The 52: Being Better Isn’t Better. Being Different Is Better

Being Better Isn’t Better. Being Different Is Better

When I ask firms, “How are you different?” I get similar answers:

• We have better customer service.

• We offer better financial planning.

• We have a better investment strategy.

But there is a problem with differentiating yourself as being “better”: It is easy for someone else to swoop in and be better than you.

This approach means a constant race to be the best. When you differentiate on being better, another firm can easily dethrone you by offering slightly better customer service or adding one more financial planning discipline.

When competing for clients, being better isn’t a sustainable strategy. Instead, be different in some defendable way (e.g., have a niche specialization) because it is hard for the competition to also be different in that same way.

The Year-One Niche Marketing Plan for Advisors

Year 2 Niche Marketing Plan for Financial Advisors

In my last blog, I discussed the fact that it can take three years of a focused niche marketing strategy before an advisor will reach the level of exponential growth. In year one, you talk to everyone you know in your niche and establish credibility through content marketing. In year two, you continue those efforts and layer on additional ones:

1. Develop an Ebook or Other Lead Capture Resource 

After you consistently blog for a year, you’ll find you are generating more traffic to your website. Since not all those visitors will be ready to do business with you, you’ll want a way to capture their names and email addresses so you can nurture that relationship until they are ready.

The simplest way to do this is through a PDF resource like an ebook or checklist. You can also consider an on-demand webinar. The important thing is that the resource is something that your niche will value and that you offer it in exchange for their email address.

2. Expand Your Content

Once you are in the habit of consistently creating blogs, you want to expand your content. If you like to write, you can continue writing blogs but add longer, more in-depth content. If that is not an option, increase the number of blogs you write each month (say from two to four).

This is also the time to consider developing videos to enhance your blogs or as a standalone. You can also consider hosting a podcast and inviting people associated with your niche community to be guests. Or you can start designing interesting infographics for your niche.

Only expand your content if you can consistently execute it. If blogging is already enough for you, stick to that one thing.

3. Guest Everywhere

In both years one and two, it is important to get in front of your niche as much as possible. This means looking for opportunities to be a guest speaker at live or virtual events, be a guest on podcasts, and contribute guest articles to websites or publications.

When you have an opportunity to leverage someone else’s network, you take it, no matter how insignificant. These opportunities not only build your credibility but also lead to additional opportunities.

4. Optimize Content for Search Engines

If you consistently write blogs in year one, your website will probably start to rank for some keywords your niche is searching for. In year two, you can make a more deliberate effort to optimize your content and overall website to drive more search traffic.

Search engine optimization is a pretty technical concept, so I would recommend you hire a company like Advisor Rankings to help you with your SEO efforts.

5. Utilize Ads

Year two is when you may want to use ads to expand the reach of your content. For example, you might promote your lead capture resource or the content you are already posting on social media to a wider audience using paid advertisements, usually called “promoted” or “boosted” posts.

You may want to advertise in highly targeted niche publications and websites. And if enough people are searching for your service on Google (e.g., financial advisor for dentists), you might consider using Google search ads.

Ads can complement your SEO efforts. The key to success is that your ads must be highly targeted to your market with a message that resonates with your niche.

6. Build Your Center of Influence (COI) Network

In your first year, you talk to anyone you can think of associated with your niche. In year two, it’s time to implement a deliberate and systemized effort to meet new centers of influence and nurture those relationships for referrals. It can take years of relationship-building to gain the trust required for COIs to provide a referral. Starting these efforts in year two will pay dividends in future years.     

Final Thoughts

If the first year lays the foundation for a successful niche marketing strategy, the second year builds the framing. In year two, your efforts get more sophisticated as you expand your reach through a lead capture resource, new content formats, guest opportunities, search engine optimization, ads, and COI networking.

Your diligence may already be paying off as you gain traction with your niche market, which increasingly looks to you for guidance on their financial problems.

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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.

The 52: Don’t Obsess About Vanity Metrics

Don’t Obsess About Vanity Metrics

I often see advisors obsess over marketing metrics such as website visitors and social media followers—or what we call “vanity metrics.” These numbers make you feel good, but they aren’t leading indicators of your business’s future success. Nor do they provide information to inform your strategy.

Here are examples of vanity metrics:

• Website visitors

• Social media followers

• Number of attendees at your client event

Instead, you want to focus your analysis on metrics that truly help inform your strategy:

• Number of people who scheduled appointments

• Number of new people added to your marketing database

• Lead source (e.g., website, referral) of new prospects

• Conversion rate

Year 1 Niche Marketing Plan for Financial Advisors

In his 2014 article “Building a Niche Advisory Business: It Takes 3 Years for People to Know, Like, and Trust,” Michael Kitces presents the idea that it “takes about 3 years for the exponential growth of a niche to really start to take off.” That has been my experience when working with financial advisors as well.

Why does it take so long to build a niche advisory business? Kitces says that it takes “time to be known, liked, and trusted in the first place, especially as a financial advisor in our low-trust industry of financial services.” But once you gain this trust and become the go-to person in a niche, the business takes off, and marketing becomes much easier. 

How fast you will grow depends on your current engagement with a niche. Kitces states that businesses that already have some connection to or presence with a niche can grow faster, while firms brand new to a niche will grow slower.

If you are committed to mastering a niche, how should you spend your marketing efforts over those three years? In this first part of a three-part series, we’ll look at what to do in year one.   

The first year of building a niche business should be spent creating a marketing foundation. In his article, Kitces says this is the year you should focus on becoming known and do business with anyone in your niche you can.

So what does marketing in that first year look like? It means solidifying your message, establishing your expertise, and talking to everyone you can in your niche. Specifically, here are the steps you should take in your first year:

1. Define Your Niche

This step may seem obvious, but it is critical to get clear on who you serve. The more you “niche down” and become specific, the better. For example, “executives” is too broad. Niching down to “director-level and higher in the STEM field with equity compensation issues” will serve you better in the long run.

