The 52: Provide a Unique Service that Solves a Unique Problem

Week 29

Provide a Unique Service that Solves a Unique Problem

The next tip in our series on how to simplify your marketing is to provide a unique service that solves a unique problem. When you provide the same or similar service as thousands of other advisors, you have to do a lot more marketing to get noticed over your competitors. Do you think you can make more marketing headway with the message “We help clients achieve peace of mind during retirement” than the largest financial firms with the biggest budgets?

When you provide a unique service that solves a problem for a specific niche (e.g., “We develop estate planning strategies for blended families”), it’s immediately obvious how you are different. And when you are truly different, you don’t have to spend as much time, money, and energy promoting that message.

How to Choose a Niche Market for Financial Advisors: Step 1—Understand Your Options

When advisors hear the words niche market, they often think about a specific type of person, like a business owner, widow, or pre-retiree. This is a misconception, though, because you can choose a niche market based on any of six categories: career, event, expertise, mindset/values, affinity, and demographics.

Let’s look a little closer at examples in each of those categories:

Career

Category 1, career, includes professions, employers or companies, and industries. Some examples that would fall into this category are attorneys, business owners, physicians, technology employees, health care employees, military personnel, Facebook employees, United Airlines pilots, and federal government employees.  

Event

Category 2, event, includes money-in-motion events, life transitions, and life stages. Some examples include inheritance, death of spouse, kids leaving home, job change, employer IPO, starting a family, and retiring. 

Expertise

Category 3, expertise, is a specific service, product, or solution you offer to solve a problem your niche has. Examples include special needs planning, exercising stock options, and divorce financial planning. 

Mindset and Values

Category 4, mindset and values, includes religion, life philosophies, and cultural mindsets. Examples include Christians, socially responsible investors, and philanthropists. 

Affinity

Category 5, affinity, describes common connections people share. These can be hobbies, interests, or lifestyles—for example, golfers, families who homeschool their children, RV snowbirds, and university alumni. 

Demographics

Finally, Category 6 is demographics. This can be geographic area, gender, age, or generation—for example, residents of Durango, CO, baby boomers, divorced people, and women.

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As you can see, you have many options to consider when choosing a niche market. Some niche markets you may be considering could fall into more than one category.

For example, maybe you are looking at divorcing women as a niche. This falls into the demographics category of gender and marital status. It falls into the event category because divorce is a life transition and a money-in-motion event. And finally, it falls into expertise if you have a specialty in divorce financial planning.  

Not all niches are going to be good options. For example, I generally recommend that advisors stay away from niches solely categorized by demographics, such as geographic region, generation, race, or gender. There is too much variation among these people in their financial needs.

In the next blog, I will discuss how to choose a niche that is right for you from one of the six categories.

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The 52: Focus on a Niche

Week 28

Focus on a Niche

The next tip in our series on how to simplify your marketing is to focus on a niche. When you focus on too many audiences at the same time (e.g., pre-retirees, widows, and young professionals), you need different messages and different campaigns to make sure you resonate with each group. This not only creates complexity but also increases the volume of marketing—which means more of your time, money, and energy—that you must do to achieve results.

The 52: Focus on What Moves the Needle

Week 27

Focus on What Moves the Needle

The next tip in our series on how to simplify your marketing is to focus on what matters most. Too often, advisors spend their time on marketing activities that seem fun, easy, or interesting instead of the ones that actually move the needle. For example, a firm changes the images on their website when they could be reaching out to influencers who can help them get in front of their niche. Advisors feel validated that they are spending time on marketing, but they aren’t producing results. When you focus on only the activities that make an impact, you don’t waste your time on frivolous exercises that don’t get you anywhere.

The 52: Do the Marketing Activities You Enjoy

Week 26

Do the Marketing Activities You Enjoy

In last week’s tip, I introduced the concept of simplifying marketing to make more of an impact. One way to do this is to focus your marketing on the activities you love, such as nurturing relationships, teaching financial concepts, or optimizing your website. When you do something you love, your marketing becomes easy, and you are more likely to implement consistently. When you do things you don’t enjoy, it’s easy to put them off or do them poorly, neither of which leads to success.

The 52: Do Less Marketing

Week 25

Do Less Marketing

I’m a fan of Greg McKeown and his books Essentialism and Effortless. In a nutshell, his philosophy is to do only the things that matter and then make those things easier. This philosophy can easily be applied to marketing. In an industry that always tells you to do more marketing, maybe the secret is to do less but do it better. Here is what happens when you attempt to do too much marketing:

• You fail to implement consistently and never gain traction.

• You focus on volume over quality and just add to the noise.

When you simplify your marketing, you can dive deeper and focus on quality so that your marketing becomes more controlled and can have more impact. In the coming weeks, I’ll talk about how you can simplify your marketing to get better results.

The 52: Go with the Marketing Flow

Week 24

Go with the Marketing Flow

Marketing effectiveness ebbs and flows with the seasons, and your marketing activities should match the natural rhythms. Here are the times when you should accelerate your marketing and when you should let your foot off the gas:

• Winter through early spring (January–May): This is a prime marketing window. Take advantage of it by focusing on serious educational topics for your events and content, and include strong calls to action to schedule an appointment.

• Summer school break (June–August): This is a less effective time for marketing, so keep your activities light, such as social events and fun content topics. Spend your extra time planning for the marketing you will do in the fall.

• Early fall (September–mid-November): This is another prime marketing period. Take advantage of this short window to do as many campaigns as you can before the holidays.

• The holidays (mid-November–New Year’s): This is probably the least effective period to market your business. Focus on relationship activities, such as sending cards, gifts, and invitations to social events. This is the perfect time to strategize next year’s marketing plan.

The 52: Build Your Email List

Week 23

Build Your Email List

Your email marketing list is one of your most valuable marketing assets. While social media sites can be a good way to reach new audiences, you have little control over those channels. The social media companies can change their algorithms or policies, nullifying your previously successful marketing efforts. Alternatively, your contacts can decide to reduce or quit their use of social media, making it impossible to reach them. But with email, you own the list, you control the message, and somewhere between 30% and 50% of the people on your list will open your email. Make building your email list a marketing priority.

The 52: Don’t Focus on SEO If No One Is Searching

Week 22

Don’t Focus on SEO If No One Is Searching

I’ve been writing a lot about search engine optimization (SEO) lately, but should SEO be a priority for every advisor? The answer is no. Here are two examples when SEO will not do you any good:

1. You are in a smaller community where people aren't searching online to find a financial advisor.

2. Your niche doesn't know to look for a professional like you (e.g., a financial advisor for veterinarians).

Basic keyword research will tell you if people are searching for “financial advisor [your area]” or “financial advisor for [niche].” If the search volume is low, that means no one is searching for you. Don't spend more time on SEO other than standard website best practices. Instead, focus on creating high-quality content that people in your network want to consume and share.

The 52: Qualify Your Prospects Before Scheduling Meetings

Week 21

Qualify Your Prospects Before Scheduling Meetings

Meeting with unqualified prospects can be a huge time suck. To avoid this, screen your prospects to see if there is an initial fit before scheduling a formal hour-plus meeting. Here are some ways to do this:

• Embed a qualifying questionnaire to your calendaring software or web form.

• Make the first step be an initial 15-minute phone call to ask qualifying questions.

• Have the receptionist/admin/junior advisor gather information using a qualifying questionnaire for prospects who call in.

If you determine someone is not a good fit, point them in the direction of someone who can better take care of their needs.

Interested in learning more about this topic? Join the conversation today at 11 a.m. PT on Clubhouse.