With the New Year right about the corner, we want to talk about how you can revamp your marketing strategy in 2020! The new year always sparks motivation to improve things in your life, and we hope your digital marketing efforts for your financial planning firm is on that list. From your website to social media to content creation, there are all sorts of things you can improve to stand out to potential clients in 2020. The emphasis of a stellar online presence isn’t going anywhere, so set these six goals to have your best year yet!
Resolution #1: Enhance Your Mobile Footprint
The use of smartphones is continually on the rise. In fact, it is estimated that more than 5 billion people have mobile devices, and over half of these connections are smartphones.
Moral of the story, if you want to interact with potential clients, your website needs to be mobile-friendly. If you don’t already have a mobile-friendly website, 2020 is definitely the year to get on it! Since people rely on their phones for so much these days, everything from emails to marketing to planning must be optimized for mobile.
“Optimized for mobile” means having a mobile-responsive design. In other words, the website will change to look great on the screen it’s displayed on, whether that’s a desktop or mobile. That way, users will be able to access your website and content properly on the go. If a client has to keep adjusting their screen to use your service, they probably won’t stick around for long.
Twenty Over Ten’s sites are fully responsive, always. With our platform, you can create a website that seamlessly converts from desktop to mobile. Below, you can see how this Twenty Over Ten client, Vistica Wealth Advisors, has a site optimized for any device.
Resolution #2: Launch a Blog…Finally
There’s an endless list of benefits that blogs will give your financial planning firm, but we still see too many advisors without one! Having a blog on your website can build trust with prospects, develop your authority in the financial industry, drive traffic and SEO rankings, and educate your clients. It might sound way too time-consuming for your already packed days, but we promise it’s not as hard as it seems and it will totally pay off. Most importantly, blogs give you an easy way to make more content to share with your audience. Content is still marketing’s reigning king, and that definitely won’t change anytime soon.
53% of marketers say blogging is their top content marketing priority.
When you start your blog, make sure you’re writing valuable content that educates prospective clients within your niche! You can get even more specific by focusing on local clients. Make sure to include calls-to-action, links to additional information and your services, and images. Keep your language simple and easy-to-read, and make sure you’re providing information that will help your specific clients. And above all, commit! Start off the year with an editorial calendar to keep your posts consistent and frequent.
Twenty Over Ten client, C.L. Sheldon & Company, regularly shares comprehensive content tailored to those in their niche, military members.After you start writing blogs, you’ll have more original content to share on your social media accounts, newsletters, and advisor site. Not only will this increase traffic to your advisor site and social accounts, but it will also show you’re a trustworthy and professional firm.
If it still sounds like you can’t handle a blog on your own, we’re here to help! Our service, Content Assist, can help you effectively run and manage the content marketing for your financial planning firm in one place. Content Assist gives you an easier way to publish unique blog posts that are tailored for your firm’s voice and that speak to your unique niche. If you don’t have the time to fully commit to blogging but still want to make it one of your 2019 goals, learn more about Content Assist here!
Resolution #3: Increase Engagement
Just posting on social media might seem like enough, but a huge piece of digital marketing is all about building a following and engaging with the audience. We call it “social media” for a reason, after all. The first part of successful engagement is posting about the right things. Here are some things to keep in mind when posting:
The second part of engagement is interacting with your audience. Put aside some time at least twice a week to go through and like, share, and comment on things you see in your feed. When you get a comment on one of your posts or if someone shares it, be sure to reply or like their engagement as soon as you can. The faster, the better! Make them feel like they matter to your business.
Resolution #4: Clean Up Your Lists
We all want the new year to feel like a clean slate, and something that can get pretty cluttered throughout the year are email lists. While email marketing is a great way to reach potential clients and keep current clients updated, everyone gets frustrated with inbox clutter. This makes it essential for you to develop and maintain your subscriber lists with relevance and care. If you’re sending an email to someone, it should be worth their time! Anything you send a client or potential client should be relevant and appreciated by them.
It’s super important to constantly be adding new subscribers to your lists and to tailor your messages to them accordingly. Just think, not everyone is looking for the same information or content. Would you send the same email to a recent college graduate that you would to someone who is soon retiring? You provide different services to different clients in different stages.
