In 2020, there aren’t many industries who haven’t felt the pressure to step up their online presence and advertising game. From physical stores switching to online Shopify stores, to in-person services launching online options, the financial advice industry has been no exception.

Historically, wealth advisors have relied heavily on word of mouth referrals and families passing along their wealth (and advisors) to their children. With a large portion of their client bases nearing and entering retirement years, advisors are beginning to shift their focus to the younger generation.

This combined with the 2020 global pandemic has resulted in a huge influx of advisors flocking to web developers and marketing strategists to take their online presence to the next level (or create one altogether). This has been great for businesses like ourselves, as we’ve been working with advisors for the past few years gradually redefining their target audiences, customizing their online customer journeys and humanizing their brands to create a more memorable and relatable first impression.

We’ve found over the years that it’s been easier to get buy-in from and avoid overwhelming advisors by phasing our services. Below are the steps we recommend wealth advisors take to ensure they’re covering all of the basics when it comes to their brand and marketing strategy.

PHASE ONE:

These are typically one-off tasks that we recommend an advisor sign on for, regardless of moving ahead to Phase Two with us or not. It can be extremely beneficial to complete these audits and strategy documents annually, to gauge your firms’ marketing wins and areas of improvement.

1.) Website & Brand Audit

When we work with advisors, we start with a website and brand audit. This involves a page-by-page review of copy, images, links and overall user experience. We also take a look at the Google Analytics to determine the most viewed pages and content, where you might be experiencing drop off in traffic and how many returning visitors you have. This step is crucial as it helps us determine your current successes and areas for improvement, which then informs our marketing strategy. We work with advisors to ensure the imagery (both stock images and team photos) reflect their brand and personalities - gone are the days of stuffy corporate headshots. People want to see friendly, approachable faces when they are doing their research and you want to make the best first impression possible, as you may only have one chance to capture a new lead. We provide direction on the style of photography, outfit selections and even contacts for photography when available. We review your brand positioning statement and mission to ensure you stand out from your competition and resonate with your intended audience. Then we work with the necessary internal and external teams and vendors to ensure that all of the new copy, images and pages are updated and set up properly. Your website is where potential clients go to verify you are, but there’s no point in driving traffic there with ads and social media if it isn’t an accurate representation of you and your firm.

2.) Marketing Strategy

Once we complete your website and brand audit and overhaul, we can then determine what tactics work best for your brand, audiences and goals. A popular communication tactic most advisors use is a bi-weekly, monthly or quarterly newsletter. We provide guidance on how to properly format this, the type of content to share and we create communication calendars to keep everyone on track. There are various other tactics we recommend based on your budget and goals, but this is one that many advisors choose to use to provide that extra personal touch for their clients. The strategy documents we create act as roadmaps for you and your team to follow - take it and implement it in-house, or we can work with you on a monthly retainer to roll it out based on the agreed upon timelines.

PHASE TWO:

Our Phase Two services are typically offered on a monthly retainer basis. These include more regular maintenance and management items that busy advisors don’t usually have time or resources to handle themselves.

3.) Social Media & Content Strategy

This is a document we provide advisors with that helps to identify and plan out various content topics that will be incorporated within the monthly editorial calendars. Again, this type of planning deck helps to keep thoughts organized and advisors can see at a glance what the overall goal of the social strategy is, how we’ll measure it, and content planning and creation practices.

4.) Social Media Management

We offer a few different options for social media management. We always recommend incorporating original content into any strategy, but for advisors who may not have the budget or who just want to get content out quickly, we can tap into bank-provided content, or 3rd party industry-related content. We work with advisors to come up with a plan that works for them. If they choose a package that includes original content, we work with their team as well as financial writers and bloggers to position advisors as industry thought leaders on social media and on their website blogs. Video content is the most consumed and engaged form of content on social, so we always recommend that advisors include this in their content mix (and we provide services to help create it too!).

5.) Digital Advertising Campaigns

Once we have an up to date website and regularly posted content on social media, we roll out the digital advertising stage of the strategy. We never want to do paid advertising if those other channels are not accurately reflecting your brand. Paid media can include Google Ads as well as social media advertising. Depending on who you’re targeting, we can also create landing pages so that content is tailored to specific audiences, which ultimately will help to increase the number of qualified leads that are acquired through a targeted ad campaign.

Well, there you have it! This type of marketing approach is ideal for advisors who are feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin with online marketing. We help break it down and guide you and your team throughout the entire phased process. It’s also important to remember - online marketing is not an instant sales tool. We position these services more so as being brand building and client engagement tools - it takes time to build a following and create content that resonates with your desired audience, so patience is key!

If you have any questions about how we can build out this type of marketing plan for you and your team, get in touch by emailing info@brand-love.ca!