“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.” — Michael Porter
If strategy is mostly about choices, then you can’t look at a marketing campaign and “see” strategy.
You only see the effects of a strategy.
We believe marketing teams should be public about their decision-making processes.
It would go a long way in the financial industry.
It would help others understand the strategy and the thousands of micro-decisions made along the way.
Announcing: Behind The Campaign
This is a new series, presented by Snappy Kraken, where we’ll pull in experts from our team and have them walk through the thinking and methodologies behind our financial adviser campaigns.
You’ll get to see strategy taking place.
We already research and share performance results in our yearly State of Digital and Half-Time reports (tens of thousands of campaigns launched!).
We’ve shared the metrics.
Now it’s time to share the METHODS.
Enjoy.
The Campaign:
Title: Retiring in Uncertain Times
Type: Lead Generation
Description: We’re experiencing tremendous volatility and uncertainty due to a recession, pandemic, and weird bear market that’s over, but maybe not completely over. Pre-retirees and early-stage retirees are making critical decisions that will impact the trajectory of their retirement amid once-in-a-generation uncertainty. This campaign is designed to offer guidance and highlight the value of advice.
Target Audience: HNW investors within 5 years before or after retirement.
Primary Outcome/Action: Email opt-in by downloading lead magnet.
Secondary Outcome/Actions: Asking a question, requesting an appointment, sharing, forwarding email, etc.
Lead Magnet Title: Retiring in Uncertain Times: The “Dos” and “Don’ts” to Help Safeguard Your Future
The Guests:
- Patrice Kelly, CCO at Snappy Kraken
- Francesca McLin, CPO at Snappy Kraken
- Robert Sofia, CEO at Snappy Kraken
The Takeaways:
- The first BIG hurdle in marketing? Getting attention.
- Great marketing stands out and makes you take notice (and take action).
- What you “see” is not strategy, it’s the outcome of strategy.
- If it’s too familiar, it gets ignored.
- A reply to your marketing–even a seemingly negative one–is a business opportunity.
- Replies are opportunities to continue conversations with prospective clients.
- To market effectively, you have to detach yourself from your personal preferences.
- Marketing teams have to make specific, strategic decisions related to imagery, font choice, and color palette for campaigns.
- Good marketing is about simultaneously opening and closing curiosity loops.
- For every curiosity loop you close, you open another one that takes people through a journey interacting with your marketing and your business.
- If people think they already know the outcome, they tune out.
- Curiosity, emotion, problems, and solutions: these things hook people well before your brand enters the picture.
- Writing an email? Ask yourself “What will get people to open this?”
- Creating a social post? Ask yourself “What will get people to stop scrolling and get curious?”
- When creating a campaign, think about a prospect’s journey through the whole thing.
- Branded content is a lot more important in the middle and bottom of the funnel.
- A single campaign isn’t an entire marketing funnel. It’s just one step in a longer JOURNEY
- Marketers go with gut, experience, knowledge…and DATA.
- You will surprise yourself with your own marketing…one of our top-performing campaigns (in terms of replies, leads, and low cost per lead), had a small number of advisers saying “I don’t like this campaign.”
- Timely topics + Interesting content + Attention-grabbing Imagery can be a very effective combination.
- Emotion/Rationality should not be at odds in the marketing process.
- Successful marketers set their personal preferences aside.
- Successful marketers seek discomfort.
Want to see more insights and trends?
We pulled data from the actual performance of 12,852 active digital marketing campaigns run by individual financial advisers and firms throughout the United States during the first half of 2020. Watch the full presentation and download your free 14-page PDF report here.