According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the financial advisor industry is projected to grow by 15 percent by 2031.
This makes it an even more competitive industry to get new financial advisor clients.
To succeed, it’s imperative to know how to get clients as a financial advisor to stay competitive and get the business you desire.
How to Get Clients as a Financial Advisor
Like traditional marketing campaigns, there are many ways to get clients as a financial advisor. The key is to know what audience you serve and what they want. Maximizing your client base can take some trial and error, but these ten ways can help you beat other advisors in their marketing efforts.
Define Your Target Market
Successful advisors don’t waste time marketing to just anyone. Instead, they narrow their target market and focus their marketing efforts on that audience.
The key is to know where your audience spends time, what types of advertisements they respond to, and how they prefer to communicate.
For example, if you primarily help high-net-worth individuals with wealth management, marketing to young adults starting their financial lives would be a waste. Also, if you advertise in areas where high-net-worth individuals don’t spend time, you’re wasting your marketing dollars because you won’t reach the right people.
Build Your Brand and Presence
Your target clients want to get to know you before they talk to you, so it’s your job to show you are a confident and trustworthy character by providing relatable content online. Most people will browse online before deciding which financial advisors to call to see if they are a good fit. You must build a digital brand identity that viewers can identify with and remember when they need financial advisor services.
To build your brand, you should:
- Have a reputable website
- Be present and active on the social media sites your audience uses
- Use proper SEO tactics to get your website and social media accounts found
Any marketing materials you create should have the same brand presence. This allows your audience to get familiar with you and to be able to recognize you whether they find your website, social media accounts, or a flyer in the mail.
Develop a Content Strategy
A content marketing strategy is the key to getting new clients as a financial advisor. As we said earlier, most people use the internet to research before contacting a new service provider. If they can’t find you online, it’s as if you don’t exist.
However, this doesn’t mean slapping together a website or making sporadic social media posts.
You need a strategy or a method to your madness. Your content marketing should have a strategy and focus so you become the thought leader in the industry. A few ideas to include it in are:
- Create a finance blog – If you have a regularly updated blog twith current information, it helps new clients find you. If your blog contains relevant and helpful content, utilizes a keyword strategy, and helps potential clients learn something, you may show up on the first page of the search engines, increasing awareness of your firm and its services. Your blog posts could be on anything from financial literacy to complex investment tips as long as the content speaks to your target audience.
- Consider videos or podcasts – If your target clientele is younger, consider implementing videos or podcasts into your content marketing strategy. They often respond better to these materials than written blog posts, giving you another avenue to get more clients.
- Network – Networking for financial advisors means talking to anyone who comes into contact with people who could use your services. You never know when a local accountant, lawyer, or real estate agent will have a referral for you. Connect with them online on sites like LinkedIn or Facebook to get more referrals and build more clout.
Engage With Your Target Audience
It’s not enough for financial advisors to have an official social media account; they must engage with their followers to attract clients. You want to show that you are the financial expert your audience needs.
One of the best client engagement tips you will receive is to give your social media pages a personal touch by showing behind-the-scenes footage or pictures of you getting involved with the community. Show your audience you are a real person who can relate to them.
The best way to do this is to interact with your audience. Most platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram make responding to comments or direct messages easy. This is another way to get personal with your audience and let them know you are responsive.
This is important for most people when choosing a financial professional because they want someone they know they can communicate with easily.
Leverage Referrals
Referrals are one of the best ways to find clients. You can get referrals from satisfied clients, friends, family, and even social media.
- From existing clients – If you have happy clients, they are likely to refer you. Offer incentives for your current clients to spread the word about your services and watch your client referrals increase.
- Friends and family members – Make sure everyone you know knows what you do and offer. You never know when they’ll come across someone who is a good fit for you and can refer them your way.
- Social media – Anyone can share social media posts which will spread the word about your services without you trying. Create meaningful posts that people want to share, and you’ll get in front of a much larger audience without much effort.
