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How to Generate Topics for Content Marketing
When starting with a niche, you may find it difficult to produce topics for your content marketing. To get ideas, take notes about what your prospects are talking about. This article covers specific points to create an effective content strategy.
The 52: What Does the Ideal Podcast Look Like?
With so many options, what should your podcast look like?
What Does the Ideal Podcast Look Like?
If you listen to podcasts, you know they can come in all lengths, frequencies, and formats, leaving financial advisors to wonder what the best option is for them.
In his work with financial advisors, Matt Halloran, partner and podcasting expert at podcasting company ProudMouth, has found that the ideal podcast length is between 26 and 28 minutes. The ideal frequency is twice a month, and the ideal format is to have a guest on each show.
This combination allows financial advisors to get the most impact from their podcast most efficiently.
How to Generate Topics for Your Content Marketing
When starting with a niche, you may find it difficult to come up with topics for your content marketing. To get ideas, take notes about what your prospects are talking about. This article covers specific points to note to create an effective content strategy.
Most professional marketers spout the importance of content marketing. That is, creating original and relevant blogs, videos, and podcasts that provide prospects such value that they want to learn more about your business.
I agree that content marketing is an effective form of marketing, especially when selling a service based on expertise. However, content marketing for content marketing’s sake will not produce results. It is important to choose the topics that connect with your niche and encourage them to act.
The best topics are the ones that directly address your niche’s primary pain points—the ones answering the questions that are top of mind and keep them up at night. Focus on things that your niche is curious about or even afraid of. And consider topics that would be top of mind for your prospect within 90 days of hiring you.
For example, if your niche is divorce financial planning, consider the issues on a prospect’s mind before hiring a financial advisor to help with their divorce. For example, it could be “Why Getting Half Isn’t Always Financially Fair in a Divorce.” If your niche is people who have received an inheritance, a topic could be “Common Tax Mistakes People Make with Their Inheritance.”
Help your niche understand that the content is specifically for them by inserting them into the title. If you address retirement planning for business owners, then you can tailor the title to be “3 Mistakes Business Owners Make When Selling Their Business That Can Damage Their Retirement Plans.”
Whatever you do, do not include generic topics, such as economic outlooks. Every subject must be specific to your niche, use their language, and provide examples that resonate with them. If you must write about a generic topic that applies to any investor, tailor the topic title and examples to your niche.
Choosing topics when you first work with a niche can be challenging. But as you gain more experience, it will become easier to find issues to address. To help do this, take notes about the situations your prospects face. Your notes will tell you exactly what you should address in your content.
Specifically, here are the things to make note of:
Triggering Events
What event was happening in the prospect’s life that triggered them to reach out to you in the first place? In the example about women getting a divorce, the triggering event could be finding out a spouse is cheating, talking to a divorce attorney who referred her, filing for a divorce, or going through a divorce and having the gut feeling she isn’t getting a fair settlement. These are just four different triggering events for the same niche, and I’m sure there are many more.
Primary Financial Concern
What does the prospect say their primary financial concern or frustration is? For a divorcing woman, her primary concern may be “Will I have enough money to maintain the lifestyle for myself and the kids that we are all used to?”
Goals and Aspirations
What does the prospect say is their ultimate goal or aspiration? What would they like to achieve after working with you? For the divorcing woman, she may say her goal is to rebuild a life on her terms where she feels happy, confident, and secure.
Services and Solutions
What services or solutions does the prospect say they need? Make note of these even if they are not services you offer. For example, the divorcing woman may say she needs to refinance the house in her name. You note that she may need mortgage services, and you write content on refinancing a home as part of a divorce settlement.
Words and Phrases
What specific words and phrases does the prospect use to describe their situation? It will be important to reflect this wording back to your niche in your content.
For example, the divorcing woman may not say she needs to “refinance” her home. She may say she needs to lower her mortgage payment or get her husband’s name off the mortgage. These would be key phrases to write down that you could use as a topic. The topic, in this case, would be “How to Lower Your Monthly Mortgage Payments So You Can Afford to Keep Your House After a Divorce.”
Avoid using financial services industry jargon. Instead, use the language your niche clients would use.
Final Thoughts
Your content marketing can be a powerful tool in getting niche prospects to schedule a call with you. The key is to focus on your niche’s triggering events, concerns, services, and aspirations. You also want to use the language that your niche uses, not your industry’s. By speaking directly to your niche, you can get their attention and, ultimately, their business.
