A few years ago in 2014, I attended a small conference (a few hundred people) for financial advisors focusing on technology and solutions to grow their business.
Of course, industry solutions such as software companies (every kind you could imagine), legal experts (how not to get sued), insurance companies (appoint advisors), marketing and branding agencies, and just about every solution to help you run a financial services business was there. I had our conference displays set up, my marketing ‘talk’ ready to present, and I was ready to help advisors with solutions to help them to be ‘heard’ by prospects. Needless to say, I had my game face on and I was excited for the next two days.
Coming out of the industry as a financial advisor myself, I knew how ‘noisy’ it had become for advisors trying to be noticed, and for clients trying to find an advisor. Let’s call it information overload. What I witnessed at this conference was marketing and branding agencies worried about the ‘the look’ of the logo, the website, the overall branding but not necessarily the message the advisor was trying to portray. The agency focus was all about the ‘Wall Street Look’ that everyone tried to replicate.
Related: The Complexity of Attracting New Clients in Financial Services: The SEO Game Has Changed
Back then (and today) our goal was on the message the advisor wanted to share with clients. It was about the content and how it could help educate clients and prospects. Today we know it takes a lot more to be heard in a room full of marketing noise. You need always to be thinking about on which channel you’ll be heard. To make this clear, I am actually talking Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Social Ads, blog posts, newsletters, podcasts, etc. How do you break through the noise and be heard? By providing something your competitors don’t and by sharing content on all channels pointing out what makes you (or your services) different. People ‘channel surf’ while watching TV, look at websites and read and comment on social media all at the same time. It’s becoming more complex to market yourself, and you can only do it effectively by getting your message out to those that value it. Yes, they will decide if it’s of value to them, so be aware of the content and the channel.
My suggestion once you are ready to tackle how to stand out, bring something of value to your audience through your content. Educate, enlighten, and entertain by solving a problem your persona has. If you haven’t taken the time to investigate solutions offered to advisors by other blog writers on Iris, I challenge you. But remember that content marketing on all ‘channels’ must happen regularly and work together even if being provided by multiple vendors, that’s where the marketing technology (MarTech) comes in. It’s the only way to be heard in a room full of marketing noise.