So you’ve made a decision to invest more marketing dollars into boosting your digital presence. The next step is interviewing various digital marketing service providers who can help you grow your RIA practice on the Internet. As you start interviewing providers you may quickly learn that there are a slew of inbound marketing terms or “jargon” that you’ll hear on a regular basis.
Fear not! This short list is intended to help you get a better understanding of some of these key terms that you may hear as you start interviewing RIA inbound marketing agencies, financial advisor website companies, and/or social media providers.
Blogging
Blogging is one of the core foundations to an effective inbound marketing strategy. A business (or individual) writes articles about topics that are specific to the type of client they are targeting. The articles (also called Posts) help:
- Drive targeted visitors to your site
- Establish you as a subject matter expert on the topic
- Convert visitors into leads
- Enhance your visibility on the Internet
Buyer Persona
This is a representation of your ideal client base. You can use existing client data as well as market research to develop your persona(s). Ideally your entire marketing strategy will be based around your personas so your website, blog, and free offers all focus on the target clients you wish to work with.
Calls-To-Action (CTAs)
A CTA can be a link, button, or image that drives a website visitor to take some sort of action on your website or blog. Examples of CTAs can include “Get Our Free eBook”, “Subscribe”, or “Free Consultation”. Convincing and relevant CTAs on your website or blog can drive visitors to take some form of action so they turn into a lead.
Landing Pages
Landing pages are another key component to an effective inbound marketing strategy. A landing page is a website page that contains a lead generation form, along with an explanation of the free offer. Good financial advisor websites have landing pages for various stages of the persona’s buying journey, such as:
- Awareness phase (eBooks, research reports, whitepapers)
- Consideration phase (expert guides, videos, comparison papers)
- Decision phase (product/vendor comparisons, case studies, demos)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is about making sure that Google (and other search engines like Bing, Yahoo) can easily find your webpages. By enhancing a webpage’s title, description, image tags, and inbound links, you can improve where a webpage appears in search engine results.
Workflows
Workflows are a series of events or triggers to help a lead move through the nurturing process and the buyer’s journey in an automated fashion. They can also be used to update your CRM files with mass changes, if needed. Bottom line is workflows can be very powerful automation tools to help you manage your marketing campaigns.
Educating yourself on these terms will allow you to be more confident as you search for a firm to help implement your digital marketing strategy.
