How Financial Advisors Utilize Reviews and Testimonials
Word of mouth has forever been one of the best ways for financial advisors to get new clients and that hasn’t changed. What has changed is how the word is getting around. Instead of passing business cards to friends and family, your clients can share their experience with the world with online reviews and testimonials.
And with the SEC’s 2020 Marketing Rule, financial advisors can now promote client testimonials in their marketing and advertising. This article describes how you can make modern-day word-of-mouth work for your financial advisor firm.
Ask For Client Referrals
Have happy clients? Ask them to refer your advice and services to their friends and family directly rather than just posting a review or testimonial. While a solid review is helpful in many ways, it’s more of a passive approach than a direct, personal referral from one person to another. Depending on a client’s influence in a family or social circle, a referral can be a boon for your financial advisory firm.
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And while some clients may be all too happy to refer people they know, some clients may need more motivation. By offering incentive programs for client referrals, you can increase the number of referrals for your financial advisory team. It also helps to make it as easy as possible for someone to refer you, such as business cards with QR codes or other simpler contact methods.
Note: Check with your compliance team to ensure you’re in compliance with current industry regulations.
Social Media Presence For Financial Advisors
You don’t have to be an aspiring YouTube star or TikTok influencer to use social media marketing strategies for your financial advisory firm. But you do need to have a presence of some kind. Without it, you could miss valuable exposure to potential leads for your services.
The key is to decide which social media platforms work for your messaging and intended audience. That means the content shouldn’t be the same for each channel, because what appeals to one audience may be a huge miss for other types of investors.
Pro tip: It’s not just the younger demographic anymore. Some social media platforms skew to more mature audiences.
Broaden Your Audience
Whether your financial advisor firm is in its early years, or you have decades of investing experience, you know what your current ideal client looks like in terms of age, income, net worth, investment horizon, and other characteristics. And while it’s important to keep these audiences at the forefront, you should also consider what your ideal client will look like in the future. For example, you may target a younger demographic when your firm has a lower minimum asset requirement and an older generation when your minimum asset requirement is higher.
Also, with the massive wealth transfer from Baby Boomers to younger generations underway, the age of the “ideal investor” may be different than in the past. They’re starting to invest sooner than ever before, which is why it’s crucial to reach them with your financial advisor firm’s online messaging sooner rather than later.
Find Your Financial Advisor Marketing Niche
While many financial advisory firms may provide the same services for the same fees, there are ways to make your firm stand out from the rest. One way to do this is by focusing on a specific product, service, or area of expertise within the investment space.
As an example, if your client base keeps you busy with estate planning more than anything else, you could consider that your niche and work on building a reputation around it. That doesn’t mean you only provide that service for your clients, but it can be used as a tool to get noticed by prospective clients seeking that type of service.
Become a Trusted Source of Information
There is no shortage of demographic information available online. But this easy access can come at the cost of quality. With little to no oversight, the internet is littered with information that’s outdated, generic, and sometimes completely incorrect. By producing and sharing high-quality financial advisor content, you can establish yourself and your financial advisor firm as a reliable and accurate source of the information that potential clients are seeking.
From blog posts to infographics, videos, webinars, eBooks, and whitepapers, there are numerous ways to get your financial advisor content in front of the right audiences.
Bonus: In addition to building a solid online reputation, your financial advisor content can work for you in other ways, such as improving SEO and generating leads using gated content.
Invest in the Right Technology
Like any other job, having the right tools can make all the difference. For example just like a skilled mechanic can’t fix a car without the right equipment, financial advisors can’t serve their clients without the right technology and tools. This also goes for sales and marketing efforts with software and platforms for everything from email marketing to digital advertising.
One of the keys to long-term success is to think beyond your current needs and plan for future growth. This can save time and money down the road and avoid issues from outgrowing your current technology and having significant down-time when implementing new strategies.
Think Locally, Regionally, and Nationally
While technology makes it possible to have a national reach (subject to licensing), locally owned and operated financial advisory firms have something many of the large national firms don’t have— that is a local presence. Sure, they have big budgets and can outspend your firm in marketing and advertising—but that will only get them so far with investors who value someone local who is invested in their community.
From sharing local happenings on your social media channels to sponsoring events or volunteering for a good cause, your financial advisory firm can use its local roots to grow your client list.
Find The Right Financial Advisor Digital Marketing Partner
Using the Internet to produce new clients for your financial advisory firm is an ongoing effort. Intermittent efforts simply aren’t an option for financial advisors who want to grow their business. And that means you’ll probably need help.
As with investing in the right technology, finding the right digital marketing partner to help grow your online visibility, website traffic, and clientele is something you should prepare for before you waste time and effort on tactics that don’t work.
Whether you need full-time help right away or simply want to establish a relationship on an as-needed basis, there’s a digital marketing partner out there for you.
