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As we finish out 2022, take a moment to assess your business and marketing strategy to see if it’s on track. Are you still trying to achieve the same goals for your financial advisory firm? Are you still targeting the same audience of ideal clients? Are the marketing tactics you used this year working to bring in new business? It might be time for an update, and now is the time to get your plan into gear.
Here are some points to consider when planning your marketing strategy for 2023.
Assess your 2023 goals
One of Stephen R. Covey’s famous seven habits is, “Begin with the End in Mind.” The first step to planning an effective marketing strategy is to define what you want to achieve in your business. What are your goals? What do you hope to accomplish? How have your objectives changed since this time last year? Once you have a clear idea of where you’d like to be by the end of 2023, you can develop a plan and map out a strategy to get there.
Next, look at your marketing results from 2022. What worked and what didn’t? What worked a little but might work better with some tweaking? Is your email list growing or shrinking? Are you continually attracting new, qualified leads and converting a percentage of them into paying clients? Were your events well attended? If they weren’t, what went wrong? If you lost clients to other financial advisory firms in 2022, what could you have done to keep them onboard? On the flip side, did you attract less-than-ideal clients, and if so, what about your marketing message needs to be adjusted?
Finally, think about your budget and resources. How much can you afford to spend on marketing? Do you have the time, skills, and staff to execute an effective marketing strategy? What results and return on investment are you expecting, and in what time frame? These are important factors to consider as you embark on your marketing plan for 2023.
Prioritizing your marketing
It is essential to make marketing a priority to attract new clients and grow your business. The good news is that you can take some simple steps to prioritize your marketing, starting with careful planning.
Marketing your firm can feel like a daunting task. There are so many moving parts – from social media to content creation to client events – and trying to keep up with it all can be overwhelming. That’s why it’s important to prioritize planning and make marketing a part of your routine business processes.
Plan your weeks so that you have dedicated time for marketing activities. This might mean setting aside time each month to work on marketing tasks or batching content creation during breaks in between meeting blocks. The more support you have, the less time you’ll have to commit to this; however, your input is still integral to your marketing plan’s effectiveness. When you prioritize marketing, you’ll see its impact on your bottom line.
Marketing to current clients
Building relationships with your clients is essential to sustaining and growing your business. It’s much easier to retain a happy client than to sign a new one. But you should never take your current clients for granted. Excellent service and client communication are keys to long-term marketing success.
The way to build lasting relationships is by staying in touch with your clients, offering continuous value, and keeping them updated on your firm with a personalized approach. Take the time to review your client files in your CRM. This will help you identify clients who may have been neglected and could benefit from a personal touch.
By taking these steps, you ensure that your marketing efforts not only strengthen relationships with your current clients but also enhance the likelihood that they will refer their friends and family to you. Remember, ideal clients tend to know more ideal clients.
Refine your marketing messages and processes
Financial advisors who don’t market their services successfully struggle to get new clients. Having a fixed marketing strategy is not enough; advisors need to periodically assess and refine their marketing messages and processes to ensure they are still effective. This can be done by setting clear goals and measuring metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, and appointment bookings. Regularly refining your marketing efforts ensures that your business is always moving forward, just as you would with your client’s financial plans!
Part of this process is considering the target audience for your marketing. Are you focused on reaching the right people? Who are the ideal clients you are trying to engage, and do they differ from your current client base? What are their needs, wants, and biggest concerns? How can you effectively convey through your marketing that you are the right advisor to meet their needs? These are the things you must keep in mind as you develop your marketing plan.
It’s important that your marketing processes are well-defined and efficient. Prospective clients should be able to understand your messaging easily and feel confident about working with you. This involves clearly communicating your business processes and client onboarding procedures. Doing so will set the right expectations for prospective clients and make it more likely that they’ll choose to work with you.
Marketing your firm in 2023
Marketing is constantly changing in the digital age, so keep a close watch on your strategies. Will your plan keep you on track to where you want to go? If not, are you prepared to change course? Carefully planning, regularly assessing, and refining your marketing will help ensure that you’re always focused on generating the best results possible in 2023 and beyond.
Crystal Lee Butler, MBA is the owner of Crystal Marketing Solutions, a full-service marketing agency dedicated to working specifically with independent financial advisors. Since 2011, she’s helped financial advisors cut through the noise to attract ideal clients and grow their businesses using proven strategies that we use with our clients every day. As your “Chief Marketing Officer,” our goal is to help you grow your business and put time back on your calendar so that you can focus on what you do best: serving your clients.
Read more articles by Crystal Lee Butler
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
