Digital Marketing for Financial Services: Strategies and ROI

Digital marketing for financial services extends beyond investment advisors. Tax preparers, insurance agents and financial planners are among the professionals who can benefit from a unified marketing plan. Much of the advice shared online centers on the same set of tactics, but financial professionals who find fresh angles in the digital space may be better positioned to stand out. Learn how to increase the online visibility of your financial services business and connect those efforts to measurable results.

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1. Explore Cross-Marketing Opportunities

Cross-marketing is a collaboration or partnership between brands to pool their resources in order to generate new leads for both businesses. The parties involved develop and nurture a joint marketing campaign that targets a similar audience, with each party meeting different needs for prospective clients.

For example, a life insurance agent who’s built professional connections with local financial planners and estate planning specialists may suggest a virtual seminar or workshop that tackles three topics: wealth accumulation, wealth preservation and wealth distribution.

The financial planner takes on the accumulation phase discussion, while the insurance agent handles the topic of protecting wealth with life insurance. The estate planning specialist can then close with a presentation on legacy planning. This type of event can attract a range of potential clients and it gives each professional time in the spotlight to showcase their knowledge and unique value proposition.

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2. Host an AMA Event

AMA is short for “ask me anything,” and from a marketing perspective, this can be an impactful way to underscore your credibility with prospective clients. Financial services professionals choose a forum to host the event, set the date and time, then open up the floor for questions. You can also invite other professionals to chime in, as this attorney did in a trust/estate planning AMA thread on Reddit.

This type of format can be attractive to prospects because it’s anonymous and invites curiosity. An attorney, financial planner, advisor or insurance agent can engage directly with their target audience, without the formalities of a standard workshop or seminar. You can build trust and credibility by providing high-quality, but easy-to-digest answers to participant questions.

Opening your AMA with a strong hook or introduction can grab prospects’ attention and get them interested in what you know. And you can include some self-promotion by directing anyone who asks a question or simply reads the thread to visit your website, check out your lead magnet or follow you on social media. For an example of what that looks like in action, check out this financial advisor’s Reddit AMA.

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3. Create a Digital Business Card

Digital business cards put a new spin on a traditional marketing tool. Essentially, you design your card to include the information you want prospective clients to have, then attach it to a QR code or shareable link. Instead of handing over a physical business card when you meet a potential lead, you share the QR code or link instead.

For example, say you’re an insurance agent who’s focused on selling life insurance policies and annuities. Your primary digital marketing channels include social media and email. You could add your digital business card code to your LinkedIn profile, social media profiles and email signature. If you use virtual seminars or webinars to market your services, you might include a slide displaying your code/link with a CTA encouraging participants to scan or click.

Several companies offer help with digital business card creation, including Lynkle, V1CE and Blinq. Blinq may be particularly well-suited to financial professionals because of its added features. For example, there’s a built-in AI note-taking tool to help you capture conversations with leads as they happen. A scanning feature lets you snap an image of a prospect’s business card so you have their contact information. And Blinq integrates with many popular CRMs, including Salesforce.

4. Go Interactive

Content marketing and digital marketing go hand in hand, but the type of content you create for your digital campaigns matters. Written content, like blog posts or white papers, has long been a standard marketing tool. For example, if you have a website for your accounting business, you may have a blog where you share tax tips or tax news.

This type of content can be helpful for marketing, but engagement may be limited to a comment on your blog or social share. Interactive content, on the other hand, turns visitors to your website into participants, and may encourage them to seek out a more detailed conversation with you about how you can meet their financial needs.

The kind of interactive content you create ultimately depends on the type of financial services business you run. Some of the options include:

• Calculators (e.g., retirement calculators, life insurance needs calculators, etc.)
• Gamified quizzes centering on a specific financial topic, like investing
• Demo dashboards or visualizers that invite users to generate financial outcomes using different inputs

You can use any or all of these options to create lead magnets targeting your ideal clients. For example, using the accountant example again, you might set up a quiz to test prospects’ knowledge of tax code changes. To get their score, they just have to share their email address with you and it’s delivered to their inbox.

This strategy has the engagement factor, since the quiz requires input from the prospect, and it yields their email address which you can use for further digital marketing activities.

5. Consider Agentic AI for Client Retention

Digital marketing for financial services is often focused on client acquisition, but it’s just as important to continually market to your existing clients. Otherwise, you may miss out on the chance to better serve them, which could affect retention rates over the long term.

Agentic AI can help you identify opportunities to improve the way you market to current clients so you can keep them. If you’re unfamiliar with agentic AI, it’s the next evolution of generative artificial intelligence. AI agents are autonomous, meaning they can act without human intervention, within the boundaries of their programming.

So, how might a CPA, financial manager or other financial services professional use agentic AI for digital marketing? AI agents can track your clients’ behavioral patterns and signals, such as how often they log in to their secure account portal and how frequently they reach out to you. You can use the data you gather through the AI agent to identify clients who may benefit from a renewed marketing focus.

Calculating Digital Marketing ROI

ROI or return on investment is an important consideration before undertaking any digital marketing campaign. After all, it’s not worth pouring your time and financial resources into a marketing strategy if it’s unlikely to produce tangible results for your business.

Here’s how to calculate ROI for marketing:

ROI = [(Revenue – Marketing Investment) / Marketing Investment)] x 100

HubSpot has an online marketing calculator that can help you perform more detailed calculations. Now, here’s the better question: what is a good ROI for marketing?

Generally, a ratio of 5:1, meaning you see a return of $5 for every $1 spent on digital marketing, is considered good, according to Salesforce. ¹ However, this number represents the benchmark across industries and isn’t specific to financial services.

What you may find is that some digital marketing methods generate a better ROI than others, depending on the type of services you offer and your clientele. And it may be difficult to forecast ROI for tactics you’ve never tried before. Looking at your expected client acquisition cost, alongside your expected ROI, can help you better understand which strategies may yield the best results.

As an example, consider these figures from a 2024 Kitces report on how financial planners market their businesses: ²

• Webinars generated $4,200 in new revenue per client on average, but had an average client acquisition cost of $32,539.
• Online advisor listings (meaning lead gen platforms) generated $4,000 in new revenue per client, with an average client acquisition cost of $634.

Based on these numbers, it’s not difficult to see how vastly different ROI can be across digital marketing tactics, so as you shape your marketing plan, consider your budget and what’s likely to have the biggest impact on your growth.

And if you’re looking for a simpler way to connect with more leads for your RIA business, consider a partnership with SmartAsset Advisor Marketing Platform. You can get a steady stream of quality leads each month, along with automated tools for email and text marketing. Schedule a free demo today to learn more.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Bottom Line

Digital marketing for financial services is both different from and similar to marketing for other industries. The most important thing to keep in mind, regardless of what type of financial services business you run, is to design your marketing plan with your ideal clients firmly in sight. The better you understand your target audience’s needs, goals, pain points and concerns, the better positioned you are to create marketing campaigns that resonate.

Tips for More Effective Advisor Marketing

• Digital marketing for financial services becomes easier when you have the right resources in your toolbox. SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) is a holistic marketing service financial advisors can use for client lead generation and automated marketing. Sign up for a free demo to explore how SmartAsset AMP can help you expand your practice’s marketing operation. Get started today.
• Registered financial advisors are subject to strict compliance requirements for digital marketing. The SEC’s marketing rule prohibits advisors from sharing false or misleading information in their marketing materials. Advisors can use client reviews or testimonials for marketing, but they must be accompanied by certain disclosures. Reviewing compliance guidelines can help you keep your marketing campaigns on track.

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