You’ve built a rock-solid financial planning firm but don’t know how to grow your audience. You aren’t alone if you feel like you’ve hit a stalemate when growing your audience. Financial planner marketing strategies can feel overwhelming when you’re focused on helping your current clients with their financial planner needs.
Check out the top ten types of marketing tactics you can use to build client relationships, get a larger audience, and get more potential customers today. Most financial planners have room to grow; these tactics will help you do that.
Why a Solid Marketing Strategy Is Essential for Financial Planners
Financial planning firms are everywhere, both in-person and online. You must have a solid marketing strategy to stand out from the crowd. You need to find a way to differentiate from the competition and show potential clients why you are the financial professionals that can help with their financial planner needs.
The key is to find your niche and focus on your target audience, showing that you understand their pain points and possess the knowledge and expertise to help them. Because hundreds of other financial advisors do the same thing, you must show why you have a competitive advantage.
Best Financial Planner Marketing Strategies
Here’s where most people get lost. There aren’t one-size-fits-all financial planner marketing strategies. What works for your financial advising firm may not work for another, and vice versa. The key is to see what your target audience responds to and maximize your marketing efforts in those areas.
Here are the top ten financial advisor marketing strategies to use in your marketing plan.
SEO Marketing Strategy for Financial Planner
Search engine optimization is crucial to bringing in organic (non-paid) traffic. This is the key to successful financial planner marketing because who wants to pay for ads when they don’t have to, right?
Search engine optimization (SEO) strategies use proper keywords and tactics to lure in the right audience. You don’t want to keyword stuff just to get people to land on your page; they’ll catch onto it quickly because it won’t sound natural. You want to provide helpful and educated content that implements the keywords your prospective clients search for when looking for financial plans services.
Content Marketing Strategies for Financial Planners
Your content marketing strategy is all-encompassing and, when done right, can bring in new clients while also keeping your existing clients loyal. The key is to provide relevant content that engages your audience while playing nice with the search engines. This helps you rank on the first page of the results.
Blog Marketing Strategy
Including blogs in your marketing strategy is important to your target audience and to Google! Updated blog posts show Google that you’re informative, educated, and willing to share your knowledge with your audience and are one of the most valuable resources for clients.
Uploading a new blog post weekly gives Google something to constantly search for and share when potential clients search your keywords.
Think of blogging as your gift to the community, sharing knowledge and giving potential clients something to think about while you also showcase expertise in financial plans. You can provide financial industry insights, subject matter expertise, and tools your audience can use with their financial needs.
Email Marketing Strategy
Email marketing is a great way to provide even more value to your audience. Potential or existing clients sign up for your email newsletter because they are interested in your financial advisory practice and what you offer.
Your email marketing strategy shouldn’t be to sell with every email you send. Instead, let it be another part of your organic reach, providing value to your email list and letting them see that you are a natural answer to their financial planner needs. You can also use this opportunity to segment your email list, sending personalized emails to each segment, making your audience feel like you reached out to them personally.
Video Marketing Strategy
Video marketing efforts are essential to any financial planners marketing strategies today. Many people don’t take the time to read but will watch an engaging video. This is yet another opportunity to get in front of your audience, but this time, show your face while you showcase expertise on the subject matter through video content.
You can use digital marketing in many places, including your website, email, social media platforms, and YouTube.
Podcast Marketing Strategy
Close to 50% of people have listened to a podcast at least once, and many make it a regular part of their routine. This is a solid strategy when you have detailed and important topics to share with your audience. Listeners tend to get more from podcasts than blog posts or other written content marketing efforts.
Digital Marketing Strategies for Financial Planners
You might think financial planner businesses have no business being on any social media platform, but all businesses have a place on many platforms. The key is finding the social media platform where your audience spends the most time and utilizing your efforts there.
Facebook offers opportunities to provide helpful posts but also form exclusive groups that allow you to get personal with your audience. You can create groups for specific topics and make them a part of your social media campaigns to showcase your expertise.
Instagram is great for pictures and videos but has less content than Facebook. If your content is more visual, or you are great at creating reels to share with your audience, you may find a larger following on Instagram.
TikTok
TikTok isn’t just for trending dances! Financial planner firms can find their social media audience on TikTok, too. If you use trending sounds or jump on certain trends, you can quickly go viral just by having some fun with a topic that may not feel fun to most people.
LinkedIn is great for financial planners that focus on advising strategies. You can network with other business owners and get new business from large and small business owners.
Influencer Marketing Strategies
Influencers are the latest way to increase your audience. You might not think some influencers would want to talk about financial planners, but there are plenty, especially if they are a client themselves. This is a great way to expand your marketing efforts into audiences that might otherwise never get to know you.
Paid Advertising Marketing Strategies
An organic digital marketing strategy is the key to solid business development, but advertising has its time and place. When you’ve exhausted all organic options, consider throwing in a few well-strategized paid advertising opportunities.
Affiliate Marketing Strategies
Affiliate marketing is another outside-the-box marketing strategy. If you network with other businesses or content creators, you can offer affiliate links that pay others a small commission if they refer business to you.
