How to Build a Marketing Plan for Financial Planners

Building a financial planning business can bring plenty of challenges, not the least of which is deciding how to market your new firm. However, a solid marketing campaign can catapult your business to success. Unfortunately, a weak one may leave you struggling to stand out from the competition. To create a successful financial planning marketing strategy, start by identifying your target market. Then tailor your plan to meet the needs of your ideal client and find ways to provide value to that group.

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Importance of Marketing for Financial Planners

Anyone in business has likely heard the sage bit of wisdom that “if you build it, they will come.” While that’s not bad advice, it’s not foolproof, either. Why? There’s so much competition in the financial services industry that it can be difficult to get seen without a marketing plan.

Simply putting up a financial advisor website for your financial planning firm isn’t enough. You also have to do the work to bring prospective clients to you, at least in the beginning. Advisors with a defined marketing strategy recorded 168% more leads from their websites, according to a Broadridge survey of more than 400 financial professionals. ¹

Marketing can help you develop your brand as a financial planner and increase visibility in the marketplace. Brand recognition and awareness can help build trust with your audience and convey your firm’s unique value proposition. That could help you acquire more clients and generate more leads if those clients trust you enough to refer you to friends, family members or coworkers.

You might be concerned with working out the legalities of establishing a new financial planning business on paper or obtaining the necessary funding you need to open the doors. But marketing is not something you can afford to neglect.

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Strategies for Marketing Financial Planning Services

The most important thing to remember when developing a financial planning marketing strategy is that you’ll need to figure out what works best for you. With that in mind, here are some tried-and-true strategies for financial planner marketing.

1. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

Before creating a marketing plan to grow your client base, it’s helpful to first establish your starting point. A SWOT analysis can help you understand your firm’s strengths and weaknesses, and where opportunities for improvement and growth may lie.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Who are your biggest competitors and how do they market their services?
• What are your strengths/weaknesses, relative to your competitors?
• Who is your ideal client, and what type of buyer persona do they project?
• What message does your branding convey, and why should prospective clients care?

Knowing your client is perhaps the most important part of a self-evaluation. If you don’t know who you’re trying to help or what their biggest pain points are, it’s likely going to be more difficult to fine-tune your marketing message. Or determine where to project that message online so that it’s seen by the right people.

It’s also a good idea to evaluate any tools you might already have in place that you plan to incorporate. That might include a company website, blog, email list or social media accounts.

When evaluating these tools, ask yourself how consistent and cohesive your branding is across each one. Also, consider how user-friendly they are. A website that takes too long to load, for example, could lead people to click away and miss out on the message you’re trying to share.

2. Establish Marketing Goals

Once you’ve done the initial groundwork, you can move on to setting goals for marketing your financial planning business. You may start with some broad goals, and then narrow them down to make them specific and actionable.

Here are some examples of what that might look like.

Once you have a specific, well-defined goal in mind, you can then lay out a plan for achieving it. For instance, let’s say you’re hoping to get your first 1,000 followers on TikTok. Your marketing action steps might include spending time on the app to get a better understanding of what type of content gets the most views, likes or shares. You’d then brainstorm a list of content ideas and create a consistent schedule for posting.

The most effective goals follow a blueprint and timeline that you can follow and adjust as needed.

3. Develop Your Content Strategy

There are a number of different types of content you might produce when marketing your financial planning services. The options include:

• Short-form videos
• Long-form videos
• Social media content
• Webinars or online workshops
• Blog posts
• Informational articles
• White papers or in-depth research papers
• Email newsletters
• Podcasts

Having so many choices can be a little overwhelming if you’re just getting started with your financial planning marketing. You could focus on one type of content to start, then branch out to try your hand at other forms of content. For example, when it comes to social media channels, 68% of advisors market their services using LinkedIn. Only half do so on Facebook.

One thing to keep in mind regardless of the type of content you’re creating is search engine optimization or SEO. SEO encompasses several techniques. But what it comes down to is this: Making content that can be easily found in search engines.

With so many people using online search to access financial information and connect with financial planners and advisors, spending time learning about SEO can be a worthwhile investment. You may also consider hiring an SEO expert. They can evaluate your website or marketing content, and offer advice on how to improve it.

