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How Financial Advisors Can Make Their Marketing Message Stand Out
To be an uncomparable financial advisor, you need a marketing message that is simple, clear, and repeated often. Here’s a framework for creating your message.
The 52: Add Audio Versions to Your Blog Posts
Mix your medias to get more interaction.
Add Audio Versions to Your Blog Posts
Not everyone has the attention span to read blogs. And some people prefer to listen to content rather than read it. To accommodate these people, add audio versions to your blog posts.
You can either record these using your voice or use a text-to-speech service. Here is an example using our marketing tip from last week featuring an AI voice-generated clip.
How Financial Advisors Can Make Their Marketing Message Stand Out
To be an uncomparable financial advisor, you need a marketing message that is simple, clear, and repeated often. Here’s a framework for creating your message.
Most financial advisors look and sound the same. To a prospect, you offer the same basic services, such as financial planning, investment management, and retirement planning. You work with the same typical client: high-net-worth pre-retirees. And you charge a similar fee, around 1% of AUM plus or minus, depending on the portfolio size.
So how do you communicate a message that clearly differentiates you from the competition, making it easier for prospects to know you are the right advisor for them (i.e., become uncomparable)? You develop a marketing message that is simple, clear, and easy to remember. And you communicate this message consistently.
The best marketers in the world repeat one simple message over and over again. Geico has promoted the message that “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance” for decades. Its simplicity and repetition make the message memorable.
Financial advisors struggle with messaging because they get bored with their message and want to change it. Or they want to address all the different ways they can help a client because what they do is not simple. Even though what you do is not simple, it is your job to make it simple so people can understand.
In 1998, Steve Jobs shared his mantra of focus and simplicity with BusinessWeek: “Simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”[1]
When it comes to communicating a marketing message that people remember, clear and simple always win.
The Messaging Formula
Developing an easy-to-remember message can be constructed using a simple formula:
One Client + One Problem + One Solution + One Outcome
For example:
One client: Commercial pilots.
One problem: Inconsistent income from multiple jobs and self-employed gigs makes budgeting for both today and the future almost impossible.
One solution: We have a system to help pilots stabilize their income.
One outcome: Live like a normal 9-to-5 person, knowing how much you can spend and save each month.
With this formula, your simple message is:
For commercial pilots, inconsistent income from having multiple gigs is stressful. At Aviation Capital Management, our system helps pilots stabilize their monthly income so that they live more like a normal 9-to-5 person.
That’s it! Going forward, all marketing communications (advertising, direct marketing, social media, website, printed materials, public relations, sales presentations, sponsorships, trade show appearances, etc.) reinforce this message.
For example, say an advisor at Aviation Capital Management was hanging out at the local pilots bar. The conversation would go something like this:
Pilot: What do you do?
Advisor: I’m a financial planner who works exclusively with commercial pilots.
Pilot: Oh? What do you do for commercial pilots?
Advisor: So you know how commercial pilots are always stressed out because they have at least three jobs and never know how much money they have each month to spend? Well, I help them with a process that stabilizes their income so they can live more like a 9-to-5 worker.
Meanwhile, the banner image on the advisor’s website would say:
Stabilize Inconsistent Income
Financial Planning for Commercial Pilots
And her company description on her LinkedIn profile would read, “For commercial pilots, inconsistent income from having multiple jobs is stressful. At Aviation Capital Management, our system helps pilots stabilize their monthly income so that they live more like a normal 9-to-5 person.”
Of course, when working one-on-one with clients, this advisor would address the other common problems commercial pilots face, such as:
Lack of access to retirement plan accounts by employers
Underinsured from both a liability and disability standpoint
Dealing with both self-employment and W-2 income issues
But if this advisor tried to communicate these other messages every time she told someone what she did, prospects and centers of influence would forget what she does. It’s too much information to retain for someone not intimately involved in her business.
Instead, she would address these topics in her content marketing (e.g., blogs, videos, podcasts, ebooks, webinars, and presentations). But, even then, she would make sure she always brought her content back to the core message of “stabilizing your income to live like a 9-to-5 worker.”
For example, she would develop a presentation for aviation organizations on the five steps commercial pilots need to take to stabilize their income. She would include details such as “dealing with both self-employment and W-2 income” as one of the steps to stop their feast-or-famine lifestyle and instead live like a normal 9-to-5 person.
Final Thoughts
Everyone knows Geico’s “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.” You know it because it effectively conveys the problem Geico solves for consumers. And it has been repeated for years without variation. So ask yourself, what is the problem you solve? And how can you repeat it memorably?
When creating your message, follow these three rules:
Keep it clear and simple.
Limit the number of messages you communicate to one.
Repeat this one message consistently to the point of oversaturation.
Follow these three steps to create a marketing message that makes you uncomparable and attracts your niche client.
