The 52: A Simple Way to Develop Your Marketing Message

Week 50

A Simple Way to Develop Your Marketing Message

It’s not easy to develop an engaging marketing message for your website that sounds different from other financial advisors. In our 15-plus years of working with financial advisors, the easiest way we have found to develop a simple marketing message is to use Donald Miller’s Building a StoryBrand methodology. If you are looking for one marketing book to read over the holidays, make it this one.

P.S. Kristen Luke is now a StoryBrand Certified Guide who can help advisors focused on a niche clarify their message.

The 52: Get Out and About

Week 49

Get Out and About

During the height of the pandemic, most people limited their in-person interactions with others. And even though the world has since opened up, some advisors have fallen into the habit of avoiding networking activities.

Marketing in financial services is all about relationship, which means connecting with other people. For 2022, instead of prioritizing your marketing around some new online channel, prioritize it around connecting with other people face to face. That could mean going to some new networking events or having coffee with a center of influence. Sure, it may sound old school, but human connection is always a winning marketing strategy.

The 52: Repeat Your Message

Week 48

Repeat Your Message

Last week we talked about the importance of creating a simple message that people can’t help but remember. Once you have crafted that message, the next step is to repeat it. And repeat it. And repeat it.

The only way for people to remember what you do to the extent they can repeat it is for them to hear it over and over again. Dave Ramsey became well known because he repeated the same simple message about debt for years. And it worked!

People aren’t paying close attention to your marketing. Even if they are, they still need to hear your message dozens of times before it sticks. So don’t worry about repeating your message too much—there is no such thing!

Are You Ready for Marketing to Get Harder in 2022?

Are You Ready for Marketing to Get Harder?

For most financial advisors, marketing is hard. It’s either not in your skill set or not something that interests you. As a result, you may ignore active marketing tactics and rely on referrals to passively roll in. That marketing strategy can work if you charge your fees based on a percentage of assets under management and the stock market continues to grow by double digits each year.

But are you ready for when marketing gets harder?

Recently, I’m seeing more complacency from financial advisors when it comes to marketing. One reason is that revenue is skyrocketing based on stock market performance alone. Financial advisors lack a sense of urgency to actively seek out new clients when revenue continues to grow on its own. A second reason is that some firms face staffing shortages and don’t have the time to dedicate to marketing.

During good financial times like these, I tell firms they should invest in their marketing to prepare for the next economic downturn. A downturn creates a lot of opportunity to pick up new clients because it is one of the rare times when the entire population faces a “money in motion” event at once.

It is also a time when advisor revenue suddenly shrinks due to lower AUM fees, and firms become anxious about replacing that revenue with new clients as quickly as possible. To be prepared for, and take advantage of, downtimes, you need to execute a marketing strategy consistently—and that means before the market drops.

While you should invest in your marketing in preparation for a downturn, you should also do it for another reason. Marketing will only get harder, and those who don’t take marketing seriously now will feel the effects the most. Let’s look at three reasons why marketing will get harder.

1. The Next Generation of Investors Is Relying Less on Financial Advisors

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, “About 70% of households with a net worth of $500,000 or more headed by a person under 45 had an investing style that was either strongly or mostly self-directed in 2019, up from 57% in 2010.”

Anecdotally, I have seen this trend play out with some of the firms I work with that market to this demographic. Younger investors are interested in paying for one-time advice but want to manage their investments on their own and balk at paying AUM fees. 

There is still a huge market of baby boomers who value delegating their finances to a financial advisor and are willing to pay AUM fees. But will this continue 10 or 20 years from now? Or will Gen Xers and millennials look to pay their financial advisors like they do their attorneys and accountants—on an hourly or project basis?

If this happens, advisors will have to attract a larger volume of clients each year than they currently do to maintain revenue. If it doesn’t happen, it is still possible there will be a smaller pool of investors willing to pay AUM fees that all firms will compete for. In either scenario, financial advisors will have to be better marketers than they are today.

2. Marketing Tactics Are Getting More Complex

Not worried about the longevity of the AUM model? There are other ways marketing is getting harder. Namely, marketing tactics are becoming more complex. When I started my marketing career in this industry 16 years ago, the RIA I worked for had a weekly radio show, hosted two weekly public workshops at a local restaurant, and did the occasional client appreciation event. It was a simple system that produced dozens of prospects weekly.