Remember that any content marketing you do reflects your branding and should illustrate your unique value proposition. The message you send to prospective clients should be consistent and immediately tell them what it is you bring to the table. Prospects may need to be told what you can do for them multiple times to be convinced to try your services.

4. Invest in Marketing Automation

In addition to lead referrals, SmartAsset AMP can also help financial advisors build on their marketing efforts. The platform includes automated, personalized texting outreach to prospective clients, as well as automated email nurture campaigns to help you keep up with prospects who need a longer sales cycle. With dedicated support, you can improve your overall marketing ROI and get on track to reaching your growth goals.

Marketing automation can also make follow-up more consistent across your pipeline. Instead of relying on manual reminders or one-off outreach, advisors can use automated campaigns to stay in front of prospects after an initial introduction, share relevant information and encourage the next step when the prospect is ready. That can be especially useful for leads who are interested but not prepared to schedule a meeting right away, since ongoing communication helps keep the relationship warm without requiring constant manual effort.

5. Leverage Existing Audiences to Market Your Business

Creating your own website and maintaining social media channels or an email newsletter are all ways to get your brand out there and build an audience. But the reality is that doing all of those things yourself can be time-consuming. And it may take a little while for your efforts to begin bearing fruit.

If you don’t have the means to outsource some of those activities, or you’re not yet seeing the kind of results that you’d like, you might consider looking into opportunities to leverage an existing audience as part of your marketing plan. For example, that might include:

• Being a guest on a podcast that has an established following
• Writing a guest article for a popular website whose readers represent your target client base
• Taking part in an online webinar or workshop as part of an expert panel
• Getting quoted as an expert in media outlets, which can help build your credibility

Collaborating and forming partnerships with other financial professionals or publications in the financial space can help put your advisory practice in the spotlight and keep it top of mind for potential clients in your target market. Even if it’s only for a moment, you may still be able to reap significant benefits from the extra exposure.

6. Host In-person Events

While there are myriad ways to market your business online, don’t discount the potential impact of hosting live events like seminars, workshops or the occasional lunch-and-learn. These types of events can bring you face-to-face with prospective clients so you have a chance to demonstrate your unique value proposition. According to the Broadridge survey, 70% of advisors who have hosted live events had success generating leads from those offerings.

Live events don’t need to be exclusively geared toward attracting new clients, though. Consider hosting events for existing clients, as well. Events like food or wine tastings, family days, golf or tennis clinics can show your appreciation for your current clients and help you build stronger relationships with them. In turn, these clients may be more likely to refer friends and family to you in the future.

7. Build Centers of Influence

Center of influence marketing can bring more referrals your way from prospects who are interested in what you have to offer. A center of influence is someone in your professional network who serves a client base that’s similar to yours and is adjacent to financial planning. For example, a CPA or estate planning attorney might refer their clients to you who are looking for tax planning or estate planning advice.

What’s key to remember about center of influence marketing is that these relationships function best when the person you’re connecting with serves a similar client base, and when referrals move both ways. In other words, you can’t expect to take without giving something back. So, you should be prepared to repay any referrals you receive in kind when it’s appropriate to do so.

8. Track What’s Working (and What’s Not)

Marketing as a financial planner may have ups and downs. It’s important to focus your time, energy and money on things that produce results. Keeping track of each strategy you implement and measuring results month to month can offer some insight into what you’re doing well, where you may need to adjust and what you might want to spend less time on.

Some of the key performance indicators you might track include:

• Website visits
• Social shares
• New followers
• New email list subscribers if you’re trying email marketing
• Number of press mentions

The most important metric, of course, is conversions. The best and most effective marketing strategies are the ones that help you to gain a steady stream of new clients. If you’re spending time and money on something that isn’t helping you to get those valuable leads, you may want to dial back your focus in that area.

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Bottom Line

Marketing a financial planning business usually means going through some trial and error. Taking time to research different tactics, understand your clients and hone your brand message can increase your chances of seeing success at a comfortable pace. It’s important to find a system that works for you and tools that can help you achieve your firm’s goals.

Tips for Growing Your Advisory Business

• 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.
• Social media is a critical element in any online marketing plan. Developing an effective approach for social media marketing means knowing where prospective clients typically spend their time online. Identifying the channels they visit the most can help you better shape your social media content and messaging. If you’re unsure where your clients spend their time, sending out a simple survey is an easy way to find out.

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