is your best source for new clients. That’s because investors use the Internet to research financial advisors before they contact them. The more visible you are on the Internet, the more traffic this visibility produces for your website.
Internet visibility and your website can also build credibility and trust that in turn create a competitive advantage for financial advisors. In this way, digital marketing is producing the leads and helping financial advisors convert them into clients.
How does digital marketing produce higher quality leads?
There are several criteria for determining the quality of leads. What makes digital marketing unique is how investors find and research advisors and planners. They use the Internet to find and research professionals, then contact the ones that meet their criteria.
It is reasonable to assume they contact the advisors they like best after conducting their research.
- Are they financial experts based on their education, experience, and designations?
- Does the advisory firm provide the services they seek?
- Do they already work with clients that are similar to them?
When investors initiate contact with financial advisors it stands to reason they like what they see on the advisors’ websites and name searches. These are higher quality leads because investors have already completed a big part of their due diligence.
How is digital marketing the top of financial advisor sales funnels?
Back in the day, advisors would buy lists of names and use the information for cold calling and direct mail. Hundreds of thousands of advisors used these outbound marketing strategies to initiate contact with investors. Today, that has all changed.
Digital marketing has made outbound marketing obsolete and inbound marketing possible. That is investors find financial advisors on the internet, learn more about them, and investors contact the advisors they believe are the best fit.
This makes digital marketing and the Internet the top of the financial advisors’ sales funnels where investors find financial advisors, learn more about them, and initiate contact with the ones they like the best.
Digital marketing is also a way to nurture leads and contacts. Email marketing is one of the best ways to keep the names of financial advisors in front of future prospects.
How important is SEO for producing new clients for financial advisors?
SEO for financial advisors is critical, but not for the reasons you may think. The obvious point is SEO makes it possible for investors to find financial advisors on the Internet. All they have to do is enter: “financial advisor city state” and they will have plenty of choices.
However, it is our contention that finding advisors is not the principal application for SEO. That’s because investors have a number of ways for discovering them – for example, referrals from friends, family, and associates.
They have one way to conduct their financial advisor research, which makes it the more important application. What they see on websites and the results of their Google name searches determine who the prospective clients contact for interviews. This also allows investors to retain their anonymity while conducting their investigations.
How important is a high quality website for financial advisors?
You might say financial advisor websites rank up there with SEO in regard to importance. Websites have the unique role of converting website visitors into qualified leads and prospects. Of course, financial advisor websites are also responsible for delivering the right information to investors who visit the sites.
Not only do they have to deliver the right information, they have to deliver the information in an intuitive manner in three minutes or less (average time on site). And, if that isn’t enough they have to be competitive with the other websites that investors are visiting when they are seeking financial advisors and information.
Based on the above you would have to conclude that websites are a critical service in the digital sales funnels of financial advisors.
How can digital marketing help investors make better decisions when they select financial advisors?
Since investors are using the web to find financial advisors and to learn more about them, digital marketing facilitates this process by making financial advisors easier to find. Financial advisor websites should contain content that helps investors select the best financial advisors.
For example, their websites contain a free offer, in the form of an eBook or webinar, that educates investors about the different types of advisors and how they can determine the quality of them.
Conclusion
The Internet is the future for marketing financial advice and services to investors. How do we know this? Look at the impact it has had on other industries. It’s a game changer because it gives buyers more control over their selection processes. And, they are anonymous until they want to be contacted.
Want to learn more about digital marketing? Email Paladin at info@PaladinDigitalMarketing.com to schedule a free consultation.
