Digital Marketing for Financial Advisors: Ultimate Guide

Are you a financial advisor, financial planner, wealth manager, RIA or insurance agent looking ramp up your digital marketing to get quality leads, appointments and more clients each month?

If so, this article will break down everything you need to do with your digital marketing to win your ideal clients in a way that is predictable, automated, profitable and scalable!

First understand that strategy is everything

It doesn’t matter what marketing channels you use, without the right strategy, it won’t work very well.

So, what is the best digital marketing strategy for financial advisors?

Click here to watch a video I recorded which explains the best strategy to getting high quality leads and appointments in your business every single month.

Although it can work for any business, most of our clients are financial advisors, so we know it works particularly well for that industry.

The reason it works so well is because the digital marketing strategy is based around getting quality leads and appointments. Sure, quantity helps. But quality is better than quantity.

Think about it.

Would you rather speak to 100 people and convert 5? Or would you rather speak to 10 people and convert 5?

Most advisors are already really busy as it is.

So they don’t want to waste time speaking to people who are not going to be a good fit.

This is why quality beats quantity every time.

So, once you’ve got the right strategy, here are the best digital marketing channels financial advisors can use to grow their firm with digital marketing.

Set realistic digital marketing goals

It helps to start with the end in mind.

What is it you want to achieve from your digital marketing?

Asking these questions can help:

• What kind of clients do you want to win each month?
• How many clients do you want to win each month?
• How many appointments do you need to win that many clients?

Once you know how many appointments you need each month, you can start generating leads from various marketing channels to get these appointments.

See also: The best financial advisor websites for marketing financial services

Choose your digital marketing channels carefully

There are hundreds of ways advisors can generate leads with digital marketing. But you don’t need 10, 50 or even 100 different digital marketing ideas. You just need one or a few that work very well.

Less is more when it comes to running a digital campaign for financial advisors.

Some strategies will require a high input of work or money with very little output (results).

The best digital marketing channels are those that require very little input (time, work or money) and give you the biggest output from your marketing efforts (results).

After working with hundreds of financial advisors over the years, I’ve found the following marketing channels work best for financial advisors (in order from best to worst):

Marketing Channel 1: Google Search

Generating leads on Google through search engine optimization is one of the best ways for advisors to win new clients. Why? Because anyone searching on Google for the services you provide is actively looking for a solution.

This is why financial advisor leads from Google searches are likely to convert into clients a lot quicker.

In fact, I’ve found financial advisor leads from Google are typically 2-5x more likely to convert compared to other marketing channels.

Oh and best of all leads from Google searches are FREE!

In other words, ranking first on Google gives you high quality warm financial advisor leads each month with people actively looking for your services for free.

It’s difficult to beat that.

Benefits of using Google SEO for financial advisors include:

• Leads that are more likely to convert
• Leads that are likely to convert quicker
• Predictable leads each month
• Free leads each month (no paid ads needed)

To learn more about what financial advisors need to do to rank higher on Google (and why it’s easier than you may think) check out step 4 in this video.

Marketing Channel 2: YouTube Search

YouTube is a great marketing channel for financial advisors that is severely underutilized right now.

This is great news if you’re a financial advisor!

Because YouTube is not very popular with financial advisors, it means there’s less competition and you’ll find it much easier for your videos to rank first on YouTube search results.

YouTube works very similar to Google SEO.

But instead of writing articles, you record videos.

Why is YouTube the 2nd best channel for financial advisors instead of #1?

It’s because of the effort involved in recording videos.

For most financial advisors, it’s going to be easier to write an article than record a video.

However, the advantage of recording YouTube videos is that you can rank higher on YouTube much quicker (because there’s less competition) compared to ranking on Google.

Also creating videos helps build trust quicker, so any leads you get from YouTube will be very warm leads.

Benefits of using YouTube as a financial advisor:

• Less competition which makes it easier for your videos to rank
• Video is a much better way to build trust with leads than written content
• Leads convert quickly vs other marketing channels
• Free leads each month (no paid ads needed)

To see how financial advisors can use YouTube to grow their firm, check out this video.

Marketing Channel 3: Facebook Ads

Facebook ads allows financial advisors to generate exclusive leads on-demand!

Here are some examples of financial advisor advertisements:

This is a game-changer for many financial advisors.

The downside to Facebook ads is that it’s not free.

You need to pay for ads.

So every lead you get on Facebook will cost money.

There is also the risk that your Facebook ads don’t convert well.