Network and Establish Relationships
The key to growing your client base is constantly networking. You can network online and in person. In both areas, you want to create and maintain relationships. The key is to know your clients’ contact expectations and use that to your advantage.
Here are a few ways to reach more prospective clients:
- Cold calling – Even today, cold calling is still a popular way to build a financial advisor business. If picking up the phone and making a cold call doesn’t sit well with you, focus your efforts on search engine optimization so your blog posts and other content marketing pieces reach the right people.
- Email marketing – Emails are the equivalent of cold outreach, but electronically. But just like you need a well-thought-out script for phone calls, your email marketing strategies must be strong to ensure your audience opens and engages with your emails. Just sending emails isn’t enough; without a strategy, they’ll likely end up in spam.
- Follow-up – Relationships aren’t built on one phone call or email. After the first contact with potential clients, you must keep up the relationship by following up. This doesn’t mean following up and asking for the sale. Instead, continue providing value to the prospective clients so you become a natural choice when they’re ready to consider new financial advisors.
Utilize Targeted Advertising
The internet and social media make it easy to target your advertisements. It’s different from the old days, when you would create an ad to throw on the radio or TV and hope it eventually reached the ideal client. With online advertising, such as Facebook or Google ads, you can target the right demographics so only the people who are most interested in your services will see the advertisements.
You can also watch the analytics to see how your advertisements do, making changes to ensure the right audience sees your message.
Collaborate With Strategic Partners
Become the leader in a community, company, or anywhere else so you become the ‘go-to’ financial advisor. For example, create partnerships with local companies where you handle an executive’s financial needs, or get become an advisor for your church.
The key is to find out where your audience spends their time and build partnerships with the people in charge. The best way to do this is to provide free services or valuable advice to give a peek at what you offer and how you can help.
The more authority you show to your audience, the more likely they will choose you when they’re ready for a financial advisor.
Public Speaking and Seminars
Clients want sound advice from potential financial advisors, and taking advantage of a public forum is the best way to show what to offer. Use opportunities for public speaking to show the value of what you offer without selling. You can also use this strategy online and offer an online webinar to reach a larger audience.
For example, if you help young families in debt achieve their long-term goals, host a seminar on debt, educate your audience about the problem, and discuss how there is a way to solve it. You don’t have to give away all your secrets, but giving your audience a sneak peek of what you know and offer will help them see your trustworthy character and begin to trust you.
Be Active in the Community
Community involvement is one of the best ways to show that you care about the people around you and that you aren’t just in business to make money. Attend as many local events as possible, offering free services, providing advice, or just getting your hands dirty, helping the community with a common problem or concern, and showing that you have common interests.
You can use the opportunities to volunteer your time or even offer free consultations to build relationships within the community.
FAQs
How Do Financial Advisors Prospect New Clients?
Financial advisors have many ways to prospect new clients in-person and online, including email marketing, social media campaigns, asking for referrals, and content marketing.
How Many Clients Should a Financial Advisor Have?
The perfect number of clients for financial advisors varies by professional. On average, 50 is a good number, but some professionals prefer to have only a handful of clients to provide much more personal service, and others want to play the numbers game and have as many as possible.
What Type of Feedback Should Financial Advisors Seek From Clients?
The best information financial advisors can get from current clients is constructive criticism. Find out what they love and what they wish could improve to help you provide the best financial planning and advice services your audience wants.
What Are the Most Effective Ways to Market a Financial Advisor’s Services?
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all way to market a financial advisor’s services. The right method depends on the target audience. However, most financial advisors benefit from online marketing, including a solid content strategy, email marketing, and social media campaigns.
What Platforms Should Financial Advisors Use to Reach Potential Clients?
Every demographic prefers different platforms, but financial advisors generally do well reaching clients on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. To learn how to find clients as a financial advisor, you must know where your audience spends their time.
Final Thoughts
Knowing how to get clients as a financial advisor is important as the industry grows. The financial services industry won’t stop growing as everyone always needs help with their money. But building a financial advisor business requires setting yourself apart from the competition and knowing how to attract the ideal client.