2. Craft Your Message

Next, you need to develop a clear and specific message that resonates with your niche. Your message should directly address their greatest financial concern or highest financial aspiration. This message needs to be simple and consistently communicated on your website and in your elevator pitch, marketing materials, and online profiles.

3. Build a Landing Page

Once you have your message, you need to develop a webpage dedicated to your niche on your existing website. If you are ready to go all-in from the start, then focus your entire site on the niche. This will serve as the hub for your future marketing efforts. It will also house all content that positions you as an expert. Finally, it provides a way for people to schedule appointments with you.

4. Blog

You’ll want to position yourself as an expert as quickly as possible. I find the best way to do this is through a blog. Not only does writing force you to learn what you need to know to be an expert in a niche, but it’s also the best way to showcase the expertise you are learning.  

Having this content on your website gives you credibility with anyone researching you online. You can also submit blogs to other publications or websites as guest posts to help get you in front of more people. Finally, if optimized for search engines, blogs can drive significant traffic to your website.

5. Build your Network

Networking in the early days of your niche strategy will accelerate the timeline for results. Tell everyone you know in or associated with your niche what you are doing. Ask them to make introductions to other people in the niche—not for referral purposes, but just to expand your network. And then add all those people to your email marketing list.

The goal is to meet as many people as possible as quickly as you can. You will learn so much and start to get opportunities you can’t even imagine exist. And hopefully, your efforts will help you get your first few niche clients.

6. Nurture your Network

Staying top of mind with your niche community will yield enormous benefits in future years. To stay top of mind, create an email newsletter featuring content specific to your niche (usually your blog). Continuously build a list of every contact, prospect, and client who fits into your niche community, and send the newsletter at least once a month (more often is better).

7. Present to Groups

Try to find as many groups as you can to present to during your first year in a niche. Presenting to groups early on will open up more speaking opportunities in the future.

Develop one presentation that addresses your niche’s primary financial concern or highest aspiration, and give them the steps to solving their problem or achieving their goal. Use this same presentation for the entire year, making tweaks along the way.

The groups you speak to don’t have to be formal. You can start by presenting to a handful of clients you already work with. Or maybe you just present to friends who fit your niche. Smaller groups are better in the beginning because they allow you time to work through and perfect your material. 

Final Thoughts

The first year of a niche focus will probably be the slowest and most frustrating, but stick with it. By staying on top of your year-one marketing plan, you lay a solid foundation for your niche advisory business. With your dedication and a solid niche, your efforts will be rewarded in year three and beyond, when your marketing becomes effortless because your ideal clients seek you out.

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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.

Should Advisors Have More Than One Niche?

The 52: Leverage the Networks of Others

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?

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.

1. https://neilpatel.com/blog/blog-post-quality-vs-quantity

The 52: Can You Have More Than One Niche?

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.

Can Financial Advisors 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. For example, let’s say your niche is employees with equity compensation plans. You will need to have a website (or at least a webpage) for that niche. You will have to create content, such as blogs or videos, to demonstrate your expertise on topics directly relevant to your niche’s financial pain points (no generic content!). You will have to optimize your website for search engines and implement strategies to drive people to your website. You will have to participate in online and offline communities where members of your niche gather. You will need to develop niche-specific campaigns (e.g., download the ebook, register for a webinar, attend an event). And you will need to have at least one staff member who takes full ownership of the niche to ensure this plan gets executed consistently.

Now imagine repeating this process for a completely different niche. Or multiple niches. Do you have the employee bandwidth to accomplish this? Do you have the financial resources to execute an entire marketing plan for each niche?

Unless you have both the staff and the financial resources to pull off multiple niches, you’ll implement two or more niche marketing plans poorly instead of implementing just one niche marketing plan well.  

With that in mind, here are rules of thumb for whether you should have multiple niches depending on your firm situation and size:

Individual Advisors

Whether you are a solo practitioner or an employee tasked with business development responsibilities on your own, you absolutely should focus on only one niche.

You have limited resources to dedicate to marketing, so you want to make sure you get the most impact for your dollars and effort. You will get much better results putting all your time, focus, energy, and money into one niche than if you spread yourself thin across multiple niches.

Boutique RIAs

RIAs with just a couple of advisors often want to work with multiple niches, mostly because they have a diverse client base to start with. Because time and money are limited, it is recommended that the firm as a whole focuses on one niche. You will get better marketing results with less effort than if you attempt multiple niches.

There are times when not all advisors are equally suited for the same niche. For example, one advisor may lack the empathy required to work with widows. Or a generational divide can make one advisor unlikely to attract a certain niche.

While not ideal, these scenarios may require having multiple niches. The key to success is having as few niches as possible, with each advisor focusing on only one.

Enterprise RIAs

Unless your firm started with a niche focus, it’s unrealistic to assume you will ever transition to one niche for the entire firm. Instead, you should have multiple specialty areas to focus on different niches—for example, business owners, women in transition, executives, and socially responsible investors.

Large firms with plenty of talent and deep pockets can easily pull this off. They can easily assign one financial advisor to spearhead each niche. And they have the support staff and the financial resources to consistently implement multiple marketing plans at once. 

Final Thoughts

Having multiple niches can be tempting, but it can also dissipate your focus. Remember, the more niches you have, the more champions you need and the more marketing plans you must implement.

Before you attempt two or more niches, review the above rules of thumb and ask yourself if you have the staff, time, and money to go all-in on multiple fronts. If you don’t, concentrate your efforts on one niche. You can always pull the other niches off the back burner after you’ve succeeded with your current niche.

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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.