By Gretchen Halpin, Co-Founder of Beyond AUM
Every day, decisions are made based on digitally sourced information, showcasing just how large a role the digital world plays in how we connect and engage with one another, including with clients and prospects. For this reason, it’s essential that financial advisors tick all of the digital marketing boxes, from owning an active website and having a social media presence, to utilizing an engaging nurture campaign. Every facet of your digital marketing technique should be intentional, carefully thought out, and interconnected in order to build brand awareness and, ultimately, trust.
Pressing Play
So, what can you do to build brand awareness and trust? Let’s walk through the funnel.
- Attract potential investors: The whole point of brand awareness is to attract potential investors. This can be achieved via blogs, social media, or incoming links to landing pages.
- Engage the target audience: Once brand awareness has attracted the attention of potential investors, the next goal is to hold that attention by providing content that offers value, entertains them, or addresses certain pain points.
- Capture leads: Let’s face it, the simple truth is that most people have very short attention spans. As a result, it’s likely that they may need repeated exposure to your brand. For RIAs looking to foster brand growth, it’s key to capture the personal information of visitors and prospects in order to keep awareness of your services at the top of their minds.
- Nurture leads: The process of building brand trust is called lead nurturing, and it happens gradually. The best way to nurture leads digitally is by consistently using micro-content so you can provide value across multiple digital platforms in different forms. Using our COPE (Create Once Publish Everywhere) method, financial advisors can develop connections and provide value over time. Then, when the time comes to convert a prospect to a client, they already understand your firm’s value proposition, as well as the unique qualities that help you stand out from the competition.
- Lead convert: With carefully crafted lead nurturing campaigns, you can help prospects reach the conversion stage of the funnel. At this point, they have subconsciously come to understand that your investment advisory firm offers the solutions they need to meet their goals.
The Rewind and Fast Forward
Before you even think about getting started with digital marketing, ask yourself this one question: “Who is my ideal client?” If you don’t identify and isolate an ideal client type or types, you’ll end up providing brand awareness for the wrong set of people. Set goals and objectives with your perfect client in mind to determine the return on your marketing investment.
The marketing process described above seems straightforward and in theory, it is. In practice, however, maybe not so much. This “marketing machine” has lots of small cogs and gears, each one as important as the next. Download Beyond AUM’s whitepaper to get a detailed breakdown of the cogs vital to run an effective digital marketing engine that will foster brand growth. It’s the comprehensive digital marketing guide for financial advisors who are ready to grow—complete with the tips and explanations to put leading-edge marketing techniques to work for you.
Beyond AUM is a growth, experience, and technology agency that specializes in serving financial advisory firms.