Not only are those tried-and-true methods saturated, but you now have so many other channels to master as well. To market your business today, you need to be an expert in search engine optimization, Google ads, social media, video marketing, webinars, podcasts, and marketing automation systems, just to name a few. And the bad news is, these channels are quickly getting saturated as well, so it is hard to stand out. The complexity of marketing will only speed up as artificial intelligence plays a bigger role in our everyday lives.

It’s hard for career marketers to keep up with all the trends and changes in their field. How are you supposed to compete when it’s your job to service clients, not be a marketing expert?

3. It’s Harder to Differentiate

Finally, it’s getting harder for firms to differentiate themselves from the competition. For a while, fee-only RIAs stood out to prospects because they were “independent” or “fiduciary.” Today, so many firms fall into these categories that they’re not differentiators in most geographic areas. Offering “comprehensive financial planning” used to be a differentiator too, but most financial advisors now claim to provide this service even if they don’t. To a prospect, most financial advisors look and sound the same, so to stand out, you have to be the better marketer.

What Can Be Done?

You might feel overwhelmed by the fact that marketing is going to get harder than it already is. But what can you do about it?

My first recommendation is to make your marketing a priority. Financial advisors have many different marketing approaches they can use, but the key is to implement your marketing consistently. Don’t let it slip when you get busy. When you execute your marketing in fits and starts, you may not be able to restart it quickly when you need clients again. You will be well-served to hire a consultant who can help you with the big-picture strategy before you start trying ad hoc tactics and technology.

My second recommendation is to carve out a niche for yourself. By specializing in solving the financial problems of a narrow set of clients, your marketing becomes more focused and effective. You have fewer competitors, you connect better with ideal clients, and you clearly stand out from other advisors. In other words, in a world where marketing is getting harder, your marketing gets easier.

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About Kristen Luke

Kristen Luke is the President of Kaleido Creative Studio, a marketing agency specializing in helping RIAs promote their businesses to a niche through an expertise approach. Over the past 15 years, Kristen has consulted with hundreds of financial advisory firms and shared her marketing expertise via industry conferences and publications nationwide.

The 52: Create One Clear and Simple Message

Week 47

Create One Clear and Simple Message

Is it hard for your clients and centers of influence to refer because they can’t explain what you do other than “they invest money” or “they are a financial advisor”? This happens when your message isn’t clear and simple in their minds.

No one is going to do the work to remember a complicated marketing message. It’s your job to create a message that is so simple and unique that people can’t help but remember it—for example, “the financial advisor who helps tech professionals make decisions about their equity compensation” or “the advisor who helps gets your parents’ estate in order before it becomes your responsibility as the executor.”

When you have a clear and simple marketing message, it is easier for your clients and COIs to spread the word about your work.

The 52: Create Content Focused on Your Prospects’ Questions, Problems, and Aspirations

Week 46

Create Content Focused on Your Prospects’ Questions, Problems, and Aspirations

To connect with prospects, you want to let them know you understand what they are thinking and feeling. This means creating content that answers questions they have, solves problems they face, or provides tips to achieve aspirations they desire. It is addressing these issues (not what happened with the stock market last week) that will motivate them to hire you.

Four Reasons Why Your Marketing Isn't Connecting with Prospects

How to Compete for Clients on Your Terms: 4 Key Realities Advisors Face

Do you struggle to attract new clients other than from referrals? There may be a reason for that struggle—it is hard for prospects to choose you. That may sound insulting, but I don’t mean it to be. Let’s take a look at some basic realities prospects face.

Reality #1: Most Financial Advisors Make the Same Claims

All financial advisors claim they are good at the most important services a prospective client is looking for, including comprehensive financial planning and investment management. Even if your competition isn’t effective at these services, they also need to keep their businesses running, so they will say what it takes to get clients. The truth is, you can’t stop financial advisors from saying they do what you do, even if they don’t.

Reality #2: Prospects Aren’t Qualified to Evaluate Financial Advisors

Most prospects aren’t qualified to evaluate whether a financial advisor is good or not. Have they worked with dozens of financial advisors in the past to know the difference? You hope not because that kind of track record means they will probably be a terrible client. Unless the prospect is in a field that requires them to interact with a lot of financial advisors—for example, CPAs—this is probably the first or second time they’ve had to evaluate and hire a financial advisor, meaning they don’t have the skills to do so.

