Taking the leap to become an independent financial advisor is an enormous decision. Because you’re now responsible for everything in your business, the onus is on you to become an expert at everything – finance, compliance, tech – and marketing.
To help you with your marketing efforts, and since there are only 24 hours in a day, we compiled a few of our favorite marketing strategies that are both specific and efficient. As we composed this list, we thought a lot about the 80/20 rule – including ideas that would require a small time commitment with the possibility of paying off in significant ways.
Let’s jump in!
1. Optimize your website
It doesn’t make a lot of sense to generate content for your website if it’s not well-optimized to receive traffic that will convert to clients. Optimizing your website means ensuring all the elements that matter are in place – visuals, keyword-rich content and clear call-to-actions. With a bit of time and effort upfront, you can create an engaging hub for prospective clients to learn more about you and what makes you unique. A little bit of work today will allow you to reap benefits far into the future.
2. Create a service page for each of your solutions
Consider all of the services you provide. They likely include some mix of investment management, retirement planning, maybe tax and insurance planning and others. When you are initially creating your website, it can be tempting to skip writing enough detail on the service pages in order to more quickly launch your website. If that’s the case, now is the time to go back and create specific pages for each of your services.
Think about this: if someone is searching for one of your services – let’s say retirement planning – it will be difficult for them to find you on Google if you don’t have a retirement planning page. Even if people visit your site, they may wonder if you truly offer that specific service if you don’t have a dedicated page. Put their doubts to rest by prominently showing your list of services in the main navigation as well as on the home page and broader services page.
Getting started.
You’ll want to create a page for each service that explains:
– What your service is
– How it works
– The benefits of working with you for this particular service
By creating individual pages, you increase the chances that potential clients will discover your website when they search for a service you provide.
Pro tip: Use AI to plan the content of your new pages, and even help you create the first draft. A few AI-based tools take the topics you give them, do research on your behalf then create basic content. Think of it as a starting point, as you will still need to refine the message so it reflects your unique voice and perspective.
3. Utilize call-to-action (CTA) buttons
Each page on your website should have a particular action you want the user to follow through with. That might be to schedule a call or consultation, download or watch a resource or click deeper into the site to learn more. To ensure visitors take those actions, use call-to-action buttons throughout your website.
Calls-to-actions prompt users to take a specific action, such as “Schedule Now” or “Learn More.” They give direction and purpose, so we suggest you use many of them.
Adding calls-to-action to specific pages allows you to track the number of visitors who take each action and adjust if there’s limited conversion. Spending just a few hours optimizing your CTA placement can lead to big payoffs in the future.
Pro tip: The main exception to this rule is your homepage. The purpose of your homepage is to direct visitors deeper into your website, so at the top of your homepage, try including two call-to-action buttons – one to schedule a call and another to learn more about your services. As you scroll down the page, use call-to-action buttons generously to move people further into your site.
4. Choose clarity over cleverness
Have you ever visited a website only to think, “Okay … but what is it that you actually DO?” A lack of clarity on the website usually causes that.
We suggest reviewing your website with a critical eye and thinking about the people who are searching for your services. Ask yourself:
Are there any areas that use too much industry jargon? -Do all of my headings make sense and appropriately tell the reader what the page or section is about? Am I trying to be overly clever or cute in my titles and descriptions?
If someone isn’t dialed into the terminology used in your industry, he or she will have to spend more brain processing power to understand the content on your pages and will be more likely to click elsewhere.
Likewise, you want to make it clear to Google what each page is about, since overly clever headings and titles can make it harder to rank with search engines.
5. Leverage a free consultation
As an independent financial advisor, you are a financial professional, and people expect to pay for your services accordingly. Many first-time prospects are searching for information or shopping around. To ensure those prospects connect with you, offer a free consultation call.
A free consultation may be as simple as a free 15-20 minute phone call where prospects can ask questions and get to know you better. Often, the call will lead to the next step, which makes it valuable.
