How Do I Grow My Network as a Financial Advisor?

It costs financial advisors an average of $3,119 to gain one new client.

83% of that cost, or about $2,600 per acquisition, is from the time a financial advisor spends on marketing instead of working with their clients.

That means that only 17% is going to generate and convert leads.

Investing in your financial advisor marketing doesn’t have to be this inefficient.

In this blog, we weigh the pros and cons of common ways to grow your network.

We also explore more effective financial advisor growth strategies.

Keep reading to learn more.

What Marketing Challenges Do Financial Advisors Face?

As a financial advisor, you’re great at managing wealth, but handling your own marketing often results in overwhelm.

There are just so many different marketing strategies out there, not to mention compliance issues.

Here are a few of the common problems financial advisors experience when creating a marketing campaign:

• What’s this all about? In order to create a successful marketing campaign, there's a handful of questions that you need to know the answers to. Who is my target market? How can I reach them? What will make them care about my service? What will make them choose me over one of my competitors?

• Am I doing this right? Understanding what tools are available isn’t enough. You also need to know how to make the best use of them. For example, you could spend an afternoon learning how to create a postcard on Canva, but it could take several attempts at making and distributing postcards to find a design that attracts clients. 

• Is this violating the rules of FINRA or SEC? The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) monitors advertisements for financial advisors to ensure they meet the requirements enforced by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). These regulations are meant to prevent misleading information, unbalanced advice, and other unethical practices. They’re in place for good reason, so it's important not to violate them 

How Do I Promote Myself as a Financial Advisor?

Many financial advisors promote themselves through some combination of attending networking events and running traditional and digital advertisements.

Here are some of the pros and cons of each method: 

Networking Events

Pros: The best networking events for financial advisors allow you to begin multiple relationships with a strong face-to-face connection.

Cons: Getting results from networking takes a large investment up front, and 49% of people don’t have the time to consistently attend trade shows and referral group meetings. Relationships don’t always pan out, either, and many referral partners will want leads from you without giving any in return. On top of that, it could be a challenge to find great networking events that are focused on your specific target market.

Traditional Advertising

Pros: Traditional advertising methods like print, radio, and television ads still have great reach. In fact, 92% of American adults listen to the radio weekly. 

Cons: The big challenge with traditional advertising methods is cost. First, you need to create a high-performing radio or TV commercial, which could require a few market tests and high production costs. Then you need to pay to deliver those ads to your specific market. This brings up the second challenge–limited targeting options. Of course, you can pick the radio or TV station you think will generate the most leads, but music (or TV) tastes can only tell you so much about a person. So you could be targeting people who don’t fit your ideal audience profile, which would result in wasted marketing budget.

Digital Marketing

Pros: Digital marketing tools have some of the best targeting methods available. You can connect with people who would most likely want to work with you. For example, Facebook ads can break your audience down by age, income, location, job title, and so much more. Digital marketing can also help you build a prospecting email list so that you can nurture your leads over time to book meetings and win new clients.

Cons: Creating all of the content you’ll need for an effective digital marketing strategy is a challenge, especially for busy advisors. Many advisors waste a ton of time and money trying to do everything themselves and getting very few results for their efforts. This is where a platform like Snappy Kraken can help. 

So, what’s the best method for you to try?

You could potentially see results by using any of these methods consistently.

However, the best strategy makes use of digital tools to reach leads that are already interested in what you have to offer.

Let’s dive in.

How To Get Leads as a Financial Advisor

Financial advisors should use content marketing to get more leads.

Why?

Because financial advisors' ideal clients are those who are already interested in the services they provide.

Here’s how it works; when someone has a question about their finances, you want your content to show up as the answer–in Google search results, on social media, and in their email inbox.

This drives awareness of the benefits of having a financial advisor, and by having your content link back to your website, those readers are building trust with you, potentially deciding to work with you instead of someone else.     

Good content—like the kind included in our Cold to Gold Framework—should accomplish some or all of the following:

• Get you noticed
• Earn contact information
• Qualify leads
• Build credibility
• Start conversations
• Strengthen relationships
• Win clients

But creating content—and connecting it to the rest of your digital marketing strategy—takes up your valuable time to learn and produce on a regular basis.

This can leave financial advisors choosing between working with existing clients or promoting themselves; they either sacrifice the level of service they provide, or they don’t grow their business.

How to Get Clients to Invest with You: Snappy Kraken

Digital marketing for financial advisors doesn’t have to take more time than it’s worth.

That’s where Snappy Kraken comes in.

We make it possible to grow your business while continuing to provide quality service.

Our done-for-you content is just that—it’s made by us, for you.

While most of our content is already complete, there are opportunities for you to add your own flair, like making a video based on one of our scripts.

We also automate your campaigns so that you don’t need to invest more than an hour each month on marketing.  

Here’s how we help you reach more people and connect with more clients:

• Content reviewed by FINRA
• Scheduled social media posting
• Built-in analytics
• Flat monthly membership fee

Ready to see Snappy Kraken in action?

Schedule a demo today!

And if you're looking for a completely done-for-you marketing service, where each month everything is taken care of from content creation to email marketing, social media posts to SEO, and so much more, then Freedom360 is the right solution for you. Click here to learn more.