Most financial advisory firms grow their businesses through referrals and word of mouth. As a result, they often have a wide range of client types. Often though, once a firm reaches a certain size (for example, $1 billion in AUM), one of two things usually happens:
They realize they want to make a more focused effort marketing to a segment of their client base where they see additional opportunity, such as business owners, executives, or women in transition.
The firm hires younger advisors they would like to groom into business development roles and wants to use a niche to help them succeed (e.g., young tech professionals).
When a firm is ready to launch into a new niche specialization, the next question is how do they go about doing it? Up until this point, marketing has centered on generating referrals, but a niche focus requires a different approach. Here are the nine steps you need to take when entering a new niche market.
Step 1: Define Your Audience
The first step is to define the general niche specialization you want to focus on, for example, business owners, women, executives, or health care workers. From there, you want to further narrow this niche by identifying the one problem that you will solve for them.
Ideally, this problem is painful to your niche and is urgent for them to solve. For example, if your category is tech employees, the one problem you solve may be helping them minimize the taxes associated with their equity compensation.
While you actually solve many problems for this niche, defining the one problem they all share helps you get clear on exactly who your niche audience is.
Step 2: Assign a Leader
Once you have defined your new practice area, the next step is to assign an advisor within the firm to spearhead the effort. This person needs to have some sort of connection to or experience with this new niche. This person needs to be dedicated to this marketing effort and should be given the time and resources they need to make it succeed.
While other people in the firm can help with the niche, the leader is ultimately responsible for making it succeed. If no one is in charge, the niche is doomed to hobble along and never gain traction.
Step 3: Develop Your Message
The third step is developing a compelling message that specifically attracts your niche. Clients hire you to solve a problem for them. Therefore, you need to establish a clear, simple message that articulates the problem the prospective client faces and how you solve this problem.
The message needs to be specific to the niche’s pain points and aspirations and use their language, not yours. This message then needs to be translated to other marketing materials, like a landing page on your website or a brochure.
Step 4: Create a Landing Page
To seriously market to a new niche, you need to highlight the niche offering on your website.
You do not need to change your entire website. All you need to do is add one page to your website that communicates your message to your niche and include that page in your main navigation menu. The landing page should also offer a way for your niche to schedule an appointment with you.
Step 5: Develop a Lead Capture Mechanism
In step five, you need to begin building a list of names of people in your niche you can market to for years to come.
One way to do this is to offer a resource on your website that prospects are willing to enter their contact information in exchange for the resource. These lead capture devices can be ebooks, recorded webinars, online courses, reports, white papers, or even physical books.
Step 6: Create Nurturing Campaigns
As you integrate into a niche community, you want a way to stay top of mind with everyone you meet for years and years. Your goal is to be the first financial advisor your niche prospects reach out to when they are ready to hire a professional.
One of the best long-term ways to nurture these contacts is through an email newsletter that you send weekly, semimonthly, or monthly.
You also need a short-term nurturing campaign for those people who give you their contact information on your lead capture resource. This is usually an automated email series that immediately follows the download of your resource.
The goal with this nurturing campaign is to capture any prospects who are ready to act right away.
Step 7: Determine Content to Create
Content marketing is the most effective way to demonstrate your expertise with a niche, even when you are just beginning.
Pick one communication medium—written, video, audio, or visual—that you want to use to showcase your expertise. Then pick a format within that medium, such as presentations, blogs, video blogs, podcasts, or infographics, that you will use.
Use the content to highlight your expertise in the various channels you use (see the next step).
Step 8: Determine the Channels to Access Your Niche
Ask the people you know in the niche where you can find other people like them. What events do they attend? What organizations do they join? What media or publications do they consume? Where do they congregate online? Who are the key influencers who can get you access to this niche?
Once you understand where they are, figure out how you can integrate yourself into those channels. Can you contribute a guest article to a popular website or publication? Can you speak in front of a group? Can you interview influencers on your podcast so they promote it to their audience? Try to leverage the people, organizations, and publications that already have access to the niche you want to reach.
Step 9: Develop a Conversion Process
After you’ve put in all this effort into marketing to a prospect, you want to make sure you convert a high percentage of those people into clients. To do this, you need a process that seamlessly transitions a prospect into a client. This includes having an appointment calendaring system on your website, a pitchbook and proposal that convey your value proposition, and a follow-up process to prevent anyone from falling through the cracks.
Final Thoughts
A niche market can help firms focus their marketing on an area of opportunity and groom the next generation of financial advisors into business development roles. Regardless of your intention, entering a new niche market will make it easier for you to stand out from the competition and attract clients. Follow these nine steps as a roadmap to establish yourself in your desired niche market.
About Kristen Luke
Kristen Luke is the President of Kaleido Creative Studio, a marketing agency that helps transform Registered Investment Advisors and their employees into experts in a niche, making it easier for them to stand out from the competition and attract ideal clients. Over the past 16 years, Kristen has consulted with hundreds of financial advisory firms and shared her marketing expertise via industry conferences and publications nationwide.