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.
Prospects Have Lots of Problems; Your Message Needs to Focus on Just One
When creating your marketing message for your niche, you want to articulate the one unique problem your niche faces. Here are questions to help you address that overriding problem.
The 52: Take Advantage of Online Profiles
A low-cost, low-maintenance marketing strategy.
Take Advantage of Online Profiles
A simple, low-cost, low-maintenance online marketing strategy is to be listed on all the “Find an Advisor” websites that prospective clients might use to search for a firm. These online profiles are usually charged in one of three ways: (1) as part of your membership or association with an organization; (2) as an annual fee; or (3) as a per-lead fee. We find listings that charge you an annual fee or are included as part of your association with the organization are generally a better value for the money than listings that require you to pay per lead.
Here is a list of sites to take advantage of if you are eligible:
Having links from these sites to your firm’s website helps with your own search engine optimization.
Prospective Clients Have a Lot of Problems; Your Message Needs to Focus on Just One
When creating your marketing message for your niche, you want to articulate the one unique problem your niche faces. Here are questions to help you understand that overriding problem.
What is the one common problem your niche all shares?
Take a moment to think about your answer because it will dictate how you differentiate yourself to clients and prospects.
Answering this question is a challenge because clients often have many different problems. They need to organize their finances; they want to delegate their finances to someone they trust; they want to pay less in taxes; they need to know they have enough money to retire.
But these are common problems that most people are looking to solve. And they are problems that most financial advisors solve. They don’t help you stand out as an expert in your niche. They don’t help you become uncomparable.
Ask yourself: “What is the one unique problem everyone in my niche faces—the one that is the most painful and urgent for them to solve? The one that makes them seek out my services in the first place?”
To discover this one problem, ask yourself these questions:
What keeps your niche up at night?
What situation is your niche facing in the 90 days before they hire a financial advisor?
What hurdle do they need to overcome to reach the outcome they hope to achieve (e.g., financial independence, financial stability, retirement)?
Here are some problems a niche may face:
Irregular income leading to a lack of financial security despite having a successful career (salespeople, business owners, the self-employed)
Intense career burnout driving a desire to retire from their career ASAP (e.g., health care professionals, tech employees, attorneys)
A significant windfall creating tax implications (e.g., selling a business, being an employee of a company that experienced an IPO, selling investment real estate)
Being solely responsible for a significant amount of wealth for the first time and not knowing where to start (inheritors, widows, divorcees)
The problem you identify needs to be top of mind for the niche. It needs to be distinct to the niche and not a problem most people face (e.g., planning for retirement). It needs to be painful. And it is best if the problem needs to be urgently solved (though this is often not the case).
You want to avoid the following types of problems:
Aspirational goals. While I don’t believe in marketing on fear, clients hire you to solve a problem. “Having more money than I’ll ever need and wanting to optimize my wealth” is not a problem most people feel an urgent need to solve. Instead, turn the perspective around to solve a problem, such as “Make sure your kids don’t squander your hard-earned wealth after you are gone.”
Organizational problems. Unless you will position yourself as the Marie Kondo of wealth management, getting organized doesn’t drive most people to take action in hiring a financial advisor. Organization is an unforeseen benefit they end up enjoying, but it isn’t compelling enough for most people to seek out financial advice.
Retirement planning. Literally, everyone has this problem except for the top 1%. If you help plan for retirement, you need a unique slant specific to your niche. For example, planning for retirement by navigating the complex Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). Or planning for retirement when you are single and have no spousal or family support system.
Here are some examples of messages that highlight the one problem each of these niches faces:
Helping the Self-Employed Stabilize Volatile Income
Helping Health Care Workers Quit Their Jobs and Live Their Lives
Helping Real Estate Investors Make Tax-Smart Decisions on When and How to Sell Property
Helping Single Women Know They Are Taking Care of Themselves Financially
Of course, your clients will have more than one problem. Self-employed people have issues beyond volatile income. They also have insurance issues and retirement savings issues. But your overall marketing message does not need to say everything you do. That will just confuse your niche. Your message only needs to state the one problem that has nagged at your prospect the most.
Final Thoughts
You need a distinct, clear message to be an uncomparable financial advisor. And that message should focus on the one primary problem you solve for your niche. It will require some time on your part to come up with the one problem that resonates with prospects. But expressing the problem that keeps your prospects up at night will help them realize that you are the financial advisor to help them overcome their problem and succeed.
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 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.