The best digital marketing firms for financial advisors are unique in their ability to provide the services that financial advisors need to produce leads on their websites.
There are a lot of firms that can build websites, and there are a lot of firms that can provide inbound marketing, but there are very few firms that do both. In particular, firms that have years of experience working with investors and financial advisors.
We believe reaching investors on the Internet and routing them to financial advisor websites is an extraordinarily complex process. That’s because most investors have been telemarketed to for years and they are concerned about what advisors will do with their contact data.
This is the concern that causes many investors to withhold this information from the advisor websites they visit on the Internet.
This challenge is mitigated when investors find advisors on the Internet and the investors initiate the contact. This process is called Inbound Marketing – making it easy for investors to find advisors on the Internet and contact them.
This is in stark contrast to obsolete Outbound Marketing strategies when advisors initiated contact with investors. This was always an expensive, time-consuming process when 99% of all investors did not want the contact.
Which Digital Marketing Services?
What exactly should advisors be doing to have a positive digital marketing experience? It is relatively simple and complex all at the same time.
Five key elements have the greatest impact on the results that are produced by financial advisors:
Internet Visibility Is Critical
Websites do not produce their own traffic. Internet visibility produces traffic that financial advisor websites convert into qualified leads. But most advisors do not want just any type of traffic. They want to reach their ideal types of clients on the Internet and compel them to visit their websites.
IT Has To Be The Right Website Traffic
Websites need traffic (aka visitors) to produce larger volumes of leads. So whatever investors see on the Internet has to be compelling enough to drive them to the advisors’ websites.
If they are seeking financial information, what they see on the Internet could be an article that piques their interest. This article is published on the financial advisors’ blog sites.
Getting investors to visit financial advisor websites is challenge number one. Challenge number two is keeping them on websites long enough that they learn more about the financial advisors who own the websites.
Free Offers
In an ideal world, everyone who visits financial advisor websites is actively seeking financial advisors. That is, they are seeking advisors they can interview. On the other hand, there can be a lot more investors who are seeking information.
Providing this information is a way for financial advisors to develop relationships with investors.
Google says the more often free offers appear on financial advisor websites, the more leads the websites will produce. This makes a certain amount of sense when investors are seeking financial information.
The best free offers tend to be eBooks that solve serious financial problems (pain points) for investors in a variety of economic circumstances. The bigger the pain point the better the odds visitors will register to obtain the information in the eBooks.
A Key Metric Is Website Conversions
Websites are financial advisors’ most powerful sales tools when they convert visitors into qualified leads. This is a one-time opportunity to deliver the information investors are seeking and convince them to give up their anonymity and submit their contact information.
This is no easy task when investors are visiting several advisor websites and what they see impacts who they contact. This means advisor websites have to be competitive with the other sites. And, the sites must have intuitive navigation that delivers the right information in a matter of seconds. Numerous surveys show investors will exit sites before they will search for information.
The Right CRM Capabilities
All financial advisors want leads that they can talk to tomorrow. Unfortunately, that is not the way the process works. There can be major timing issues that cause people to visit advisor websites, but they are not ready to talk quite yet.
For example, a couple is going to retire in six months and they are looking for advisors they can interview when they are closer to their retirement dates. In this case, they are using the Internet to find and research advisors, but they are not ready to talk. They will be in four months when they are closer to their retirement dates. Financial advisors need efficient ways to keep their names in front of investors who are not ready to talk. In an ideal world, when the investors are ready to talk, they contact the advisors who delivered the most valuable information. But, if the investor does not reach out, the advisor should have a CRM system that will enable further communication.
Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.