Summer often gives us a little breathing room. Some of your biggest clients are on vacation. Meetings slow down. And for many independent financial advisors, a quiet hour here or there opens up.
That makes this the perfect time to hit pause and ask yourself: Is my marketing actually working? Am I spending in the right places? Are the right people engaging? Are those engagements turning into conversations?
Marketing doesn’t just require effort. It requires clarity. And the mid-year mark offers just enough distance to evaluate where your efforts have landed—and where you need to shift before the fall rush begins.
In this article, I’ll walk through five simple ways to refocus your marketing this summer and drive stronger, more measurable results in the second half of the year.
1. Track What Truly Drives Growth
You don’t need a 10-tab dashboard to understand whether your marketing is working. A few clear signals are usually enough—if you know where to look.
Start with your Cost per Lead (CPL). What are you actually spending to start a conversation? Then look at lead quality. Are the prospects coming in aligned with your ideal client, or are they wasting your time?
Next, assess your conversion rate. Out of the people who engage, how many move forward? Finally, dig into content engagement. What formats or topics are consistently earning attention and building trust?
These aren’t abstract numbers. They’re directional. If CPL is up and quality is down, that’s a sign to reevaluate your channel mix. If one piece of content is attracting high-fit prospects, it may deserve more investment.
The goal isn’t to collect more data. It’s to create more clarity and make smarter, faster decisions.
2. Make One Smart Pivot Before Fall
If your current marketing efforts aren’t delivering, you haven’t missed your window. In fact, now is one of the best times to pivot because there’s still time to influence year-end outcomes.
A single, well-timed shift in Q3 can change your trajectory. That might mean reallocating ad spend toward higher-converting channels, streamlining your messaging to resonate with your best-fit clients, or finally launching that educational webinar you've been thinking about.
The worst move? Waiting until Q4 and hoping your numbers catch up. The advisors who course-correct now are the ones who finish strong.
3. Focus on Trust, Not Just Traffic
It’s easy to get caught up in surface-level stats like impressions, likes, and open rates. They look good in reports, but they don’t always tell you whether your marketing is actually moving the needle.
What matters more, especially for independent advisors, is how your message makes people feel. Does it educate? Does it clarify? Does it build confidence?
If your content leads to deeper questions, discovery calls, or client referrals, that’s a far better sign of performance than raw traffic. The strongest-performing firms aren’t necessarily the ones with the most clicks. They’re the ones turning trust into traction.
So instead of asking, “How many people saw this?” try asking “Did this help someone feel more ready to take the next step?”
Because trust is what turns a passive reader into a serious prospect and a first meeting into a long-term relationship.
4. Use Education to Improve Every Metric That Matters
So, how do you actually build the kind of trust that leads to action?
For many advisors, the answer is education. Teaching—through webinars, workshops, videos, and client-friendly content—is one of the most effective ways to build credibility and connect with the right prospects.
A classroom-based approach doesn’t just position you as an expert. It strengthens your funnel at every stage:
- Lower CPL: Educational content filters out unqualified leads before they ever book a call.
- Higher Conversion: Prospects who learn from you are more prepared and more likely to take the next step.
- Stronger Retention: Clients who come in through education stay longer, refer more, and see you as a long-term partner.
According to AdvisorHub, today’s top-performing advisors are intentional. The ones who lead with real content and clear expertise are outpacing those still relying on generic outreach.
5. Make Time to Audit—and Repurpose—What’s Working
You don’t need a complete marketing overhaul to get better results. Sometimes, a few sharp questions are enough to steer things in the right direction:
- Where did your last 60 days of leads come from?
- What content or messaging drove the strongest engagement?
- Which channel is producing your best-fit prospects?
Once you’ve got answers, look for easy wins, starting with content you’ve already created. That retirement webinar from March? Clip it into a short video series for LinkedIn. A popular blog post? Turn it into a client-facing Q&A or include it in your newsletter.
According to AdvisorHub, repurposing content is one of the smartest ways to expand your reach without expanding your workload. And summer is the perfect time to get more mileage from what you’ve already built.
Don’t Forget: Client Experience Is a Metric, Too
When you're reviewing your marketing performance, it's easy to focus on numbers like clicks, cost per lead, or conversion rates. But one of the most telling metrics is harder to quantify: the experience you're creating.
Your marketing may be generating leads, but what happens after someone fills out the form? Does the experience feel consistent, clear, and client-focused? Or does it fall flat?
Marketing that earns attention but doesn’t follow through with a strong client experience can stall momentum right when it matters most. Every touchpoint, from the first retirement planning workshop invite to the first discovery call, is part of the story you're telling.
Metrics don’t just measure performance. They reflect experience. And experience is what drives referrals, renewals, and real momentum.
Bottom Line: Measure What Matters. Adjust What Isn’t. Teach What You Know.
Summer gives you space. Use it to your advantage.
Take stock of what’s working. Make one or two smart adjustments. And build a second-half growth plan that reflects what makes you valuable, not just what drives clicks.
If you’d like support sharpening your strategy, we’d love to chat. FMT Solutions helps independent advisors lead with education, attract the right clients, and turn content into meaningful results.
Ready to reset your marketing? Let’s make sure the second half of your year performs even better than the first.