About Kristen Luke
Kristen Luke is the President of Kaleido Creative Studio, a marketing consulting firm that positions Registered Investment Advisors and their employees as experts in a niche, making them uncomparable to other advisors. 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. This article is an excerpt from her upcoming book, due out in 2023.
How to Be an Uncomparable Advisor
When you become an uncomparable financial advisor, you don’t have to compete with other advisors because you are unique. Here are the five components of uncomparability.
The 52: Get Names into Your Marketing Database
A prospect can take years before acting, so start the clock now.
Get Names into Your Marketing Database
Lately, I’ve been interviewing financial advisors for my upcoming book about niche marketing. Here is one of the tips shared with me:
“When you first start a niche, get as many names and contact information as possible into your database. Once you build your database, it gets easier from there because you can design campaigns around nurturing those relationships.”
It can take years of seeing your name before a prospect schedules an appointment. When you get those prospects into your database, you start the clock. So as you start your niche, meet as many people as possible (online and offline), get them into your marketing database, and implement nurturing campaigns.
How to Become an Uncomparable Advisor
Here are the five components for becoming an uncomparable financial advisor.
Incomparable or uncomparable, which are you? That was the question I posed in my last article. It is impossible for a small business to be better than all the competition (incomparable), so the better way to stand out is to be so different no one can compare with you (uncomparable).
When you try to be incomparable, you get stuck in an endless race that you can never win. When you are uncomparable, you win because there’s no one else to race against you. In marketing, when given a choice between being incomparable and uncomparable, you want to be uncomparable.
I have found that the best way to become uncomparable is to own a niche. When you work with a niche, you become an expert in the one problem all the members of your niche face. And everything you create, from your business model to your marketing, revolves around solving that problem.
Because few other advisors, if any, are serving that niche, you become uncomparable. The word about you gets out, and niche members want to work with you. They’re not worried about whether you’re better than other advisors. They know you are the advisor who can help them. This gives them comfort and confidence.
And it gives you success.
Specifically, there are five components that a firm can address to make them uncomparable. These areas are:
Niche: The narrow set of clients who all share one specific problem that you solve.
Position: The simple message that communicates the problem you solve and the transformation that prospective clients can anticipate.
Expertise: The breadth of knowledge and experience you develop that shows you know how to solve your niche’s problem and lead them to transformation.
Community: The people, groups, and places where your niche interacts.
Business model: The services, process, experience, and pricing you specifically design to solve your niche’s problem.
Using this framework, let’s look at two examples—a generalist advisor and an uncomparable advisor focused on a niche.
Generalist Advisor
Company name: San Diego Financial Partners.
Target client (we can’t call it a niche in this case): Anyone with $1 million+ AUM within 30 miles of our office.
Position: We are a fee-only, fiduciary advisor helping individuals and families achieve financial peace of mind.
Expertise: We have a team of CFP® professionals to help you achieve your financial goals.
Community: The greater San Diego County region.
Business model: We employ a team-based approach to implement comprehensive wealth management services following the seven-step financial planning process. We charge fees based on AUM.
Uncomparable Advisor
Company name: Aviation Capital Management.
Niche: Commercial pilots who have irregular income streams.
Position: We help commercial pilots stabilize inconsistent income from having multiple jobs and self-employed gigs so that they can stop stressing about money and live more like a normal 9-to-5 person.
Expertise: Not only have we spent 20 years serving more than 500 pilots, but our founder is a former airline pilot herself.
Community: Airports, flight schools, and aviation organizations across the country.
Business model: We offer guidance on the following: funding flight training, minimizing taxes as a 1099 contractor, choosing the right disability insurance, creating cash flow strategies for fluctuating income, and investing in the right retirement accounts. We charge an annual fee of $5,000, paid monthly, which includes managing up to your first $500,000 in investments. We then offer low-fee investment services beyond $500,000.
As you can see, each of these five areas clearly differentiates the second advisor from the first. When you combine the unique offerings in all five areas of the framework, it becomes nearly impossible for another advisor to replicate, thus making the second advisor uncomparable.
You don’t have to complete the entire framework to start seeing success with your niche. Executing on just a combination of the components will get you there. And you will see more success as you implement each additional component and become clearly differentiated from other advisors.
Final Thoughts
By adopting the framework in this article, you move away from being a generalist advisor trying to be “better” than every other generalist advisor. Instead, use this framework to become uncomparable. Establish your company name, niche, position, expertise, community, and business model so that you stand in a field of one. Your marketing will become effortless over time as your ideal clients seek you out. Such is the power of being uncomparable.
About Kristen Luke
Kristen Luke is the President of Kaleido Creative Studio, a marketing consulting firm that positions Registered Investment Advisors and their employees as experts in a niche, making them uncomparable to other advisors. 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. This article is an excerpt from her upcoming book, due out in 2023.
Incomparable or Uncomparable, Which are You?
Advisors seek to be incomparable, or better than the competition. But this marketing tactic creates a neck-and-neck race that they can’t win. Instead of being incomparable, choose to be uncomparable.
