With the major technology shifts over the last couple of decades, it would be naïve to think that financial advisor marketing would remain the same much longer. The term “digital marketing” is an umbrella expression for all digital channels used to reach consumers.
The truth is anyone looking to succeed with any business in any industry won’t survive without some aspect of digital marketing. While most companies have a website and maybe a social media account or two, true digital marketing is an in-depth process matching the right messaging and content with the right consumers.
While these efforts are necessary for any business, the way different industries use digital marketing channels varies greatly. Keep reading to learn more about:
- How digital marketing differs for financial advisors and firms
- How to make the most of digital channels
- Managing SEO across channels
- How to manage and analyze your efforts
How to make digital marketing work for financial advisors and firms
Gaining more qualified leads is the ultimate goal of financial advisor marketing, which includes creating social media profiles. These ongoing efforts can ultimately help you grow your business.
How to leverage digital channels appropriately
Some digital marketing channels lend themselves better to the professional/financial services industry, but that doesn’t mean financial advisors can’t use all available channels. It simply means that the content and messaging will differ from other industries.
For example, some brands have a very tongue-in-cheek approach to their marketing, and it works for them. After all, people don’t need to take their favorite snack brand seriously. However, financial advisors and firms need to take a different approach to their digital content and encourage trust and authority as financial professionals looking out for their clients’ needs.
Treat all marketing as content marketing
While technically, “content marketing” is its own category, some marketers consider it a best practice to look at all digital marketing efforts through the content marketing lens. Why? Because for financial advisors and firms, producing engaging, informative, and relevant content is the key to winning new clients and turning current clients into brand advocates.
Some examples of this content include blog posts, white papers, “explainer” videos, market commentary, infographics, and your website content.
Have an SEO plan in place
Search engines like Google use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a factor to determine where a given online asset shows up in relevant searches. It’s so important that SEO is considered its own digital marketing channel. Without a solid SEO plan, financial advisors will find it challenging to gain online traction organically.
For financial advisors and firms, SEO helps search engines determine an entity’s Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (known as EAT). Given the serious nature of the financial advisor/client partnership and for the professional services industry overall, these are essential characteristics.
How to use social media to distribute content
As mentioned above, no two digital channels are identical. And within those channels, no two platforms are the same. Social media is a perfect example of this. While the overall goal of social media is to connect users across the globe, the way the different channels accomplish this can look very different.
Here’s a look at the social media platforms that work best for financial advisors and firms.
As one of the original social media platforms, Twitter still has a strong following due to its unique “microblogging” approach. While now allowing 280 characters compared to the original 140, Twitter still thinks brevity is best, which makes it an ideal place for sharing short announcements, links that need little explanation (tip: links count toward the character limit), and videos.
While Facebook was once known to be the “new kid” in the town, it is now an established and robust platform with everything from events and groups to messaging, shopping, and local buy/sell pages. That’s in addition to the news feed with shared posts, videos, photos, and other content under the sun.
Because of its longevity, Facebook’s user demographic has aged with those initial core users. This is a great place for financial advisors to reach prospective clients who are more established and perhaps influence their younger family members when recommending financial services through an advisor.
Instagram and Tik Tok
Since Facebook has a primary audience skewing a bit older, the younger social media consumers had to go somewhere their parents and grandparents weren’t (yet). That’s where Instagram and TikTok come into the picture.
While operating as different platforms, they’re grouped here to demonstrate that while the content that financial advisors would differ between these channels (Instagram is photos and videos with no links, TikTok is videos), the audience is very similar. This means your audience should be exposed to the same messaging.
If leveraged correctly, a financial advisor or firm’s presence on these channels can reach the highly sought-after younger demographic of young or future investors.
YouTube
While videos can be shared on any of the social media platforms mentioned above, YouTube is still the place to be for sharing long-form videos. That’s because the other networks all feature a streaming feed that moves quickly, making longer videos perform poorly. YouTube allows users to create their own channels, where financial advisors can create an organized library of video content meant to educate and inform their target audience and existing clients.
Honorable mention: LinkedIn
Just because LinkedIn is a professional social media network doesn’t mean it should be overlooked entirely as a digital marketing channel for financial advisors. However, the focus should be more on making professional connections that could result in partnerships, which could result in link sharing and content sharing, which helps SEO, a critical digital marketing channel.
When it comes to digital channels, seemingly everything is connected.
Monitor and analyze
Because of the pace of the digital world, financial advisors should be vigilant about setting goals and budgets and monitoring activity on all fronts regularly. Without oversight, spending too much money on underperforming efforts or spending too much time curating content shared on the wrong channel is easy.
You can make the most of digital marketing for financial advisors by watching the metrics and adjusting as needed.
