Today’s advisors aren’t able to generate leads and prospects using the same marketing strategies that worked twenty years ago — or even ten. Tactics like referral programs, cold calls, and presentations over meals in hotel conference rooms still matter. They just pack less punch and are far less efficient with your time or work too slowly to grow your business at the rate you’d like.
Digital marketing for financial advisors (as we’ve known it)
These are some of the reasons that advisors have increasingly turned to digital marketing. The internet has woven itself into the everyday fabric of modern life, and it’s wonderfully efficient both the end-users and for the businesses that need to reach them. With Google at the ready everywhere we go, many financial advisors understand that their website is one of their most important marketing assets.
So, you’d like to generate leads through digital channels. Traditionally, this may have meant writing a business blog, posting on social media sites, doing some keyword-based search engine advertising, and ensuring that your website is search-engine optimized. This is digital marketing as we’ve known it.
However, tried and true strategies like Linkedin messages and email newsletters will ultimately reach many more uninterested individuals than qualified leads. They’re not unlike digital cold calls in that regard. It’s time to expand your digital marketing approach with more effective, more targeted strategies that can simultaneously reach the right, pre-qualified audience and help your client base to scale quickly.
Financial education as inbound marketing
As you explore your options for digital marketing, you’re bound to encounter the term “inbound.” Inbound marketing is a way of thinking about how potential clients will choose to come to you, rather than about how you will reach out to them. You can reverse the inefficiencies of cold-call-style digital marketing with an approach that offers tangible value to the audience you’re seeking to attract, drawing highly qualified leads to you automatically.
By leading a financial education course, eager attendees will show up looking for financial advice — before you’ve even introduced yourself. Each course you teach offers real value to the prospect, who can use what they learn over several educational, non-sales-oriented sessions to help themselves and improve their financial lives.
Your courses can be made available online (through virtual meetings) or in-person, in a traditional classroom setting at a college or school. Either way, attendees should be able to discover and RSVP for the course online, through digital marketing channels, and self-select to attend (essentially pre-qualifying themselves as seeking financial advice).
How to expand your marketing with educational courses
The advisor-client relationship has long depended on trust and familiarity. You may worry that by introducing virtual tools or online registrations to your courses, you’re introducing static into the one-on-one relationships you hope to cultivate. With the right course design, the personal engagement opportunities within your course will not only build relationships but convert leads into clients.
FMT provides a proven educational platform that gives you everything you need to succeed with digital marketing for financial advisors.
- Gain access to exclusive marketing area reserved solely for you
- FINRA-reviewed course materials, speaker notes, and attendee workbooks
- Simple platform for online, mobile-optimized course registrations
- Custom event page for your financial education courses
- Digital course locator; local prospects can search for and find your course
- End-to-end RSVP support from FMT
Curious about or 2022 digital marketing package? See the details!
Our experienced team works with you to develop and execute a plan for digital marketing. We’ll help you to promote your course, assist with collecting all registrations, and even provide comprehensive instructor training and conversion coaching. Put it on your website, share links to the event page through email or social channels to spread the word, and watch the prospects line up to hear what you have to say.
All that’s left is to teach the pre-built and fully compliant course in person and/or online. After that, impressed attendees can follow up, you’ll have the opportunity to book 1:1 sessions, and your AUM will grow. The results speak for themselves.
Our turnkey program has a 20+ year track record of success. Get in touch today and we’ll show you how to hit the ground running with a proven financial education platform specifically designed to improve digital marketing for financial advisors.
This article was originally published in March 2022. Updated February 2023.