Incomparable or Uncomparable, Which Are You?
Financial advisors usually seek to be incomparable, or better than the competition. This marketing tactic creates a neck-and-neck race that they can’t win. Instead of being incomparable, advisors should choose to be uncomparable.
You are certainly familiar with the commonly used word “incomparable.” Google’s English dictionary defines it as “without an equal in quality or extent; matchless.”
But you are probably less familiar with the uncommonly used word “uncomparable.” Though your spell check and most popular dictionaries may fail to recognize the word, Vocabulary.com defines it as “such that comparison is impossible; unsuitable for comparison or lacking features that can be compared.” [1]
What's the difference, and why is it important to you? Because the difference can make or break your marketing strategy.
The easiest way to think about the difference between these two words is: “Two or more things that can’t be compared with each other are uncomparable. Something that is so good that it is beyond comparison is incomparable.” [The Grammarist]
This distinction is key as you think about the way you differentiate your business. Are you incomparable (the "best"), or are you uncomparable (so different no one can compare with you)?
I find most financial advisors think they are incomparable … the best, or at least better than their competition. When I ask how their firm is different, I get the answer of how they are better than other advisors. Usually, it sounds something like “We actually provide comprehensive financial planning” or “We get to know our clients personally.”
That sounds great, but the "we do it better" marketing approach has problems such as:
A prospect can’t determine that you are better. Whether a prospective client decides to work with you or someone else, they lose any point of comparison. They can never feel absolutely certain that they have picked the "best" advisor.
You can’t maintain being better. Let’s say you are better than other advisors, maybe even the best. What will it take for the competition to surpass you? One additional service? One more meeting per year? Being the best becomes a neck-and-neck horse race. You are under the constant stress of needing to improve to stay ahead of the competition.
The movie Something About Mary demonstrates the exact problem with trying to be better. In this scene, Ted, played by Ben Stiller, picks up a hitchhiker, and they talk about the hitchhiker’s business idea:
Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the exercise video.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7 ... Minute ... Abs.
Ted: Right. Yes. OK, all right. I see where you’re going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin’ there, there’s 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted: I would go for the 7.
Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
Ted: You guarantee it? That’s—how do you do that?
Hitchhiker: If you’re not happy with the first 7 minutes, we’re gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That’s it. That’s our motto. That’s where we’re comin’ from. That’s from “A” to “B.”
Ted: That’s right. That’s—that’s good. That’s good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you’re in trouble, huh?[2]
When you compete on “better,” you are essentially 7-Minute Abs just waiting for 6-Minute Abs to be introduced to the market.
When you position yourself as better, you have decided to play your competitors’ game. You are saying, we are just like them, only better (for now).
No small business can expect to be better than everyone (i.e., the best). The better way to stand out is to be different. When you position yourself as unique, prospects can’t compare you to any other advisor. You claim leadership in your space because there is no one else to compare you to. In other words, you become uncomparable.
How do you become truly different from your competition? How do you become uncomparable? The short answer is you own a niche.
You become an expert in solving one problem for one type of client, and you build your business model to uniquely service the needs of those people.
You focus on developing and promoting your in-depth expertise with a narrow set of clients—an expertise that is not offered by most other advisors. As a result, prospects seek you out because you specialize in solving problems for people just like them.
When given a choice between being incomparable and uncomparable, you want to be uncomparable. The first option keeps you in an endless race against the competition that you can never win. With the second option, you take the victory because there's no one else to race against you. When it comes to marketing, be different. Be uncomparable.
Sources:
[1] https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/uncomparable.
[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129387/characters/nm0005558.
About Kristen Luke
Kristen Luke is the President of Kaleido Creative Studio, a marketing consulting firm that positions Registered Investment Advisors and their employees as experts in a niche, making them uncomparable to other advisors. 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. This article is an excerpt from her upcoming book, due out in 2023.
The 52: Turn Down Business That Doesn’t Fit Your Niche
Streamline your marketing and operations.
Turn Down Business That Doesn’t Fit Your Niche
Recently, I interviewed several financial advisors for a book I’m writing about niche marketing. Here is one of the tips shared with me:
Turn down business that doesn’t fit your niche as soon as you can. Working with only niche clients makes everything easier. Not only does your marketing become easier, but you can also streamline your business operations.
The 52: Use Google Search to Brainstorm Blog Topics
Let Google do the work for you.
Use Google Search to Brainstorm Blog Topics
When brainstorming topics for your blog, jump over to Google to find common topics people are searching for. Start by typing in a general term (e.g., tax planning) and hit Enter. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see searches related to your initial term (e.g., tax planning methods, types of tax planning, tax planning strategies, objectives of tax planning, tax planning 2022, importance of tax planning). Use these topics for future blogs, and incorporate the same terms into the title and content of your blog to help improve your search rankings.
