Financial Advisor Marketing: Learn How to Attract and Retain Clients for Success

​Fact: Only one-third of retirees work with a financial planner. How does a financial advisor take advantage of this marketing opportunity? Financial advisors can help clients navigate retirements, life changes, and other financial concerns. So why is it so hard to acquire more clients? Why is there so much financial advisor marketing required to win them over? First, imagine yourself in your prospect’s position.

Relating to Your Future Clients

Most people are reluctant to meet with financial advisors, the estate planning attorneys who work with them, and insurance agents. While your prospects may appreciate the consequences of not having a sound retirement plan, at the same time, they may not understand the details. They will hesitate to act on their concerns if this is the case.

Your first step to marketing as a financial planner is to bridge the knowledge gap between you. It’s how you build trust. Start by putting yourself in their shoes. When you take your car to your mechanic, for instance, it’s because you don’t know what’s wrong, much less what to do about it. You rely on the mechanic’s years of experience to identify the problem and the solution. In the meantime, you worry about what the “fix” will cost.

This, advisors, is how your prospect feels.

Attracting Your Ideal Customers

To grow revenue, a financial planner must build a client base. While much has changed in financial advisor marketing over the years, one thing has not. The most effective way to engage your target audience is to get in front of as many of them as possible.

Why is that? Because there’s nothing quite as personal or capable of building trust as meeting someone in person. Sharing your experiences and expertise, and educating your audience helps build a relationship and solidifies you as an industry leader. If they are looking for someone to trust with their finances, they will want to know and trust you.

And the ideal way to build trust as a financial advisor is to host financial seminars, educational workshops, and webinars.

Among an audience of their peers in a comfortable location, your prospects are much more likely to focus on your presentation. In this group setting, you can answer their financial planning questions and tell them what the “fix” is – the same as your trusty mechanic does.

Deploying a Proven Strategy

Since the mid-1990s, top-producing advisors have harnessed the power of financial seminars and educational workshops to attract qualified prospects and close sales. Though a relatively new addition to your financial advisor marketing strategies, webinars are a valuable in-person way to meet even more people – from the comfort of their homes.

Prospects want to hear from an advisor in a neutral environment with others similar to themselves. And by ensuring they are comfortable, educated, and have trust in you, they will be ready to schedule an appointment with you.

Choosing the Right Event

So which type of financial advisor marketing event is right for you? There are some pros and cons to each. Financial seminars are proven to put you in front of highly qualified, motivated prospects – consistently. And they’ve been around for almost 30 years, so they have withstood the test of time. Getting in front of a group of qualified prospects to discuss your expertise and experience over a nice meal encourages your audience to act. And by act, we mean to set up an appointment with you where you can convert them into prospects.

Financial advisor workshops provide a more education-based approach. Consider the trust and respect you can build during an extended event on a specific topic of interest to your audience. Not only will your attendees be educated on a topic they are interested in, but they will also see you as an industry leader. And the best part? All of our educational workshops are turnkey! Pick the topic that interests your audience, and you get the plug-and-play presentations and follow-up material. What could be easier?

Lastly, don’t forget webinars. Their increase in popularity as a convenient, comfortable option to learn about financial matters hasn’t waned. It continues to increase. 95% of marketers report webinars as a key part of their marketing plan. And over half consider the quality of leads generated from webinars to be “above average.”

Not only can you create webinars for your audience that draw them in and help them convert. But the incredible thing about webinars is that they can be run with your other in-person events and be ongoing. What does that mean for your firm? These webinars continue to run and attract an audience – even when you aren’t actively teaching. That means you educate, win the trust, and convert more prospects while doing other things.

Anticipating Client Needs

Whenever you plan for a financial advisor marketing event – a financial seminar, an educational workshop, or a webinar – it’s imperative that you start by looking at what’s most important to your audience. If you choose a topic for your presentation that interests you or that you most want to teach, you could miss out on valuable opportunities. Always maintain focus on your audience and what they are looking for. It’s critical to engage the most motivated prospects.

What if you aren’t sure what they want? Test it out! Offer your audience a few different workshops, live or webinar, to see what they respond to most. You can’t go wrong when a motivated, qualified audience asks for it!

Event Financial Advisor Marketing Works

When it comes to financial advisor marketing options, you have a lot to choose from. Digital ads, website promotions, social media posts – the list continues. What sets financial seminars, educational workshops, and webinars apart from the rest is your ability to convert more prospects because the quality of your marketing is superior. Consider how much harder it is to convince someone with an ad explaining your qualifications in a digital ad versus an in-person educational event where they can meet you, get to know you, and learn from you.

Are your current financial advisor marketing solutions generating the results you want? If not, you can trust LeadingResponse to help you reach your goals because not all providers are created equal. LeadingResponse has the industry knowledge, experience, and expertise to get the right prospects in front of you at the right time. And our financial advisor marketing solutions are proven to produce more qualified prospects and appointments for financial advisors than online, broadcast, or social media advertising. Let’s get started.