In the rapidly evolving world of wealth management, effective marketing is key to attracting and converting leads into valuable clients. To drive business development and establish your firm as a leader in the industry, it’s essential to implement strategies that go beyond marketing basics. But we know that marketing is not enough. It is critical that marketing ties into business development and that the two efforts complement each other. In this blog post, we will identify seven best practices that can help you turn marketing into new business, increased referrals and increased assets from existing clients.
- Defining Your Target Audience:
To turn your marketing into growth, it’s important to clearly define your target audience. Consider what challenges and pain points your target clients feel to make sure your content is targeted, thus creating connection points with those who consume your content. These connection points can be the beginning of a relationship.
- Leveraging Digital Marketing Channels:
In today’s digital age, a robust online presence is essential for successful marketing and lead generation. Start by building an informative and user-friendly website with verbiage optimized for search engines (SEO). Utilize social media marketing, paid advertising and email campaigns to expand your reach and engage with potential clients. These digital platforms offer numerous opportunities to showcase your expertise and build relationships with your target audience.
- Make sure your CRM System is a well-oiled machine
As much as you may think you will remember to keep track of new business prospects, you will most likely forget them within weeks of an initial contact. The best way to keep track of a business development pipeline is to invest in a tech-forward CRM system to keep track of touch points, conversations, next steps and more.
- Follow up with personal outreach
Broad communications are a baseline. Where the rubber meets the road is personal follow-up. The best way to show intentionality behind outreach is to make it deliberate – for example, after sending a mass email to your audience with a new commentary, personally follow up with a phone call or personal email to ensure they saw the content and offer to go deeper over lunch.
- Offer Valuable Resources:
One effective way to capture leads is by offering valuable resources that require users to provide their contact information. Consider creating whitepapers, brochures, commentaries or webinars that address specific financial topics and offer practical insights. By exchanging these resources for contact details, you’ll not only build your email list but also establish yourself as an authority in the wealth management industry, enhancing your credibility and attracting potential clients.
- Implementing Lead Nurturing Strategies:
Converting leads into clients requires a systematic approach to nurturing relationships over time. Utilize email marketing and personal outreach to deliver personalized content, educational materials and success stories over time. Document everything in your CRM system and tailor your communication and content to address the specific needs and interests of your leads. By providing ongoing value and fostering engagement, you’ll build trust and establish yourself as a trusted advisor in the eyes of potential clients. It is also important that individual advisors follow up with clients after these materials are distributed to see if clients have any questions or need additional information.
- Mix Clients and Prospects in a Delicate and Tasteful Way:
Satisfied clients can be an invaluable source of new business. You may consider a series of events where clients are encouraged to bring a friend, where clients and prospects are able to meet and engage with each other. These scenarios are valuable in relationship building, which forms the foundation for any long-term engagement in wealth management. In fact, of all the business development tactics we’ve seen over the years, intimate dinner series are often the most effective.
Transforming your marketing efforts into successful business development leads requires a comprehensive and strategic approach and while marketing and business development are certainly different aspects of your business, they should absolutely go hand in hand.
Wealth Matters has guided RIA and wealth advisor clients through the marketing and growth process for more than a decade, and we’d be happy to discuss a strategy that may work for you.