By Cindy Schrauben
Great Gus Marketing
“Marketing is overwhelming!”
Time and again, prospective clients tell me they don’t know where to start with marketing their businesses.
I get it. Marketing can be a time-consuming challenge, especially for busy financial advisors and coaches.
But marketing doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming. I suggest you consider how you’ll get the most bang for your marketing buck (and effort). When you concentrate on what will bring you the highest rewards, you reduce marketing anxiety and increase your ROI.
For clarity in your marketing, I suggest you concentrate on these four things:
Your marketing strategy
Your website
Social media
Email marketing
Your Marketing Strategy
A marketing strategy is your overall plan of getting yourself in front of your ideal clients and persuading them to meet with you. Remember, as a financial professional, you’re not selling widgets – you’re selling yourself. So, a large part of your strategy will be building trust with your ideal clients.
When creating your marketing strategy, consider:
Your goals – Setting goals and understanding why they’re important to you is vital. The deeper your understanding, the better you can create a strategy that achieves your goals.
Your ideal clients – By understanding them, you’ll be better able to create copy that tells them how you can help them and why they should work with you.
Your ideal clients’ goals – Generally speaking, people are looking for one thing: An improvement in their lives. Your marketing strategy should include what improvement you make in your ideal clients’ lives and how you provide it to them.
How your ideal clients will find you – In this stage, consider all the ways your ideal clients may find out about you. Think about where they hang out (online and in real life), and then figure out how to incorporate their hangouts into your marketing strategy.
How you’ll measure your results – There are many ways to measure your marketing results. And it doesn’t have to be complicated. The most important thing is to measure the success of your marketing over time and have a benchmark to refer to when evaluating results.
Check out my blog, Alleviate Marketing Overwhelm: Create a Strategy, for more tips.
Your Website
An effective website is of utmost importance for every business today. Your website is your chance to make an impactful first impression on prospective clients. It’s where people go to learn more about you and what you do, and it’s a tremendous opportunity to build trust with prospective clients.
Here are some things to keep in mind when considering your current or future website:
Blog – Blogs offer you the opportunity to provide value to prospective clients’ lives by sharing your knowledge. By sharing your expertise, you are building trust with readers (your future clients!) and presenting yourself as the expert you are.
Plus, according to HubSpot, businesses that blog receive 55% more visitors to their website and 97% more inbound links. So, if you don’t have an original blog, start one. If you have one, consider posting more often (weekly if possible). Also, consider refreshing your older blogs because search engines like to see frequent additions/changes to websites, and your blog is an excellent place to do it.
For more info on blogs, please check out my blog on the subject.
Mobile friendly – Results from a Research.com study found that 63% of U.S. online traffic comes from smartphones or tablets. So, to be competitive, your site must be mobile-friendly.
Concentrate on content over the design – Your website’s visuals are important but consider that large photos and graphics load slower. This can lead to higher bounce rates and hurts SEO (see below).
Go for speed – If your website doesn’t load quickly enough, people will leave (or “bounce” in industry terms). So, it’s essential to know how fast your site loads. There are several websites where you can test your website’s speed for free. A couple of sites to consider are Google PageSpeed Insights and Pingdom. These sites will test your speed and offer suggestions for improvements.
Calls to action – Be sure to include easy-to-find and clear calls to action in several places on each page of your website. Consider what you want the reader to do next and then (nicely) direct them to do it.
Testimonials from clients – If possible (I know this can get sticky for advisors because of compliance requirements), offer testimonials of your expertise from former and current clients. Social proof like this is among the most persuasive marketing you can present.
Social Media
Like websites, an active social media presence is a requirement for businesses today. However, you don’t need to be on every social platform. Consider which sites your ideal clients are active on and concentrate on one or two of them so you can thoughtfully engage with your followers and offer them quality content.
You can use social media to connect with your current clients and to introduce yourself to potential clients by creating original, quality content. I’ve seen too many financial professionals post safe, cookie-cutter content, so you'll stand out from the crowd when you post original content that adds value to your audience’s life.
On social media, you can create authentic connections with your followers and build on the “know, like, and trust” factors you already have with clients. Don’t shy away from telling them about yourself and offering “behind the scenes” content.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a vital resource that should be a part of every financial professional’s marketing strategy. I’ve seen advisors and coaches shy away from email marketing because it can seem like too much work. I’ve even heard finance pros say they are concerned about “bothering” clients and prospects by emailing them too often. I get that concern. My response is that if the email recipient has opted into your email list (please don’t send emails to people unless they opt in!), they want to hear from you. And, if you consistently offer them original, quality content, they won’t mind getting an email or two a week from you.
To build your email list, I recommend creating a lead magnet for your website. Think about what people ask you about most often (retirement, paying off debt, saving for kids’ college, etc.) and generate a PDF download on the subject. Since this is a freebie, it should be specific and reasonably high-level, so you are delivering value in exchange for the prospect’s email while leaving them wanting more info from you.
When you concentrate on building your email list with a lead magnet, you must have a welcome email sequence because people want to receive an email from you as soon as they join your list. You could stop at one email, but I suggest you send a series of welcome emails over two weeks before transitioning new recipients to your regular email list.
And one final thought: If you already have an email list but haven’t been emailing it regularly, you should create a nurture email series to reengage your list. The re-engagement emails will reintroduce you to those on your list and tell them you will be emailing them regularly. Please know that every email must offer a way for recipients to unsubscribe from your list.
I’m a copywriter and strategic marketer for financial professionals. If you’re a financial advisor or coach and want assistance creating marketing copy that will connect with your ideal clients, I’m ready to assist! Book your free 10-minute strategy call today.
Based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Great Gus Marketing specializes in copywriting, content writing, and marketing strategy.
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