Marketing Tip for Financial Advisors: If you want to save thousands of dollars on advertising costs and avoid many mistakes that other financial advisors make, it’s a good idea to work with someone that already has experience running Facebook ads for financial advisors. Rather than start from scratch, you’ll have a head start with creating financial advisor Facebook ads that are much more likely to convert the first time. This is exactly what we do! Watch this video to learn more about how our strategy works.

Highlights of using Facebook ads as a financial advisor:

• Automated way to get leads and appointments
• You pay per lead (so you can choose exactly how many leads you want to get each month)
• Predictable and repeatable results
• Cheaper than buying leads as a financial advisor from a lead gen company
• More expensive than other marketing channels like Google & YouTube SEO

Should financial advisors use Facebook ads?

My recommendation for most financial advisors is to generate leads using free or low cost digital marketing channels FIRST. Then once you’re winning clients each month for free, re-invest some of your profit into Facebook ads if you want even more results.

Some financial advisors are so happy with the results from free or low cost channels that they decide they don’t even need to use Facebook ads to win more clients!

Marketing Channel 4: LinkedIn outreach

LinkedIn is probably the slowest digital marketing channel for financial advisors in most niches.

This is because it’s difficult to target an older demographic audience on LinkedIn and you’re not reaching out to people who are actively searching for a financial advisor (which is what you can do with Google and YouTube).

However, that’s not to say LinkedIn doesn’t work!

LinkedIn still allows you to generate leads successfully.

And the advantage of using LinkedIn is that most of it can be automated with LinkedIn automation software.

You just need to be aware that LinkedIn leads will take the longest to convert compared to other digital marketing channels for financial advisors.

See also: How financial advisors can get 401K rollover leads on LinkedIn

Should financial advisors use LinkedIn?

Considering most of it can be automated and it only takes a few minutes a day to manage, I’d say yes! You might as well just leave it running in the background while in the meantime you focus on the other lead generation channels I mentioned above.

Focus on conversions (not vanity metrics like followers)

Now that you’re generating leads successfully using Google, YouTube, Facebook ads and/or LinkedIn, it’s time to focus on your conversion rates.

You want to look at your conversion rates at each step in the funnel:

• Traffic: How many website visitors or people are seeing your message/ads/content?
• Lead Generation: How leads are you getting from those people? (aim for 20%)
• Appointments: How many appointments are you getting from leads? (aim for 1-5%)
• Clients: How many clients are you getting from appointments? (aim for 25-50%)

If your conversion rate is low for any of these steps ask yourself: what can you do to improve the conversion rate?

For example, if you’re getting a lot of traffic but no conversions, look at your messaging and target audience. Try testing a different message or a different audience.

If you’re getting a lot of a leads and no appointments, what value are you providing leads before they schedule an appointment? I recommend showing them a video sales letter (VSL) to build trust.

This will help you get many more appointments (and better quality appointments too!).

Are you getting a lot of appointments but no clients? If so, how can you show potential clients more value and make working with you a no-brainer?

Does digital marketing really work for financial advisors?

A lot of financial advisors are new to digital marketing and many have tried it with little to no success.

But the reality is are many financial advisors that are using digital marketing successfully.

You can see a few examples on our clients results page.

The key to success with digital marketing all comes down to your strategy and implementing the strategy successfully.

When I look at digital marketing campaigns that have not worked for financial advisors it’s usually because of the strategy.

See also: The best strategy to get predictable leads and appointments each month

If you want to increase your chances of success, it might be helpful to look at some of our digital marketing packages where we can help you do everything.

Don’t underestimate the power of content marketing

The way in which individuals seek advice is changing with the advent and growth of the internet and social media. Content marketing is perfect for financial planners as it allows you to educate your potential clients and show them how you can help them.

We recommend keeping your content marketing simple.

All you need is one primary piece of content called your video sales letter to generate leads and convert leads into clients.

Then create additional supporting content which answers questions your potential clients are asking. Send everyone from your supporting content back to your primary content (VSL).

Make sure you have a high converting marketing and sales funnel

It’s very difficult to get any results from digital marketing without a high converting sales funnel. However, there are hundreds of sales funnels to choose from! So be careful.

We recommend just using ONE funnel that is specifically designed to get leads and appointments.

You can see what this funnel looks like here.

Your marketing funnel should include 5 main pages:

• Opt-in page (to generate leads)
• Video page (to convert leads into appointments)
• Schedule page
• Application page
• Thank you page

It’s important to keep track of the statistics at each step of the funnel and make improvements to the conversion rate where necessary.

Keep following up with leads using email marketing

Financial planners have very long sales cycles.

Most leads do not convert until many months (or sometimes even years) after hearing about you.

Why?

This is because financial professionals need to build a lot of trust with their target client to convert prospects. After all, it’s their retirement on the line!

