We often hear from financial advisors who are frustrated with their internet marketing campaign. These advisors have read articles on the subject, added a blog section to their website, and assigned some social media and email tasks to their assistants. And yet they aren’t getting the results they wanted. What’s going on?
You might think some complicated, behind-the-scenes dynamics are preventing these advisors from finding success. But in nearly every case, we find that the problem boils down to one (or even all) of these three common mistakes.
Mistake Number One: You’re not engaging your audience. A lot of financial advisors blog enthusiastically about their financial viewpoints and philosophies, but without stopping to consider the interests of their audience. When creating content for your blog, first stop to ask yourself:
- Who is my target audience?
- What are their financial concerns?
- What information do they need?
- What questions do they have?
- How much do they understand finance, insurance and investing?
One common problem is that advisors write very detailed, informative blogs that only other financial experts would understand! In other words, the information is so complex that it sails over the heads of the average reader. Another common problem is failing to assess the demographic. A younger person probably does not care about Social Security issues, while an older person might not be concerned with the cost of raising children.
In many cases, a campaign needs an expert eye to catch these errors. If you’re experiencing disappointing results, such as low open rates on your emails or few website viewers, a marketing professional can often identify areas of concern and fix them. Sometimes it’s as simple as changing blog titles or email subject lines in order to appeal to the right audience! Other times, you need to revamp your approach to content.
Mistake Number Two: The campaign lacks consistency. Knowing what to do is only half of the battle. We often find that advisors have done their research, and have a pretty solid idea of how internet marketing should work. However, campaigns fail when there is a lack of consistency.
Remember that at its core, internet marketing is communication with an audience. If a stranger started a conversation with you, but then walked away in the middle of it, it would be hard to pick up that same conversation one month later. You might not even remember this person! And yet, many advisors do the online equivalent through their campaigns.
When you design an internet marketing strategy, don’t forget to set a schedule and stick to it. You need to post blogs on a very regular basis (we recommend four times per month). You should be posting on social media consistently, and reaching out to your target audience via email. Your campaign should strive to strike a delicate balance between “enough” communication, which keeps your audience engaged, and “too much”, which could annoy your audience.
Mistake Number Three: Your assistant is managing your campaign. Behind the scenes of any marketing campaign, numerous professionals have come together to lend their unique skills. At any given time, we have SEO experts, professional writers, graphic artists, and several more talented people contributing their abilities to a marketing strategy. Each cog in the wheel does their own job to keep the campaign rolling along. That’s a lot of responsibility to dump on the shoulders of an office assistant! And yet, many advisors have asked their secretaries to become internet marketing experts overnight.
To offer another analogy: You might hire a very skilled person to clean and organize your home. But you wouldn’t ask them to then list the home for sale, find potential buyers, mange various legal issues, and process the transaction of money. You would hire a local realty company for that! Asking your office assistant to act as your entire marketing team is like asking your housekeeper to become a real estate broker, attorney, and escrow agent overnight.
If your internet marketing campaign has failed to yield satisfactory results, you’re probably making one or more of the above mistakes. The good news about marketing is that it’s never too late to start over and get it right! Once you identify the areas of concern, you can move forward by making the right corrections to your strategy. Call our office, and we will be happy to discuss your campaign strategy, make adjustments, and get you back on the right track to internet marketing success.