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Automated vs. Personalized Marketing
Finding the balance between effectiveness and efficiency.
This Encore Tip was originally published on November 18, 2022.
Most marketing in the financial services industry these days is either one-to-many (e.g., email blasts, social media posts/ads) or automated (e.g., drip emails, automated webinars). These are popular marketing forms because they are so efficient.
But if you want to be effective, use one-on-one marketing (e.g., personalized emails, direct messages, social media comments, phone calls). With all the noise out there, it is easy for people to ignore your marketing. If your efforts are truly one-on-one, in most cases you will be noticed.
Ultimately, you should have a mix of automated vs. personalized marketing that is weighted more heavily on one end of the spectrum depending on your needs. If you need prospects quickly, spend more time on personalized marketing (effectiveness). If you have plenty of leads coming in, focus on one-to-many or automated marketing (efficiency).
10 Ways to Repurpose a Single Podcast Episode
Make your content work harder.
Today’s tip is pulled from the recent presentation by ProudMouth’s Matt Halloran at InvestmentNews RIA Activate. In his presentation, Matt demonstrated how you can turn long-form content, like a podcast, into smaller pieces of content. Specifically, he mentioned 10 ways a single podcast episode can be transformed into new content:
YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram video posts
Instagram Reels and Stories
YouTube Shorts
LinkedIn posts or articles
Paid or “boosted” social media ads or posts
Infographics and visual sound bites
Blog posts
An email series
Webinars and presentations
White papers or reports
With strategic repurposing, a single piece of content can reach and engage audiences across multiple platforms, maximizing its impact and extending its lifespan.
Navigating Your Marketing Journey with a Compass and Map
You need both strategy and tactics to succeed.
“A strategy isn’t a map—it’s a compass.” —Seth Godin
Understanding the difference between strategy and tactics can make your marketing efforts more effective.
Strategy = Compass
Your marketing strategy serves as the guiding direction for business growth. It defines the goals and principles that shape every marketing decision, and it rarely changes. Without a clear direction, identifying which tactics to implement becomes challenging.
Tactics = Journey
Tactics are the specific actions—such as campaigns, events, and content—that bring you closer to your end goal. These actions adapt based on their effectiveness, allowing flexibility to realign tactics with your strategy. Documenting these tactics in a marketing plan serves as your map.
How They Work Together
Strategy provides a consistent, steady direction.
Tactics are the flexible actions that take you there.
When tactics align with strategy, your marketing becomes focused, effective, and aligned with your ultimate goals.
Empowering Employee Advisors Who Struggle With Business Development By Narrowing Them Into A Niche
A firm can encourage its employee advisors to contribute to business development efforts by becoming a 'big fish in a small pond' and using niche marketing.
How to Help Prospects Take Immediate Action
Create urgency with prospects who don’t feel it.
Let’s face it: Many prospective clients just don’t feel the urgency when it comes to managing their finances. Often, this is because they are unaware of the financial risks they face, making it easy to kick the can down the road. Realistically, for a prospect to take action and hire you, they need to feel some degree of urgency or discomfort. So, how do you create a sense of urgency with prospects who may not feel it? Here’s how you can reveal latent pain points and encourage action:
Highlight consequences of inaction: Share stories of working with clients like them to illustrate potential downsides they may face by waiting.
Explain immediate benefits: Emphasize the rewards of proactive planning. Describe the immediate advantages of working with you now, and highlight the sense of peace and control they’ll gain by acting early.
Ask engaging questions: Use questions like “Have you considered what may happen if [insert scenario]?” to guide prospects toward recognizing hidden risks in their current path.
Show opportunity costs: Explain how inaction can cost them more over time—missed opportunities, lost compounding, and deferred growth.
Take advantage of seasonal deadlines: Leverage year-end or tax deadlines to prompt action before opportunities expire.
By using one or more of these techniques, you can help prospects recognize the value of taking action on their finances now instead of putting it off for another 1, 5, or even 10 years.
The Riches Are in the Niches
Want to break out of the “sea of sameness” among financial advisors? Kristen Luke shares why a niche is the way to go in this Capital Insights™ article. Learn three steps to winning a niche as a financial advisor.
The Riches Are in the Niches
Advisors who niche have 67% more take-home income than those who don’t. Kristen Luke joined the PracticeLab podcast to discuss how niche marketing strategies help advisors increase their revenue, among other benefits.
How to Support Your Advisors' Niche Marketing Efforts
Empower your employees to bring in business.
This week's tip is inspired by my article published last week on Kitces.com: Empowering Employee Advisors Who Struggle With Business Development By Narrowing Them Into A Niche.
Employee advisors at larger RIAs can drive business development and organic growth by specializing in a niche. Here's how firms can support this:
Encourage Niche Specialization: Advisors can build credibility and attract targeted clients by focusing on a specific profession or life event, even with limited experience.
Align Niche with Firm and Advisor: Ensure the niche aligns with the advisor's strengths and interests and the firm's mission, enhancing engagement and success.
Develop a Marketing Plan: Create a plan with two phases:
Launch: Build materials like a niche-focused landing page and update social media profiles.
Ongoing: Set quarterly goals for outreach, content creation, and networking.
Provide Time, Budget, and Support: Allocate time and money for niche development and offer marketing support through in-house teams or external agencies.
Mentorship and Coaching: Pair advisors with coaches or mentors for guidance, support, and accountability.
Continuous Evaluation: Regularly review progress, offer feedback, celebrate successes, and adjust the plan as needed.
These strategies help RIAs foster a team of specialized professionals who contribute to firm growth and client acquisition.
How to Achieve the Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
People trust personal recommendations most.
Word-of-mouth marketing is the most powerful form of marketing. It happens when people can’t help but talk about and recommend you to others. Tesla is a classic example of a company that grew through word of mouth rather than traditional marketing channels. Word of mouth is effective because people trust personal recommendations more than marketing controlled by a company.
To achieve strong word-of-mouth marketing, you need to stand out by delivering an exceptional experience that prospective clients can’t find elsewhere. For financial advisors, the best way to stand out is by focusing on a niche. When you specialize in serving a specific group or solving a unique problem, you become the go-to expert in that area. You tailor your services, processes, and deliverables to meet the distinct needs of your niche and consistently exceed expectations. By offering a customized and relevant experience, clients feel “wowed” by your service and are more likely to share it with others, driving organic growth.
How Much Time Should You Spend on Marketing?
Three ways to determine your marketing time commitment.
How much time should you spend on marketing? It depends on your situation.
Growth Goals
If rapid growth is your goal, you’ll need to invest a substantial amount of time in marketing. Slower growth goals require less time. According to the 2024 Kitces.com Marketing Study, high-growth advisors spend 15% of their workweek on marketing, while others spend around 10% (Page 9).
Budget Considerations
A smaller marketing budget means you’ll need to dedicate more personal time to marketing activities. As your budget grows, you can allocate funds for staff, outsourcing, passive marketing like advertising, or technology such as marketing automation, reducing the time you need to spend directly.
Business Stage
New advisory businesses need to devote significant time to marketing to build a client base. Once your business reaches a sustainable level, you can reduce the time spent on marketing by relying more on referrals, word of mouth, or outsourcing.
Finding the right balance will depend on your practice’s goals, budget, and growth stage.