Reality #3: Prospects Have Too Many Similar Choices

To a prospect, most independent financial advisors look the same. They all offer the same basic services (financial planning, investment management, retirement planning, etc.), work with the same typical client (high net worth, probably nearing retirement), for the same similar price (1% of AUM +/-).

They have so many similar options and don’t know how to make the right choice. They become so overwhelmed, they don’t make any decision in fear of making the wrong one, or they choose an advisor based on some factor other than being the most qualified (see reality #4). 

Reality #4: When Prospects Can’t Evaluate Qualification, They Use Other Factors

When a prospect can’t evaluate you based on qualification (because how do they know if you are more qualified than the dozens or even hundreds of other advisors in their area?), they will resort to other factors. These factors include (1) the lowest price; (2) whether they like you more than the other advisors they meet with; (3) someone they know recommends you (this person is probably also not qualified to evaluate financial advisors); (4) they like your marketing the best; or (5) they choose an established (probably national) brand they think is a safe choice.

Again, It’s Hard for Prospects to Choose You

If you wonder why it is hard to get new clients, it is because it is hard for them to choose you. You must compete on factors that have nothing to do with how qualified you are or the services you provide.

Do you want to offer the lowest price? Probably not. Are you more likable than all the other advisors your prospect interviews? Who knows? Do you have the largest network in town of people who can refer business to you? Unlikely. Are you the best marketer in your area? My guess is definitely not! And do you have a well-known brand name with decades of history behind you? Not if you are a small, independent RIA.    

Sure, you can try to compete on being independent, fee-only, or a fiduciary if those are still differentiating factors in your community (most places, they are not). Today, most advisors claim they put their clients’ interests first, which goes back to reality #1. And from most prospects’ point of view, those factors equate to minuscule differences anyway.

Compete on Qualification Instead

So how do you compete? You can lower your price, work on being more likable, expand your network, or spend more money to have the best marketing. Or you can change the playing field completely and compete for clients based on qualification. After all, most prospects would prefer to choose the advisor they knew is most qualified instead of just going off gut instinct.

How do you compete on qualification? The easiest answer is to specialize in a niche, a narrow segment of clients you serve exclusively.

When you work exclusively with a niche, such as business owners selling their business or employees with pension plans at the local utility company, it’s easier to make the claim you are the most qualified among a prospect’s choices.

When all you do every day is work with a niche, it’s logical for a prospect to assume you are more qualified to handle their niche-specific problems than a generalist firm would be. How could you not be?

The services a niche needs may not even be that different from what most people of similar wealth and income levels need. But when you point out their differences and how they need a specialist, they will evaluate all other advisors based on their level of experience in working with people like them.

The key is to narrow in on a niche where few companies can make the same claim as you. For example, many firms claim they work with business owners, so you can say you work with business owners who own agricultural businesses. You position yourself as an expert in the specific issues that ranch and farm owners face.  

Marketing Doesn’t Have to Be Hard

Marketing is hard when you have a business in an industry where prospects can’t tell the difference between you and the competition. The solution is not to differentiate your firm in some minor way that prospects won’t even notice. The answer is to design your firm so that prospects can’t even compare you to other firms. There just aren’t other firms like you that exist. That’s when you have no competition!

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About Kristen Luke

Kristen Luke is the President of Kaleido Creative Studio, a marketing agency specializing in helping RIAs promote their businesses to a niche through an expertise approach. Over the past 15 years, Kristen has consulted with hundreds of financial advisory firms and shared her marketing expertise via industry conferences and publications nationwide.

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Further Reading:

If You Want to Get Rich, Build a Power Niche by Bruce M. Stachenfeld
Differentiate or Die: Survival in the Era of Killer Competition by Jack Trout

The 52: Additional Domain Names Do Not Help Your Search Engine Rankings

Week 45

Additional Domain Names Do Not Help Your Search Engine Rankings

I often get the question from advisors about whether they should buy additional website domains (e.g., WorldsBestFinancialAdvisor.com) and forward them to their primary company domain (e.g., ABCFinancialAdvisors.com) to improve their Google rankings. The short answer is “No!” Buying domains and forwarding them to your company site has zero impact on your search rankings. Instead of spending money on additional domains, you’d be better off creating valuable, original content that answers the questions people search for.