Whether you consider yourself super tech-savvy or prefer to do things offline, when possible, chances are you wouldn’t be able to run your financial advisory firm without some digital tools. And that not only applies to managing your business but also how you grow your business. That’s because digital marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach your target markets and promote your firm online.
Following is the who, what, when, where, and why of Digital Marketing for financial advisors.
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Who?
It’s estimated that a staggering 93% of Americans use the internet. So, in this case, the “who” is nearly everyone who interacts with the online world in a variety of ways. This makes digital marketing an extremely popular resource for financial advisors looking to increase their clientele and share their financial advisor content with larger audiences.
The key to digital marketing success is to determine who, within the hundreds of millions of consumers using the internet, you want to target with your financial advisor digital marketing content. And for most financial advisory firms, there isn’t just one audience they want to reach. Depending on the type of financial advisor content being shared, there may be audiences that show more potential for engagement than others.
As an example, the type of persona who is likely to engage with financial advisor content about estate planning would be very different from the audience that included younger, newer investors looking to start their wealth accumulation journey. The good news is that with the right messaging and targeting, you can reach the ideal clients for your financial advisory firm with your digital marketing efforts.
What?
Digital marketing, also known as online marketing and inbound marketing, is an all-encompassing term for all your financial advisor online content and promotional efforts. As the digital space has evolved over the years, so have the digital marketing opportunities for financial advisors. Notably, digital marketing has become scalable, making it more accessible for individuals and small businesses to manage for themselves or with a little outside help.
Examples of financial advisor digital marketing include emails, display ads, content marketing (blogs, whitepapers, infographics, etc.), social media marketing, video marketing, SEO (search engine optimization).
When?
Always. 24-hours. Never-ending. However you want to put it, the internet is a non-stop marketing opportunity. Someone is always online. But that doesn’t mean you need to be reaching out 24/7. In fact, depending on your audience details, you can create digital financial advisor marketing content that runs on a schedule during the times you expect that your target audience will be online.
Learning the optimal timing for reaching your target audiences will likely involve some trial and error, but it’s well worth the effort to have an informed, streamlined approach to reach your target audiences at the right times. This can not only help you achieve better results from your financial advisor digital marketing efforts, but can also help make the most of your digital marketing budget.
Where?
Once you’ve established who you want to reach with your financial advisor digital marketing and when they are most likely to see your content, the next question to answer is where you can reach them. The internet is a vast marketing opportunity, and without doing digital marketing research, it can be difficult to know how to reach these audiences. Whatever you think is true can change seemingly overnight, thanks to Google’s algorithms. This can be especially true with social media platforms.
Traditionally, new social media platforms attract younger generations first. But over time, as the older generations start to use the platforms, the younger generations tend to move on to something newer and more modern. The cycle repeats itself, and knowing who to find on which platform may not be as simple as it once seemed. That’s why basing your financial advisor digital marketing decisions on anything other than current data can result in being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Why?
The goal of advertising is, and always has been, to reach the right audience at the right time with the right message. This is why digital marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to target your ideal audience with your financial advisor content. By utilizing the data already available from various digital entities, you can learn more about your financial advisor digital marketing audience than ever before.
Rather than advertising in many channels simultaneously and hoping “something sticks” like back in the days of analog marketing, you can now see the effects of your digital marketing efforts in almost real-time, reaching a larger, more targeted audience, and often at a lower cost. In short, if you’re not using digital marketing for your financial advisory firm, you’re missing out.
Bonus: How?
If you haven’t already started using digital marketing for your financial advisory firm, there’s no time like the present. But if you’re not sure where to start, here are some tips:
Set a Goal
Without a goal, it can be hard to know where to begin, let alone determine if your financial advisor digital marketing was successful. These initial goals don’t need to be complex—but rather they can provide some initial direction. And like most things digital, goals and objectives can evolve into bigger goals as you start to see results from your financial advisor digital marketing efforts.
Set a Budget
While digital advertising can be done on a smaller scale for limited budgets, it can also become expensive if not monitored. By setting a budget, you can put a limit on your digital ad spend and it will automatically stop once you’ve reached the threshold. You can then decide if you want to increase your budget or pause your campaign.
Don’t Be Afraid to Pivot
One of the biggest differences between digital marketing and traditional marketing channels is the ability to start/stop and make changes as you go, rather than wait until the entire campaign is over and you wish you had done things differently.
With digital marketing for your financial advisory firm, you can assess and monitor as the campaign progresses and make changes on the fly if needed. Or increase your budget and campaign length if something is working well. Regardless of the reason, the key is to be bold and make a change if one is needed.
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About Paladin
Paladin is a team of digital marketing professionals with more than 100 years of collective financial industry experience marketing our clients' services to individuals, institutions, and financial advisors. Paladin is a boutique agency that was founded in 2003 to provide game-changing digital marketing services to a limited number of firms and professionals in the financial service industry. Our services range from designing and developing custom websites to providing SEO, SEM, and Fractional CMO services. Want more information about our digital marketing services? Email your request to Paladin’s CMO: Jack@PaladinDigitalMarketing.com
