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Nearly all benchmarking studies report near-zero organic growth for independent advisory firms after what their clients have earned in the market (or where firms earn only a few percentage points). Hmm). Given this statistic, we know it’s time for a renewed focus on marketing.
Opportunity for our industry to be more proactive and adopt the latest digital marketing strategies and approaches that have proven to work well in other industries (and even our smaller industry). It is clear that there is Although I wasn’t born in the financial services industry, my experience includes over 20 years of experience in consumer and brand marketing for some of the nation’s largest media companies. new client.
The wealth management landscape has changed dramatically in just a few short years. Advisory firms now face a much more challenging environment on multiple fronts when trying to drive organic growth. In the current macroeconomic environment, consumers are slow to make decisions amid rising inflation, rising interest rates, and market volatility (which is expected to continue). They are waiting to see what happens next before making a financial decision, such as hiring you. Meanwhile, competition has also increased sharply in recent years, with an influx of low-touch, low-cost financial his planners and wealth his managers promising consumers more for less.
Unfortunately, traditional referral activity is not enough to compensate for customer churn. Nor can it replace the assets that customers lose as they age and pay their retirement benefits. Both trends dampen advisors’ organic growth, even though such growth is a key factor in weathering the storm.
Organic growth is a science that requires a structured, methodical, data-driven approach, rather than a “build it and it happens” endeavor. Also, if the numbers don’t back them up, we may have to leave behind what we thought was the absolute truth.
How to approach D2C growth
A strong digital client lead generation engine requires three key ingredients rooted in a “test and learn” approach.
First, your company needs to refine your message and target audience. Are you targeting the right people? And are you doing so with a targeted message? The market for wealth advisors is large, so start with a clear audience (which can be expanded) This reduces the risk of spending a lot of money on something that might go wrong.
Second, your company should be open to testing a wide range of sources for collecting digital leads, including paid search (search engine advertising). paid social (advertisements on social media); CTV (advertisements displayed within streaming content); retargeting (advertising to site visitors who did not become leads); deliver content). Nurture campaigns are a great way to amortize the cost of lead generation marketing because you’re already paying your leads, even if they don’t convert. Sending an email to these leads for a fraction of the cost can help you find new clients and reduce your cost per lead. Examine the results of these campaigns to see what works , and can optimally allocate resources to those channels.
Next, your company should conduct audience testing. Here, we focus on the benefits you bring to your target market and uncover the key messages that will successfully get investors to seek you out. This can be achieved by creating a “look-alike modeling”. This is how we create groups of people who look like our current clients and find them through the aforementioned campaigns. If you don’t have the resources to create a lookalike model, you can take advantage of audiences already created on various social media platforms. For example, Meta has an audience of art collectors, while LinkedIn can target doctors, for example.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, your company should develop an internal sales team that can follow up on leads and convert them into clients. It may not be big enough to hire a new person to do it, but someone in your rank can dedicate a portion of your time to it by quickly calling leads, evaluating them, and possibly closing the business. People who are willing to contact you are usually high quality leads. If they aren’t followed up quickly, they may quickly lose interest and move on. In other words, you have missed an opportunity. Too many of these opportunities lost can significantly reduce his ROI in marketing.
When using these channels, clients may or may not be aware of your company. In other words, the client experience you provide at the beginning of the relationship matters. In fact, the first six months are key to creating satisfied and loyal clients. It starts with onboarding. What is the process for that? Can you immediately start experiencing the benefits of a planning and investment process that is digital, seamless, frictionless, and has minimal paperwork? If not, be sure to address this. please.
It definitely takes real work and investment to get your organic marketing muscle back. But in our experience, building an organic growth engine can drive business value and attract the best advisors in the industry – people who want to grow with you – to your company. .
And ultimately, organic growth could emerge in an even stronger position as market cycles pick up.
Gary Foodim is Chief Marketing Officer at Mercer Advisors and a former senior manager at Condé Nast.
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