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The 52: Leverage the Networks of Others
Don’t attempt to build your own network right away.
Leverage the Networks of Others
When you start working with a niche, it is unlikely that you will have a large personal or professional network of people who fit your niche. Sure, you could spend time trying to build your network through social media or traditional networking tactics, but that is a long process. To get traction with your niche immediately, leverage the networks of people and organizations that already have built the potential client bases you want to reach.
Here's what that might look like: You can ask existing niche clients to have you speak in front of a group of people they know. You can submit guest articles to websites or publications your niche reads. You can ask existing clients to share your content on online forums they belong to that you can’t join. Or you can be a guest on a niche-focused podcast.
By focusing on leveraging the networks of others, you will both get in front of your niche and build your own network faster.
The 52: Quality or Quantity? Which Is Better for a Blog Post?
The answer depends on your goals.
Quality or Quantity? Which Is Better for a Blog Post?
If you have limited time and resources, should you focus on quantity or quality when it comes to blogging? The answer depends on your goal.
Exposure
If you are trying to get name recognition as quickly as possible in a niche, blog as much as possible (1+ times/week) and then share the blog through as many channels as you can (e.g., social media, email, other websites). This focus means writing shorter content (600-750 words) to keep up with the frequency. In this case, quantity is more important than quality.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Research shows that the companies blogging more frequently generate greater website traffic than those posting less frequently[1] (assuming similar blog quality). That being said, Google gives preference to higher-quality content over lower-quality content, which generally means longer posts (approximately 2,000+ words). Our experience has been that long-form content on our clients’ websites generates significantly more traffic year after year than short-form content. So if SEO is your goal, focus on quality first and quantity second.
The 52: Can You Have More Than One Niche?
The answer depends on your available resources.
Can You Have More Than One Niche?
One of the most common questions I get about niche marketing is, “Can I have more than one niche?” The answer comes down to your available resources. Each niche requires its own marketing plan and its own champion to spearhead the effort. The more niches you have, the more champions you need and the more plans you must implement.
With that in mind, here is my general rule of thumb for whether you can have multiple niches:
RIAs with a solo advisor: You must focus on one niche—end of story!
RIAs with a few advisors: You would be best served by having one niche for the entire firm. However, if not all advisors are equally suited for the same niche, you may decide to have multiple niches. This is not an ideal scenario, so you should have as few niches as possible, with each advisor focusing on only one niche.
Large ensemble RIAs: Unless you started with a niche, it’s unrealistic to assume you will ever transition to just one focus. Instead, you can have multiple niche specialty areas. The key to success is having advisors dedicated to just one niche.
The 52: Qualify Your Prospects Using Your Scheduling Software
Stop wasting your time on calls with people who won’t become clients.
Qualify Your Prospects Using Your Scheduling Software
If you get a fair number of leads from your website, you’ve faced the rude awakening that most web leads don’t meet the minimum requirements to become a client. So how do you quickly identify the people who are not a fit and refer them to another advisor before you spend your valuable time on a call or in a meeting?
The answer! Use your calendaring software to ask basic qualifying questions. Many systems allow you to add custom questions to gather this kind of information.
To learn the questions to use on your scheduling software to screen your prospects, read our latest blog.
The 52: The 12-Week Marketing Plan
Throw out your annual marketing plan.
The 12-Week Marketing Plan
If a financial advisory firm creates a marketing plan, it’s usually done on an annual basis. The problem with an annual plan is that it tends to be objective-based (e.g., implement a client referral program) instead of action-based (e.g., ask 10 clients for a referral). It’s also easy to procrastinate with an annual plan because you have months to complete your objectives. The result is that you rarely accomplish what you aimed for.
Instead of developing an annual marketing plan, consider a quarterly plan as described by Brian Moran in the book The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months.
By developing a quarterly marketing plan, you are more likely to complete the action items you commit to, you can more easily adapt your strategy as opportunities arise, and you are more likely to hit your goals.
The 52: How to Expand Your Niche
The problem you solve stays the same. The audience just gets bigger.
How to Expand Your Niche
When I talk to advisors about niching, the conversation is usually about narrowing the niche to become more specialized. However, there may be times when it makes sense to expand your niche. For example, you may have dominated your market and need to expand just to continue growing your business.
When you are ready to expand your niche, start by looking at markets that share a similar problem to your existing niche. For example, if you work with widows, you could expand into divorcees since both groups share the problem of being solely responsible for their household finances for the first time. Or if you work with tech employees, you could expand into biotech and pharma employees who share the problem of managing their equity compensation.
When it’s time to expand, the key is to find a new market that shares the same problem as your existing niche.
The 52: Market Solutions, Not Services
Prospects don’t understand your services—they understand their problem.
Market Solutions, Not Services
Many financial advisor websites highlight the services they offer—financial planning, investment management, estate planning, tax planning, retirement planning, education planning, etc. But most prospects don’t know what service they need. They just understand the problem they have.
Instead of marketing your services, market the solution to the problem your prospect is facing. Here are some examples:
Education planning: “Put your kid through college.”
Tax planning: “Keep more of the money you earned.”
Estate planning: “Protect your family even after you are gone.”
The 52: Agitate the Pain
Uncover your prospect’s pain.
Agitate the Pain So Your Prospect Acts
Two indicators that predict whether a prospect will hire an advisor are how much pain they feel because of their financial situation and their sense of urgency around solving that problem. Some client types, like widows, inherently have a high sense of pain and urgency, while others do not (e.g., people who are sitting on so much cash that they don’t know what to do with it).
When you face a situation where a prospect doesn’t feel significant pain, you need to agitate any pain that does exist to get them to take action. You don’t have to market on fear, but you need to bring to light the pain they may not be aware of. For example, if someone has piles of cash, you could explain, “Each day you are sitting on cash, your money is worth less than the day before because of inflation. The longer you wait, the less valuable your cash becomes.”
If your prospect doesn’t feel pain and urgency, you must create this for them to get them to act.
The 52: Marketing Surges: More Momentum, Less Effort
Why stop at meeting surges?
Marketing Surges: More Momentum, Less Effort
Stephanie Bogan’s meeting surge has become a popular client service approach for many RIAs. But the concept can be applied to marketing as well. While there are some activities that should be consistently implemented (e.g., newsletters), others could actually be more effective if done in surges. For example:
Schedule all your one-on-one meetings with CPAs in January right before tax season gets busy.
When launching a niche, flood your social media channels with as much niche-focused content as possible during the first three months to start establishing your reputation as an expert.
Schedule your speaking engagements in January, February, March, April, May, September, and October when people are most likely to take action on their finances.
Through marketing surges, you will create more momentum with less effort.
The 52: The Most Popular Niche We See Is …
Move over, business owners and women in transition.
The Most Popular Niche We See Is …
I talk to a lot of financial advisors about which niches they are pursuing or considering. For a long time, the niches I heard most frequently were business owners and women in transition. But these days, the most popular niche of the advisors I speak to is employees with equity compensation.
Does this mean equity compensation is too saturated to pursue? No, it just means you must niche down and become more specialized so that you can clearly differentiate from other advisors in the equity comp space. That could mean focusing on one industry or even one company. Or it could mean specializing in one subset of the niche, like C-suite executives or IPOs.
When there is too much competition in a niche, it’s time to niche down.
