Generating qualified leads from the Internet is a huge challenge for most financial advisors. The good news is that with a big brand this task becomes infinitely easier. This article will discuss the three critical areas of your brand that you can customize for higher online conversions from your social media.
Take the Time to Customize Your Messaging
With the million posts on social media going out every single minute across the world, if you are posting generic content then it’s almost guaranteed that you’re going to get ignored. In fact it’s almost a given. The biggest culprits are news articles. The people you want to reach have probably already read these articles; and if they haven’t, they’ve probably already appeared in your competitors’ news feeds.
True, it’s way easier to plop down the latest hot article about retirement planning from the Wall Street Journal, but it’s not original. People love authenticity. If you post what everyone else does, you’re going to be viewed the same as everyone else. This is counter to your brand.
To give you an example of highly customized content, here’s a great LinkedIn status update posting by Jarrod Glandt, VP of Sales at Cardone Enterprises:
FEAR is an indication of GROWTH. In order to get to the next level, you must GO where the GROWTH is. If you don’t have any fears- get you some! #10X (Glandt, 2017)
Not surprisingly, Jarrod has over 9k followers. This posting garnered 134 likes and 6 comments – that’s super high engagement. Here’s what made this post successful:
- He talks directly to the audience’s goal (getting to the next level)
- He presents the problem (fear) and then the solution (growth)
- He uses a nice, customized hashtag that garners attention and curiosity
- He keeps the post short and to the point
- He doesn’t send you a link that you have to click, reducing distraction. This is a way of keeping your attention on him rather than a third party website.
- He keeps the status update personal and conversational rather than corporate
Way to go, Jarrod. You are a branding superstar. My only recommendation would have been to include some sort of image or photo to engage the audience visually. After reading this post, nonetheless, I’m motivated to learn more about Jarrod, what he does, what Cardone Enterprises does, and to follow him for future news. This goes way further than just posting some tired old sales article from Forbes. With just two sentences he’s drawn me in.
>>The more customized messaging you produce, the more online conversions you’ll get.
Include a Video
Branding is highly dependent upon emotion. The more emotion you get stir up with your brand, the stronger the brand. I’ve said it before in other blog postings on this topic. Social media video is the easiest and fastest way to get attention on the Internet. This is because seeing is believing and there is no better way to create a bond of trust between your brand and the audience than to appear face to face. If you can’t be there in person then reach them virtually this way. This is especially critical for industries where public distrust is high, such as financial services.
For some highly compliance oriented industries such as finance, setting out to make a video engenders fear of headache. Take it from someone who’s helped numerous financial advisors navigate through the toughest of compliance departments: it’s not as hard as you are probably making it. Here’s what I mean. You have to understand the mindset of the compliance department. There’s actually a very short list of fundamental things that they don’t want you to publish. Testimonials, guarantees of any sort, and most of all, simply just avoid talking about the market and making any forecast of any sort. It’s not as hard to get your marketing materials approved if you find a copywriter who understands this.
Where do you find a FINRA compliant copywriter? A helpful tip is to seek out a writer who has worked in the industry before and has held the Series 7 license. Many sales and marketing professionals, believe it or not, have had some work experience in this area. Consider that institutions such as AXA Advisors have probably recruited into almost every graduating class of every major college in the United States. If you do the math, there are probably tons of people who end up writing blogs as their careers that have been advisors in that two year program they got sucked into right after college!
Keep in mind you don’t have to create a Picasso every time. Just by creating video you’re way ahead of text posting. I’ve had tremendous success with social media video marketing, and most of my videos are semi or not produced, and last under 2 minutes. Here are some video marketing examples.
>>The more video content you produce, the more online conversions you’ll get.
Engage Brand Ambassadors
While it sounds like some hoity-toity campaign that only companies like GE with million dollar ad budgets are capable of, there are many different levels of brand ambassadors. Most of you already have one; there’s always that one person who likes every single update you put out there on social media. Agree? You know who you’re thinking of, right? It’s probably somebody you know.
My recommendation is to reach out to the person and have a discussion. If they love you that much, they’d probably be willing to produce a testimonial, participate in a podcast or webinar with their followers, or even actively promote your product to those in their network. You never know. There are many ways to work with a brand ambassador, some better for certain types of businesses than others.
This is a form of influencer marketing. Keep in mind that with millennials being half the workforce nowadays, you’re speaking to an audience base that loves user-generated content. Here’s where most people miss the boat on social media. The realer, the better. If you’re the one posting, they’ll always doubt what you say is real. If somebody else shares, likes, or agrees with what you say, your credibility rises dramatically.
>>The more you can get other people talking about you, the more online conversions you will get.
Sara’s Upshot
Authenticity is what matters most in any financial advisor who wants to get new clients. Learn the no BS way to use social media to get new clients by joining my membership here.
Sources
Glandt, Jarrod. (2017, June 1). FEAR is an indication of GROWTH. In order to get to the next level, you must GO where the GROWTH is. If you don’t have any fears- get you some! [LinkedIn status update]. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarrodglandt/recent-activity/
