Financial advising firms are facing new challenges in the digital age. The ubiquity of the internet and the use of digital task managers continues to reshape the way many seek and execute their financial planning—impacting the very business models of financial planning and advising firms. Those who adapt and respond to demand will be those who thrive in this new hyper-digital era.
Besides adjusting business models and ways they serve their clients, firms that harness digital marketing effectively will be able to take advantage of online lead generation and see growth in their businesses. The age-old questions “how to get clients as a financial advisor?” and “how to build a customer base for a financial advising firm?” definitely have some of the age-old answers, but there are certainly new answers as well. And those answers are found in how you market your firm digitally.
Digital marketing: the audience and basics
When building an online presence for any business, it’s best to turn your attention and focus your efforts on millennials and generation Z, the largest share of the population and the most tech-savvy generations by far. Their preferences stem from their constant use of technology—the internet and their smartphones.
OK, we get it. Your ideal client is an established family with cash to invest or retirees looking to better manage assets. Just remember, millennials are having families (R Creative’s founders have five children and are millennials) and Gen Z gets older everyday. Want to reach your target market for tomorrow, you need to begin thinking about how they are searching for financial advice.
Forbes explains how to market to generation Z, explaining that your website and online presence needs: sleek, professional design (that adapts effectively to viewing on mobile devices), messaging centered around what you can do for them, user-friendly and concise copy for their eight-second attention span, and a component of social responsibility within your business model.
This quick list of digital marketing best practices is not exhaustive, and there’s much more to consider, like social channels and paid advertising on different digital platforms. Tactics also obviously differ depending on the type of business. Specifically to financial advising firms, we know that millennials and generation Z are much more likely to use robo-advisors but will often pair digital advising with human advising, are more likely to want financial advice, and will seek advice first from the internet.
All of this is to say: if your financial advising firm is to succeed and generate leads going forward, your online presence matters. This article will lay out a couple of ways content marketing greatly benefits your firm.
Search Engine Optimized Landing Pages
Because we know that everyone, but specifically younger generations, are using search engines (like Google and DuckDuck Go) to seek out answers to their financial questions, it’s important to use search engine optimization (SEO) on each page of your website to drive traffic to your site.
SEO is about taking advantage of algorithms so that your business is more likely to show up on someone’s screen, though it’s much more complex than that. Keyword placement and backlinks, building the content that provides more opportunities for the bots to find your business and present it to potential consumers, these are ways to build up your SEO rankings and are invaluable for lead generation.
Original, Helpful Blog Content
Creating informative content that will answer questions goes hand in hand with SEO best practices in driving consumers to your website.
This article we wrote on the importance of blogs for businesses outlines some of the ways that creating new content is an important marketing tool.
To quickly name a few, original content:
- Boosts local SEO,
- Establishes you as an expert,
- Develops new sales funnels,
- Creates content to share on other platforms,
- And boosts your long term, overall SEO goals.
Financial advisors have steep compliance requirements that often lead them to using no content or canned content on their websites.
But we know people are looking for answers online.
Creating an easy to read, easy to navigate blog that gives smart and digestible advice to consumers not only provides ways for you to lead them to your website, but also ways to showcase your brand and prove yourself as a financial advising firm they want to work with. Quantity and quality will boost your clicks and credibility, while a stagnant website will have stagnant lead funnels.
Multimedia content
The best content marketing for financial advising firms will include compelling and flawless content writing, but also visual content such as infographics, original videos (like these), and even podcasts (like this one).
The average person scrolling on their phone doesn’t have time, or won’t make the time, to read your long article. Part of the fix for that is clear and concise writing paired with frequent and helpful headings. But another way to get through to your consumer with your content is through more visual aids—one reason why the demand for and use of multimedia content in marketing has grown exponentially in recent years. Short, informative videos specifically have become great pieces of content, especially for an audience who doesn’t want to read a long article or is seeking an answer to complicated question.
When it comes to financial advising firms, the process of answering tough questions through your website content will be greatly aided by visual infographics and short videos that clearly or quickly explain complex ideas.
Where we come in: compliance-friendly, SEO-boosting, lead-generating content marketing
R Creative could be your solution to having a website that actually benefits your financial advising firm’s lead generation goals. Not only do we have the technical abilities and expertise in digital marketing best practices to create a well-designed, navigable website that is centered around boosting your search engine rankings, we have the specific experience in working with financial advising firms.
Our content writers have created content that is compliance-friendly, explains jargon simply, and will write on any topic requested by the firm. Through the website and/or content we create, you will see more visitors to your “digital office,” and an increase in potential customers.
If we are simply providing copywriting, our content will seamlessly fit into your digital marketing strategy. But we also can provide web development or an entire digital marketing strategy—we are equipped to build your brand, your credibility and your audience through an impressive online presence.
