New client acquisition is essential to grow your advisory business. But, there isn’t one right way to do it. Effective strategies can include cold calling, digital marketing and in-person networking. To expand your business, it’s important to know which approaches to include in your marketing playbook.
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How to Get More Clients to Build Your Client Base
Acquiring new clients requires a commitment to identifying tactics and strategies that can actually produce results. By doing so, you can help avoid a scenario where you’re wasting valuable time and resources during the lead acquisition or sales processes.
In fact, a 2024 study by Broadridge breaks down these key benefits from implementing targeted client acquisition and marketing strategies for advisory firms:
- They generate 168% more leads each month
- They onboard 50% more clients every year
- They are 42% more likely to convert a social media lead into a client
- They are 34% more confident in their business growth
There are many ways to find new clients. Oftentimes, the right strategy depends on what type of clients you’re targeting and how much money you have in your marketing budget.
Additionally, there are ways to automate and outsource these services. SmartAsset AMP can help you expand your firm’s AUM by automating lead generation. It’s an end-to-end marketing solution for advisors that delivers high-intent potential clients right to you. Plus, with a single subscription, you can receive live connections to validated referrals, automated text outreach, email nurture campaigns and more. Here are five client acquisition strategies that can lead to positive growth for your advisory business.
1. Use Your Time Wisely
Relationships lie at the heart of what you do as an advisor and the stronger they are, the better. If you want to acquire new clients, it’s important to first turn your attention to the ones you already have.
Spending more time with existing clients can help you nurture your connection while gaining a better understanding of their needs and goals. Fostering stronger relationships with your clients can result in more leads if they’re more inclined to refer you to their friends, family members and coworkers.
Once you get those referrals you can apply the same strategy to prospects. For example, if you typically offer a 60-minute initial consultation, you might decide to extend that to 90 minutes. Or you might offer one to two 30-minute follow-up meetings.
The more time that you’re able to spend with a prospect, the more opportunity you have to convey your value. You may also have a stronger starting point for building trust and keeping clients engaged.
Furthermore, creating efficiencies in your business can also free up more of your time to devote to deepening relationships with current clients and prospecting for new ones. That’s where SmartAsset AMP can help. The platform’s Outreach Automation Tool help you streamline your outreach efforts using automated text messaging and email campaigns. Meanwhile, AMP’s Next Call feature creates a call list that automatically updates as you contact leads. This helps you keep track of whom to call and when, saving you time and energy.
2. Expand Your Digital Footprint
The internet has made it incredibly easy for prospects to seek out and compare advisors online. If you don’t have an online presence, you could be missing a huge opportunity to acquire clients. At a minimum, it’s wise to have an advisor website that showcases your background, education and experience. Your website may be the first contact a prospect has with you, so it’s important for your site to be visually appealing and easy to navigate.
If you just have a website, consider how you can expand your reach to increase visibility. That might include creating email marketing campaigns, launching a blog or podcast or becoming more active on social media. Every piece you add to your digital footprint puzzle is a chance to connect with prospective clients.
One important way in which advisors can build an online presence is through SEO. This involves optimizing their firm’s website to meet the technical and content requirements that search engines like Google use to rank sites. SEO best practices can also help advisors improve their visibility in local markets or other areas where they want to attract clients.
3. Showcase Your Expertise
People seek out financial advisors because they need their expertise and knowledge. With so many advisors to choose from, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. That’s where highlighting your specific knowledge and skills comes into play. You can do that by creating content that emphasizes your status as an expert. The type of content you produce and where you share it can depend on what type of prospects you’re hoping to attract.
For example, if you’re interested in acquiring high net-worth clients in their 50s or 60s then you might focus on writing long-form articles, white papers or blog content that speaks to their unique financial planning needs. On the other hand, if you cater to 30-something married couples you might build your content marketing strategy around TikTok or YouTube instead.
The goal is to create valuable content that your ideal prospect might be searching for in places where they spend the most time online.
4. Go In-Depth With Financial Planning
Changing the scope of the advice you offer is another way to potentially acquire new clients while retaining existing ones. If you’re currently focused on just one or two planning areas, you may adapt your strategy to go broader and deeper. Rather than concentrating on portfolio management, for instance, you might expand your services to include retirement planning or tax planning.
The more comprehensive your advice is, the more prospects may be inclined to look to you for the financial solutions you need. And your existing clients may appreciate being able to come to you for in-depth financial planning as they navigate different life changes.
Some advisors take it a step further, offering complimentary financial planning upfront as a way to demonstrate their value and differentiate themselves from the competition. This can be especially helpful when a lead already has an advisor or is actively interviewing candidates to work with, said TJ Tamura, a financial advisor at Capitol Planning Group in Sacramento, California.
“And a lot of times, I’ll tell people … ‘Just so you know, we do create financial plans complimentary, free of charge, that you can compare with the other advisor,'” Tamura told SmartAsset. “And I have closed some business with people that said, ‘Well, why not? I should get two free financial plans.’ And then after we go through discussions, there’s a lot of different value that we bring compared to other advisors.”
5. Make Planning a Family Affair
When serving current clients, consider how you might be able to continue your relationship with them for the long term. If they have children or grandchildren, for example, there may be an opportunity for you to add them to your client roster.
That could mean expanding the range of services you offer to accommodate different age groups. So, if you’re used to focusing on retirement planning for older clients, you might think about offering planning services that address the needs of their older millennial children or Gen Z grandkids.
Again, it all comes back to building trust so that your clients are more likely to continue working with you. If you can do that effectively, that could open the door to working with other family members who could benefit from your services.
Bottom Line
In an ideal world, you’d have a steady stream of clients flowing to you all the time, but the reality is that getting new clients takes some work on your part. With so many client acquisition strategies to choose from, figuring out what works best for your business will help you make the most of your time and effort.
Financial Advisor Marketing Tips
- Let us help you grow your business. SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) is a holistic marketing service financial advisors can use for client lead generation and automated marketing. With a single subscription, you can receive high-intent investor leads and get the tools you need to convert them. Sign up for a free demo to explore how SmartAsset AMP can help you expand your practice’s marketing operation. Get started today.
- Increase your visibility online. When people need a financial advisor, they typically go to one of two places: friends and family or an online search engine. If you haven’t searched for yourself, take time to do so and see what comes up. Setting up a website for your firm might not be as hard as you think, and the long-term benefits could be great.
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