Referral Marketing Strategies
Referral marketing strategies are a great way to use your current clients to your advantage. As you try attracting clients, you can use your satisfied clients to share your business with their friends and family. This can be a powerful marketing strategy because many people rely on the word of those they know and trust when looking for something as important as a new financial planner. Client referrals are the highest form of praise for any business.
Mobile Marketing Strategies
Don’t forget to focus some of your marketing plan on mobile marketing. Ninety-seven percent of Americans have a smartphone today, so successful firms must use mobile marketing as a part of their plan.
SMS Marketing
SMS marketing or text marketing is a way to quickly get your audience’s attention. You won’t send long, drawn-out messages via text marketing but can use it to promote specials, send important reminders of special dates, or point your audience to online links. Like email marketing, you can only send text messages to people who opt-in, which means you already have a captive audience; it’s up to you to use it.
Push Notifications Marketing
Like SMS marketing, push notification marketing is a good way to send quick and urgent messages that demand action. You won’t use this method often, but it can be a good way to elicit urgency when needed.
Guerilla Marketing Strategies
Sometimes, fund managers marketing strategies require you to think outside the box, which is exactly what guerilla marketing strategies do. They provide shock value or grab a person’s attention in a way that isn’t a traditional billboard, email, or commercial. Think of ways to provide shock value, grabbing your audience’s attention and showing them how you differ from many financial planners.
Traditional Marketing Strategies
Of course, we can’t forget the tried-and-true traditional marketing strategies. While these methods are often more costly, there is always a time and place for them. They are also a great supplement to online marketing strategies.
Print Marketing
Print marketing is great for in-person events, such as charitable or networking events. They also work great at trade shows or anywhere you attend, putting you in front of many people at once. You can only talk so much, but your print marketing helps point them in the right direction so they can see where to find you in person or online.
Direct Mail Marketing
Direct mail is a great way to grab a local audience. If you’re doing a seminar locally or have a physical office where your clients can come to see you, mail can help them learn about your financial planners.
Billboard Marketing
Billboard marketing can be costly, but it can be a great way to get your target market on board if you’re trying to attract clients in a specific area. If nothing else, you can advertise your website on billboards, using billboard marketing as a supplement to your digital marketing plan.
Local Business Listing Strategies
Don’t forget about focusing on local business listings! While you want to get in front of as large of an audience as possible, some people prefer local businesses. Smaller financial planners benefit from local business listing strategies because they let the community know of their business while getting that community feel.
Google My Business
Google My Business is a free business listing every business can claim. You can add your business hours, descriptions, offers, and even updated content to keep your audience in the loop. This is also where your customers can leave you a review, which is great for your local audience, as many people rely on client testimonials to try a new business.
Chamber of Commerce
Your local chamber of commerce can be a great way to network. Many hold networking events that help you network with other businesses, allowing you to develop strategic alliances to build your business.
Which of These Marketing Strategies for Financial Planners Should You Try First?
No two financial planners will use the same marketing strategies. The key is to determine what works best for your niche. For example, small financial planners will likely have smaller budgets than larger financial planners, so you may stick to the organic marketing methods to stay within your budget.
Your marketing efforts may take a little trial and error. The key is to track the analytics and see which offers the best return on your investment.
Mistakes To Avoid With These Marketing Strategies for Financial Planners
Before jumping in headfirst with your financial advisor marketing plan, check out the most common mistakes people make:
- Not defining your customer and trying to market to everyone instead of your target market
- Not carefully tracking results to see which marketing ideas for financial planners work best for you
- Not staying consistent; no marketing ideas work overnight, you must be consistent in your efforts
- Spending money on every marketing tactic; sometimes money isn’t necessary; it’s more about the consistency and effort
- Not diversifying your efforts; don’t put all your eggs in one basket; try many financial planner marketing strategies to see what works best
FAQs
How Will I Measure the Success of These Marketing Strategies?
Track where your new clients come from and how they found you. Track the engagement you receive on blog posts, social media posts, and email marketing strategies. You can also use powerful analytics, such as Google Analytics, to see the true numbers.
Which Marketing Strategy Is the Easiest for Financial Planners?
The easiest marketing strategy for financial planners is the one that feels right to you and where you can best engage your audience. You need to know where your audience spends their time, and that should be the easiest marketing strategy for you because it will provide the greatest ROI. No one likes putting forth a ton of effort to not see any results.
Are There Any Free Marketing Strategies for Financial Planners?
Google and social media both offer free marketing strategies. You can list your business for free on Google, use organic keywords to engage your audience, and gather a large audience on social media without spending a dime!
Do I Need Any Special Skills To Implement These Strategies?
Honestly, there is a lot of skill and knowledge necessary to get the greatest bank for your buck when marketing. You must understand the right keywords, where to find your audience, how to read the analytics, and how to engage your audience with new tactics often.
SJ Digital Solutions Can Get You Results With Your Financial Planners Marketing Strategy
If financial planner marketing strategies seem like too much for you while trying to run a successful financial planner firm, let SJ Digital Solutions help!
Our DFY (done-for-you) services take the pressure of creating solid marketing strategies off you while also getting you an ROI so you can focus on what you do best: providing financial planner services.