They want to make sure they do things right.

That’s why following up with your leads through email marketing is essential for getting the best digital marketing results.

This is also known as a financial advisor drip marketing.

A financial firm that regularly follows up with leads over weeks, months and years is more likely to convert leads into clients.

Why is marketing important for financial advisors?

Marketing can be beneficial to financial advisers simply because it helps them grow their business.

Think about it.

Every advisor needs clients. To get new clients, you need appointments. To get appointments, you need leads. And to get leads, you need marketing.

So without marketing it becomes very difficult to grow your company.

And with digital marketing, you’re able to grow much faster and more efficiently compared to traditional marketing strategies.

Can financial advisors advertise on social media?

Because of strict compliance rules, advisors need to be careful before advertising online or when using social media marketing strategies.

For example, financial professionals are typically not allowed to use testimonials or make big unrealistic promises.

But other than that, in most cases, you can use various digital marketing channels to find prospective clients.

What you can or cannot do will largely depend on the strictness of your compliance department.

Some advisors I’ve worked with have very strict compliance procedures and others are more lenient.

Typically most advisors will need to submit their marketing materials and assets to compliance first (for approval) before anything goes live. Compliance might come back with some changes that are needed.

Once those changes are done, you should be good to go and start advertising online!

What is the ROI from financial advisor digital marketing?

There are very powerful financial advisor marketing strategies that require little to no monetary investment. These are:

• Google SEO
• YouTube SEO
• LinkedIn outreach

So the ROI from these channels is very high since the monetary investment is minimal.

Once you’re winning new clients each month from one or all of the above financial advisor marketing strategies, you can reinvest some of your profits into paid advertising. Paid advertising allows you to to scale up and get even more results.

Some paid advertising channels you can use include:

• Facebook ads
• Instagram ads
• LinkedIn ads
• Google ads
• YouTube ads
• Adroll

In my experience, we’ve found Facebook ads & Adroll ads work best for financial advisors.

Should financial advisors hire a digital marketing agency?

Before hiring a digital marketing agency for financial advisors, it’s important you ask yourself these questions:

• Do I have the time to do it myself? If not…
• Do I have the money to outsource it? If so…
• Is it better to hire a digital marketing agency or hire someone in house to help?

The answer to those questions will depend on the size your financial advisory firm, your budget and what it is you need help with.

My recommendation would be to first create a strategy that gives you predictable leads & appointments and then outsource what is already working. Watch this video to see a strategy to get predictable appointments that works very well for financial advisors.

Watch out for bad financial advisor digital marketing strategies

There are some marketing channels (or tactics) you need to be careful with. These are what I call “busywork” digital marketing strategies.

These are marketing strategies that require 80% of your time and only give you 20% of your results.

One popular financial advisor marketing plan is social media posting.

Posting on different social media platforms does very little to grow your business.

I’ve spoken with wealth management firms and financial planners who have been posting for years and haven’t even got a single client from it.

Instead, I recommend focusing on the channels that take 20% of your time and get you 80% of your results (the good ol’ pareto principle in action).

The best digital marketing solution for financial advisors?

Rather than do everything yourself trying to figure it all out, work with someone that has already done it.

We’ve worked with lots of financial advisors and helped them generate leads, appointments and clients 100% online through highly effective digital marketing strategies.

To learn how it all works, watch this video.

FAQS

What are the best financial planning marketing strategies?

The best financial planning marketing strategy is to automate your lead generation and client acquisition. You can do this by having a marketing funnel, a video sales letter and a follow up email marketing campaign.

If you combine these financial advisor marketing techniques with effective marketing messages, you can start winning new leads, appointments and clients 100% online.

What is the best financial advisor marketing program?

There are many online financial advisor marketing programs. The best financial advisor marketing program will be a marketing program that aligns with your goals and has proven results.

For example, is your goal to get appointments online or offline? Is your goal to get lots of appointments (even if the quality isn’t very high) or a few really good quality appointments each month?

It’s also a good idea to look for a marketing program that focuses on results – not on “busywork” or “vanity metrics” such as gaining likes, followers or more views (which don’t always equal more clients).

You can learn more about our marketing program here.

What are some good financial planner marketing ideas?

Contrary to popular belief, financial advisors don’t need hundreds of marketing ideas to get results. In fact, you only need ONE (or a few) really good marketing strategies to get more clients.

We recommend following the strategy in this video if you want to get high quality financial advisor appointments.

What are the most effective financial advisor marketing techniques?

The best financial advisor marketing techniques include running an automated appointment funnel combined with a video sales letter and high value follow up emails.