Imagine waking up every day to an email or voicemail inbox overflowing with messages from prospective clients who are eager to connect. With a recognizable brand, you could be well on your way to turning that vision into reality. Your brand is your calling card. It’s what sets you apart from the competition, establishes trust with prospects and underscores your credibility. Here’s how the power of effective financial advisor branding can scale your business.
Are you looking to expand the marketing of your financial advisor practice? Try SmartAsset AMP, a holistic client prospecting and marketing automation platform.
Financial Advisor Branding, Step by Step
Your brand is a cohesive statement that reflects who you are, what you do and what sets you apart from other advisors. It’s a tool for attracting (and retaining) your ideal clients.
Here’s how to develop a brand strategy that gets results.
1. Refine Your Message
What message do you send to prospective clients? Your brand should telegraph your firm’s unique value proposition clearly and concisely. If it doesn’t, it’s time to pull focus.
If you don’t have a brand statement, consider making that your starting point. A brand statement is one to three sentences that encapsulate:
- What problems you solve
- Who you serve
- Why your firm is different
Looking at financial advisor branding statement examples can help inspire you if you’re feeling stuck. Once you have a branding statement, think about the story that you’re trying to tell about yourself, your firm and what you do for your clients.
Incorporating your personal and professional story into your branding has a humanizing effect, which is important for creating a relatable image. Investors want to work with an advisor they can trust. And authenticity in your marketing and branding helps to build that trust.
With SmartAsset AMP, you can not only automate those marketing efforts, but customize your messaging to match your branding and the message you want to get across.
Justin Fitchko, Managing Partner at DayMark Wealth Partners, says “I used the guts of the SmartAsset campaign, and then tweaked it a bit here and there to my liking… and input something of my own.”
Fitchko continues, “I also go to the campaign and try to change it at least every two to three months seasonally. Sometimes I just reference the season. ‘Hey, it’s fall. It’s a great time to dig back in your finances.’ Or ‘Hey, year end is coming up.’ A lot of people have tax planning issues with the end of the year upon us, so it’s a great time to engage. I try to freshen it up.”
2. Develop a Visual Identity
Your brand statement goes hand-in-hand with your brand image or visual identity. That encompasses all of the markers that identify you and your firm, including:
- Logos
- Color palettes
- Fonts
- Taglines or catchphrases
Look at your brand image through the eyes of a prospective client. Does it trigger any positive or negative emotions? Is it memorable? What color story are you telling? And, most importantly, is it cohesive?
The most effective brands are instantly recognizable and memorable. From your firm’s logo to the colors and fonts used on your website to your tagline, you’re ideally creating a brand that’s eye-catching and impactful.
3. Lean Into Digital
Digital marketing is a land of opportunity for advisors, and there are so many ways to put it to use when developing your brand. Consider some of the following:
- Start with a website. Your website is a perfect showcase for your brand’s visual imagery. Search engine optimization (SEO), meanwhile, can draw in prospects who are searching for terms your brand is associated with.
- Be present on social media. Social media platforms offer opportunities to engage, and your branding strategy can influence which sites you choose to be active on. Posting regularly, sharing your story and interacting with followers are all ways to reinforce your brand image.
- Build an email list. Email marketing allows you to deliver your brand messaging right to a prospect’s inbox. You can segment your list to ensure that the emails you send speak to the needs of specific client groups.
- Consider ads. Digital advertising can be tricky if you’ve never attempted it, largely because you don’t have anything to measure your outcomes against. Should you go this route, it’s important to tailor your ad messaging to speak to the demographics most likely to encounter it, while staying true to your brand.
4. Build Credibility
Credibility matters when asking a prospective client to entrust their assets to you. You have to show them, rather than tell them, why you’re the right person to meet their needs. So, how do you showcase your credibility in branding? Here are a few ways:
- Get local. Involvement in local events or organizations can serve an important role in building your brand. They demonstrate to prospective clients that you’re a genuine person and that you’re plugged in to the community and its needs.
- Network. Participating in professional events can help you network as a financial advisor, spreading awareness of your brand among other advisors and potentially highlighting your expertise. For example, you might sit on a guest panel at a financial advisor conference or host a workshop during the event.
- Have a content/PR strategy. Creating digital content, whether it’s videos, white papers, blog posts or another format, is another way to highlight the depth of your knowledge. You can also leverage media mentions to add to your credibility if you’re offering yourself as a source to journalists and writers who need expert insight.
- Host a seminar. Seminar marketing allows you to put your knowledge and expertise on display in a semi-casual setting. You can host a virtual or in-person seminar or workshop that addresses a key question or problem your ideal clients face. This is a way for prospects to get to know a little more about you and judge your qualifications for themselves.
5. Be Consistent
One of the biggest mistakes advisors can make with marketing is sending mixed messages or being inconsistent in their approach. For example, if you’re using social media to promote your firm, then you can’t post sporadically and expect results. You’ll need to not only post regularly, but make posts that underscore your core message to build engagement and trust with prospects.
How else can you be consistent with branding?
Again, it goes back to things like:
- Making sure that you’re sharing the same message across all platforms (i.e., website, email, social media, etc.)
- Communicating a cohesive brand story and aligning your visual imagery so that prospects easily associate your logo, colors, fonts, etc. with your brand
- Checking the tone of your messaging to make sure it fits the platforms you’re using to market your business
Automation can help with creating a consistent brand. For instance, if you’re using email to stay in touch with prospects and current clients, you can create an automated schedule to deliver your messages on the same day and time each week.
The goal is to get prospects and clients to look forward to seeing you show up in their inbox regularly. That’s another way to encourage a positive brand image and build trust, which is critical for maintaining client relationships in the long term.
Bottom Line
Financial advisor branding is an ongoing process that sometimes involves experimenting to determine what’s most true to who you are and what you do. Remember that as your business changes, your branding may need to change as well to reflect where you are in the current moment.
Tips for Growing Your Advisory Business
- If you’re just getting started with digital marketing, it’s natural to feel overwhelmed. You have to decide which platforms to promote your firm on, figure out your brand story and stay tuned in so you can drive engagement. If you want to increase your visibility without tying up all your time online, you might consider partnering with an advisor marketing platform. SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) is a holistic marketing service that 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.
- As you map out your branding and marketing plan, don’t forget about compliance. For instance, if you plan to use client testimonials in your marketing materials to establish credibility, you must adhere to guidelines laid out in the SEC’s marketing rule. Reviewing compliance rules can help you avoid mistakes with your branding and marketing efforts.
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