Although it might sound difficult to build proper lists of subscribers, you should be looking for groups of subscribers with common qualities. These qualities can include their engagement with your company, their location, or how far they are along in the advising process, etc. If you have multiple niches or target audiences, be sure to make separate lists for them.
For segmenting initial subscriptions, try these groups out:
Twenty Over Ten’s Lead Pilot makes customizing and organizing your email lists simple and easy. Here’s how:
TO CREATE A CUSTOM LIST OF CONTACTS, PLEASE FOLLOW THESE STEPS:
2. Next, click the “Create List” button in the top right corner:
3. Type in a name for your list, then click “Add a contact”:
4. Scroll through your contacts and click on the person you’d like to add to your list:
5. Click “Add a contact” to add more people to your list.
6. Finish your list by clicking the “Create” button in the top right corner:
TO EDIT YOUR LIST OF CONTACTS, PLEASE FOLLOW THESE STEPS:
3. Click “Add a contact” to add someone new to the list.
4. Click the “Minus” symbol next to a contact to remove them from the list:
5. Click “Save” in the top right corner to save your changes:
TO ADD OR REMOVE A CONTACT FROM WITHIN THEIR PROFILE, PLEASE FOLLOW THESE STEPS:
Resolution #5: Make your Life Easier With Automation Tools
We are all about platforms that make your life simpler, which is why we’re a HUGE advocate of automation tools. It’s no secret that keeping up with all of your social accounts can be a tedious and overwhelming task, but automation tools can save you tons of time and effort. Since maintaining a consistent posting schedule is so essential to digital marketing success, you’ll definitely want to check into using one this year.
Whether you are a financial advisor just getting started on social media or your practice is simply looking for a tool to streamline your social media management, automation tools will help you manage your entire social media presence. Linking accounts and downloading applications into one platform also allows for more cross-functionality between employees when it comes to updating social media.
Lead Pilot makes scheduling and posting your content on social media effortless. Here’s how:
1. Once you’ve finished creating your post or have selected something from our to customize, click the “Share” button at the top of the “Edit Draft” or “Preview Content” side window:
In this above example, the content will be shared everywhere BUT LinkedIn.
3. If prompted, re-enter your social network login. Otherwise, continue to step 4.
4. By default, your content will be ready to “Post Now.” If you’re ready to share, simply click the “Post” button to share your content immediately:
5. You can share content at a later time by selecting “Schedule for Later”:
6. If you select “Schedule for Later,” a calendar will open where you can click and enter the date and time you want to share your content:
Using Lead Pilot will help you pre-schedule posts instead of posting each individually and natively, as well as archive posts for compliance and help you monitor engagement.
Resolution #6: Try New Things!
Technology will only keep evolving in 2020, and new digital marketing tactics are sure to pop up. Instead of sticking to the same old methods you’ve been using in your marketing efforts, you need to keep an eye on these digital marketing trends for the year. Try out some of these digital marketing trends below!
1. VOICE SEARCH
The use of voice search is continuing to rise. In fact, 40% of the adults now use mobile voice search at least once daily. There’s no denying that with the rise of smartphones people are looking for faster and easier ways to find answers to their questions. By adding questions in your content, keeping your content scannable and mobile-friendly, and signing up for Google My Business, you’ll make your site more optimized for voice search.
Even though most websites may have an FAQ page, a contact form and numerous other ways to answer questions your visitors may have, there may be other times that they can’t quite find the answer to what they are looking for. If your website can’t answer their questions, especially in a timely manner, then you may be losing a potential client to a competitor that does have what they want. If you want to integrate live chat into your website, look into LiveChat, Drift, or Sumo Chat. If you’re a Twenty Over Ten user, you can easily install a live chat widget on to your site.
3. VIDEO
Not only is video becoming more and more popular on social media, but people also retain more information from watching a video than reading content. In fact, consumers favor video content the most from brands. In addition, 73% of consumers claim that they have been influenced by a brand’s social media presence when making a purchasing decision.
Try incorporating video on your website or social accounts by hosting webinars or posting introductory or informational videos on social media. You don’t have to spend a ton of time or money to do this well. Film yourself on your phone and keep the video under two minutes!
Summing It UP
Although these are great trends to get you started, the digital world changes fast. Keeping up with trends by subscribing to digital marketing blogs and attending webinars or events can do wonders for your marketing knowledge. You’ve got 2020 in the bag!