Whether just starting out or with significant wealth, investors look for a team player. With so many various concerns and lingering questions, they want—and need—someone to confide in, who will work hard for them, and has the acumen to dissect and deliver the results needed to win.
They need a capable leader to share the risk/reward tradeoffs. A guide, if you will.
In this article
Remember, successful marketing is clarity of the message: what you offer, what's in it for them, and a clear call to action.
The Plan
Many advisors have an existing marketing plan and a fully tailored website with plenty of content to propel brand awareness, familiarity, and a mechanism for investors to learn about an advisor. Others are adapting their plan as they are just starting out or pivoting their business strategy and niche.
With recent regulatory changes, this is a terrific, opportune moment to expand one's business; it's in transitions that opportunities arise.
So how do advisors fuse Nitrogen with their marketing process? What are the top tips? How do effective advisors approach it?
Most advisors work with their marketing team—or contract with one—to hone their marketing strategy. For idea brainstorming, let's examine a basic outline to dissect and find insights and opportunities:
Objectives
Advisors first determine their goal(s) for the short term and long term. This then informs the following segments. For example,
Increase lead flow by 33% to set a minimum of an average of three monthly prospect meetings to convert 1.5MM each quarter.
Ideal Client Persona
What type of client do you want to work with? What have you been most successful converting? For example,
Once the ideal personas are set, there are different workflows to fit your approach. Whether using Retirement Maps to demonstrate to pre-retirees what preparation looks like; demonstrating wisdom with Stress Tests about prudent methods to achieve their desired outcome; or leveraging the Risk Number for millennials to illuminate their road forward. The best advisors align Nitrogen with their ideal client.
Marketing Strategy
Investors seek information. They want to know what you do, how their lives are going to be changed, and what they need to do. This is the opportunity they would get working with you.
With the volatility of markets, regulatory changes, and rising concerns about retirement advisors employ a Risk First Approach to illustrate opportunities for investors. Risk First sets advisors apart from the rest as a holistic and tactical approach to managing the right amount of risk. It’s the added service like when the waiter recommends a certain series of dishes because he knows your instincts.
Note: We've got a comprehensive Marketing Kit with a handful of resources to help your firm taking their marketing to the next level.
Content Creation and Approach
Every firm’s content strategy is different, but at the core this provides investors an understanding of you. Basic mediums frequently include some or all of the following:
- Website
- Print materials
- Recurring materials, such as a blog or newsletter
- Social media
With a website often being the hub for marketing, effectively converting viewers to interested investors requires a website to clearly and simply explain three concepts:
- What you offer
- What’s in it for them
- What they need to do to buy it
Many advisors are creative with their approach and find additional ways to augment their content strategy. There are many great examples of advisors incorporating Nitrogen in their content—whether a focus on how the Risk Number sets you apart from the pack or using Check-Ins with clients to maintain a stronger bond and connection, all the while delivering more value.
Driving Traffic
With a strong, well-built website, a tried and true strategy is to drive attention to your website.
This is where an effective marketing team boosts a firm’s notoriety. Delivering traffic to your website to convert is one option. The other is using value-adds like Nitrogen (in social media, newsletters, or email signatures) to drive additional traffic to your website.
Lead Generation Questionnaire
With a clarified marketing message, many advisors set up the Lead Generation Questionnaire on their website, email signature, and/or in social media. These are especially effective for advisors who have sizeable traffic to their website or social media. The questionnaire assists advisors in converting a share of that traffic into qualified leads.
Professional Referrals
A number of advisors that know or work with CPA, attorneys, and/or bankers leverage these relationships. They build out a long-term referral system. For CPAs, this is especially prevalent during tax season. The advisor cultivates the relationship with the CPA to share the Lead Generation Questionnaire and when the client meets with the CPA to do their taxes, he can refer them to the advisor's link to invest part or all of the refund. Or, the CPA refers the client to the advisor and they can then walk through the Nitrogen process.
Online or Digital Classroom
For advisors that are used to providing seminars or have great referral connections, the results are clear: it intrigues investors and they want to learn more. Advisors create a classroom-type setting in their office with several stations. By holding mini-seminars with a handful of clients, they provide immense value. Teaching them about investing, that advisor's specific approach and background and sharing with them their story—how technology is empowering investors to be connected with a real human advisor and have the technology to learn and gain confidence in the markets as well. For advisors that do prospect events or seminars something like has proved immeasurable dividends.
The same thing has been done via webinars, too! We have heard stories of firms running client webinars and had them go online and begin the process by capturing their Risk Number. This was a powerful and easy introduction to the process.
Engaging Leads
Advisors add qualified leads to their Nitrogen account as a Lead with all relevant information (Risk Number and portfolio, if applicable). Many advisors have Nitrogen integrated with their CRM to track leads, prospects, and conversions.
Advisors often approach engaging leads from the Lead Generation Questionnaire with a brief email, welcoming them and letting them know what they can expect.
No matter the lead source, the best advisors operate from a framework where they are the guide and their client is the hero. This changes the mindset for the advisor to first add value to the investor. By doing such, the investor knows they are valued and thought highly of—something they can celebrate and a reason to remain loyal to you.
Now is the time to join many others who are successfully incorporating Nitrogen into their marketing workflow to demonstrate the Risk First approach to cultivating rich, long-lasting relationships.
That brings us to the end of the marketing outline. The next step is the Prospect Playbook. Read that to learn how top producers successfully convert prospects to clients.