Pro tip: Make the offer available on the navigation of every page of your website so that people can quickly request a call regardless of where they are on your site.
6. Create content more efficiently
To excel in the digital marketing space, you are going to need to create content. While that takes time, there are a few ways to make it easier and more efficient. Social media posts created in advance is one way to do that. To do that, consider investing in a social media scheduling tool. They can be inexpensive and give you the flexibility to sit down and schedule all of your social media posts for the week at the same time. The benefits are that you don’t have to think about it every day, and – depending on the platform – you can also gain valuable insight into your posts’ performance.
Pro tip: If you need ideas for content, think about the customer interactions you’ve had over the last week. What questions did people ask? Did something funny happen in the office? Were there any “gotcha” moments you can warn people to avoid? Consider how you can use those moments to create conversation starters across your social media channels.
7. Use social media as a proving ground for your blog
If you have any social media posts that start to gain some traction – or if there is a topic you would like to go into more depth about – turn it into a blog post. These don’t have to be lengthy or burdensome – simply provide a little wisdom through your blog. If you sit down once a week to reflect upon and create your social media topics, you might also write some blog content without spending too much time on it. Again, feel free to leverage an AI copywriting tool, but make sure to review and edit for your tone of voice (and accuracy!) before hitting publish.
Pro tip: Make sure each blog post has a call to action. At first, the call-to-action button will likely be to schedule an appointment, but as your business grows, you may have specific offers (like a download or webinar) that you would prefer to link to instead.
8. Compile your articles into a newsletter
To continue the strategy of repurposing content, you should now take your blog content and turn that into your monthly newsletter. What started as a few higher-performing (or more interesting) social media posts can be expanded into a few articles. To do that, summarize the articles and distribute them via your email marketing list.
If you have anything that’s time-sensitive or currently happening (for instance, a webinar or workshop), include that in your newsletter too.
Pro tip: Depending on your blogging and email software, you can set up RSS emails, which enables them to automatically send out to your subscribers.
9. Create a welcome email series
Some of the most important communication you can ever have with prospects is in the days immediately after they subscribe to your email list (or sign up for a free consultation call). This welcome series should consist of three to five emails introducing your services, giving them a little background on you and your team, offering access to your most helpful resources (like e-books or videos) and providing links to more information.
Your welcome series should be automated and sent out immediately after someone subscribes. This ensures everyone receives the same message and it frees up time so you may focus on other tasks.
Pro tip: Take the opportunity to establish yourself and your business as industry experts by telling the new subscriber what to do. For instance, give them homework to check out blog posts on your site, join your Facebook community or reply to a question in your email. Not only are you getting the new subscriber used to interacting with you, but the extra engagement strengthens your domain’s email-sending reputation (which is a good thing!).
10. Use video to get yourself out there
People want to feel like they know and trust the people they do business with, and one of the best ways to make your prospects and customers feel like they know you is to use video whenever you can. These can be marketing videos where you are explaining specific ideas or processes, or these can even be 1- 1 videos that you use in your daily videos. You can use a tool like Loom to record these videos.
Your special bonus tip: Track the right metrics
You can only improve the things that you’re measuring, so it’s important to have a pulse on how effective your marketing work is. Reporting is a complex topic that can vary from business to business, but our primary advice is: Work backward from the money.
If the goal is to increase the number of clients you have, then track how many new clients you receive each month and set a benchmark to increase that number. If you’re working backward from the money, the primary metrics you want to pay attention to are usually something like:
- the lifetime value of a customer
- number of new customers
- number of new subscribers
- number of website visitors
Of course, you could look at a hundred other metrics, but these are a good starting point.
So there you have it! Ten digital marketing strategies (plus a bonus!) to help you perform better online. We hope these tactics provide a jumpstart to growing your business, and we are happy to chat with you if you would like us to help with a personalized marketing plan.
