Remember the old days, practicing your elevator pitch in front of the mirror, making sure your business card could hold up with the finance bros in American Psycho (if you know, you know). Today’s world is different. No one talks in an elevator and your card will likely end up in a recycle bin or at the bottom of a kitchen “junk drawer.” Truth is, digital marketing for financial planners goes far beyond a rolodex and a briefcase—sh*t is all online.
Prospective clients are searching for CFPs online, not in a phone book. They’re on social media, reading financial blogs, watching explainer videos on YouTube, and Googling commonly asked questions that you as the expert should be answering for them. Because you’re MIA, you’re missing out on a massive pool of potential clients.
Hopefully, by the end of this article, we’ll convince you to embrace a digital marketing strategy that can propel your business forward.
Already convinced? Schedule a free 30-minute discovery call with our team today!
Content Marketing For Financial Advisors
Two truths and a lie, ready, go!
- There are tons of financial planners to choose from.
- Financial planners aren’t creative.
- People want to trust their financial planner.
We’ll tell you right now that number one—there are tons of financial planners to choose from—is true. It’s a big industry and a lot of highly qualified people are good at it. The other truth is that people want to trust their financial planner. It’s hard-earned money that’ll set them and their families up for life. So, how do you as a financial planner establish that trust with prospective clients (who again, are all online)?
With content marketing.
Creating valuable content positions you as a knowledgeable and trustworthy expert. It could be blog posts, social media videos, a weekly newsletters—something that puts a face to your name, and trust to your face. As for the lie in our tremendously fun game above, financial planners actually ARE creative. You don’t have to be Da Vinci or T-Swift to be seen as an industry expert. Be informative, be engaging, and be consistent.
Oh, and have a little fun. People like a little personality.
We at M&P recently worked with a local financial consulting firm in Michigan, working on a number of improvements to their website, search engine optimization (which we’ll get to shortly), and their content. One area of focus was beefing up their blog with topics like asset allocation strategy, pension maximization, and charitable planning—all highly searched keywords that have increased traffic and leads to their business.
See what else our content team is up to here!
Email Marketing For Financial Advisors
Think of an email as a handshake. Okay, maybe not every email—those 20 percent off cooling sheets and buy one, get one free testosterone boosters are junk—but in your professional world as a financial planner think of an email as a handshake.
Email marketing is a great tool to nurture existing client relationships and educate them on trends and strategies, and attract new business.Targeted email blasts reach a specific demo you want to bring in as clients and continues our above conversation of increasing trust and establishing you as an industry thought leader.
While running your own email campaign is possible, we recommend partnering with an agency who knows how to target the right prospects, produce relevant content, and analyze the data.
SEO For Financial Advisors
We mentioned how saturated this field can be. Everyone is vying for attention and that top spot on Google. Fun fact, it isn’t luck—it’s search engine optimization, or more commonly referred to in our marketing world of acronyms as SEO.
Effective SEO propels your website to the top of Google (or Bing if that’s your thing). The trick is finding relevant keywords that are highly searched for but not used as much by competitors giving you the best chance to rank. It’s a fairly simple outcome—the higher you rank, the higher your chances of qualified leads finding you organically. (We’ll get into paid search in just a minute.)
Partnering with an agency who has the right nerds (*we mean analysts) to conduct in-depth keyword research, create high-quality SEO-optimized content, ensure your website adheres to best practices, and continually track performance to refine your strategy will only bring results you deserve.
See what our nerds (*Damn, we mean analysts) are up to with SEO here!
Paid Search For Financial Advisors
We’ve talked a lot about organic strategies to bring you traffic and leads. But sometimes you gotta pay to play. Paid search advertising is like the HOV lane, allowing you to bypass everyone trying to do it organically. It’ll make sure your ads reach the right demographic, launch you to the top of the search page, and hopefully, maximize your return.
You may be asking yourself, when do I pay? You pay whenever someone clicks on your ad. Yes, this strategy costs money, but it does yield results. And you get some free exposure at the top of the page even if people don’t click.
Here’s our secret. A lot of agencies know how to do paid search. But a lot of folks don’t know how to pivot when a keyword isn’t landing.
We do, ‘nuff said. Check out our paid search strategies here.
Social Media For Financial Advisors
Here’s the deal, social media is today’s relationship builder. Between the sports highlights and reaction videos lies the ability for you to build relationships with your clients. Online, of course, but relationships nonetheless.
Share valuable content, answer their burning finance questions, join relevant conversations, and see what other CFPs are up to in their marketing efforts. Social media can be toxic, sure, but it can also be a great way to build trust, show your expertise, and network. Plus, targeted outreach on these platforms allows you to reach a wider audience actively searching for financial planning services.
We’re not asking you to be a TikTok star, just a reputable source of valuable information in a sea of otherwise nonsense.
You better believe social media is one of our services! Check more out here.
Beyond the Business Card
Business cards aren’t completely dead. There’s something professional—and oddly nostalgic—about sliding a business card into your wallet. But we’re all online—simple as that. Content marketing, email marketing, SEO, paid search, and social media are just a number of services that contribute to a financial planner’s marketing makeover.
But it takes time and effort to get qualified leads, more traffic, and ultimately, more clients. You know what you need? A wingman. You need a reputable and trusted agency that knows what the f*ck they’re doing.
We’ll be your wingman. Just give us a call.
