The world is changing quickly. From rapid developments in technology to evolving consumer behaviours, there’s plenty to consider when marketing your advice business to prospective clients.
Whether you’re creating a marketing strategy from scratch or want to make sure you’ve covered all bases, this checklist considers points for effective marketing in modern society.
Checklist: 7 considerations for effective marketing
- Are you targeting the right people?
- Are you using the right channels of communication?
- Are you making the most of technology?
- Are you watching your competitors?
- Have you grabbed the ‘low hanging fruit’?
- Are you demonstrating your value?
- Do you have a user-friendly online experience?
1. Are you targeting the right people?
As the world changes, your client demographic might too. People are starting to live longer, and their priorities and advice needs are changing. The younger generation may be focusing on spending for joy and purpose, while their parents and grandparents could be looking towards having a financially well future. This might present an opportunity to refine your target market in line with these new potential clients.
Segmentation and creating customer personas could help you with this. It may give you a better understanding of your target customers and how to appeal to them. It could require different approaches, from communication styles to the channels you use to reach them.
2. Are you using the right channels of communication?
Following segmentation, making sure you’re using the right channels of communication is key. Are you still calling clients when they might prefer an email? Or maybe you’re using email when your audience is more responsive on social media, or through instant messaging and chatbots. Not only that, but using those channels effectively is just as important. Here are a few points to think about in some key channels.
Email can still be an effective marketing tool if done well, but you might not find a lot of success by sending blanket emails to your database. Consider the points around segmenting your target audience and if you could personalise your emails for different demographics. You might find that some segments are more receptive to email than others, which could lead to you focus your email efforts on that audience.
Following up at the right time is important too – automation could help you with this, which we'll cover later.
Social media
Social media is now part of the furniture of modern life, and it’s likely that some of your target market is using it every day. But no, you don’t need an account on every single platform.
Focusing your efforts on posting consistent, valuable content on one channel where your target market will likely be better than spreading yourself thin across multiple channels. For example, Facebook and LinkedIn typically have an older demographic, while Instagram and TikTok is usually younger.
There are also large personal finance communities on forum-style platform, Reddit, where you might have a chance to showcase your expertise and value as an individual. Check out our article on why people are turning to Reddit for financial advice for more information.
Events
Don’t forget about the power of an in-person experience. Events can be a great way to meet potential clients and make a lasting impression – but they can also be costly to attend. Be selective in the events you go to and make sure you’re getting a good return on investment. Otherwise, there might be more effective ways to spend your marketing budget.
3. Are you making the most of technology?
Technology can be expensive, and it’s moving quick enough to fall behind on. But you don’t need to have every latest piece of tech to maximise your marketing efforts. Personalised experiences are important, so using technology to your advantage in email or on your website could be a good start. For example:
- You could A/B test different advertising copy, bespoke email subject lines or even landing pages of your website to measure what gets the most engagement and leads – and adapt according to your successes.
- Implement email automation to follow up with leads at appropriate times to increase chances of a lead turning into a client.
- You could also use technology to automate some processes that might have taken you longer to do manually, freeing up your time to focus on other parts of your strategy.
Artificial intelligence
If you do want to venture a little deeper, it’s worth taking the time to learn about artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on the advice sector – both today and in the future.
AI could helpful when it coming to efficiency and automation, taking the load off time-consuming admin tasks. It could even be helpful as a peer when it comes to asking about target audience demographics, the most effective times to email clients or post on social media, or for advice on your copy – whether it’s valuable, or written in the right tone of voice to represent you, relate to current clients, and attract prospective business.
This is a growing topic that isn’t going away any time soon, so you could learn more about how AI will impact financial advice in our article.
4. Are you watching your competitors?
When was the last time you did a competitor deep dive? Who else has come into the space and what are they doing better than you? You might find that their brand, look and feel, or even the way they sound has changed.
Knowing who your competitors are and what they’re doing can help you identify things you can improve on, but also the areas where you stand out. For example, does one competitor post regular news updates on governance change, or have they ventured onto TikTok? What is and isn’t working for them that you could test and learn on? You can consider this and use it to capitalise on your unique selling points in your own marketing efforts.
5. Have you grabbed the ‘low hanging fruit’?
Some marketing efforts take time. But there may be low hanging fruit you’ve missed that could be a quick win to boost your profile.
For example, on Google, you can create a free business profile, where you can control how your business appears in Google Search and Maps. You can add your phone number, address, post updates and encourage customer reviews – taking advantage of follow-up emails, or the last few minutes of client reviews, to ask for a Trustpilot review.
This could help your online presence at the point where people are actively searching for a financial adviser in their area.
6. Are you demonstrating your value?
While attention spans might be dwindling, content marketing is still important. In fact, Google ranks content on being helpful, reliable and people-first. Showcasing your expertise through first-person blogs and thought-leadership articles, hosting webinars and joining community discussions online could help to raise your profile and authority as a trusted adviser.
Learning about GEO and the impact of AI on value
With the rise of AI, it’s not just search engine optimisation (SEO) that’s important – but generative engine optimisation (GEO), too. GEO is about shaping your content so AI tools like ChatGPT or Google’s AI results understand, trust, and include your brand when they generate answers, rather than just showing your website as a link.
It’s important for your marketing strategy because people increasingly get answers directly from AI instead of clicking search results, so if your content isn’t optimised for GEO, your brand simply won’t show up in those decisions.
Don’t forget to be authentic
The human touch is so important. You probably have brands that come to mind when you think of personality and authenticity in marketing. The same can be said for individuals. Your personal brand is important. Whether it’s in your writing, webinars or social media posts, try to inject your personality and values into the experience.
Our CPD webinar, how to create financial advice for real lives could be helpful for you and your business strategy.
7. Do you have a user-friendly online experience?
Don’t let your marketing optimisations go to waste by falling at the final hurdle. Wherever your marketing leads people – be it a website or a social media page – a difficult user experience could prevent leads from turning into clients.
Make sure that your website is accessible and easy to navigate. Consider what ways you want people to contact you and how you can make this easy for them. Think about what you want them to do on the page and what wording/call to action might encourage them to do so. You could also consider what else might add value to customers here – such as client testimonials, FAQs or a bio about your background, with a headshot.
Not to be forgotten is that in a society where we can search anything in seconds, that websites are expected to function well on mobile and load quickly. Make sure there’s no chunky elements slowing down your page. Google’s pages peed insights can check the health of your website and highlight any issues that you might be able to fix yourself or get help from a developer with.
Marketing fit for the future
With clients to look after and a business to run, it can be easy to let marketing fall by the wayside. But as the world evolves, your marketing needs to evolve with it.
To explore our pointers in more detail, check out our page on how to develop your business and follow up with our marketing your business guide, which takes you into more detail of how to carry out and execute your marketing strategy.