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Going independent can offer freedom, flexibility and unlimited earning potential, but it puts the pressure of developing a marketing plan squarely on your shoulders. Marketing for independent financial advisors requires some strategic thinking – and budgeting – to ensure that your efforts generate the most impact. If you’re newly independent or thinking of going that route, there are some things you can do to set yourself up for marketing success.
Ready to grow your client base? SmartAsset AMP could help simplify your advisor marketing.
Why Marketing Matters for Independent Advisors
You’ve probably heard that if you build it, they will come. But it doesn’t always work that way. Financial services is a competitive industry, and if you’re not actively promoting your business, you may find that instead of a flood of new clients, you’re dealing with a trickle.
Marketing is something you can’t afford to skip if you want to:
- Build recognition and awareness of your advisory brand
- Establish yourself as a trusted and credible authority in the financial advisory space
- Connect with prospective clients in your target niche
- Be less reliant on word of mouth or referrals to attract new clients
Make no mistake, referrals are one of the most powerful drivers of growth for a thriving advisory practice. However, it’s never advisable to put all of your eggs in one basket or rely on any one source for client acquisition.
Challenges of Marketing for Independent Financial Advisors
Being an independent advisor can turn up the pressure where marketing is concerned, since outcomes are tied directly to the decisions you make. Some of the most common barriers to success include:
- Failing to set realistic, specific and actionable goals for marketing and promotion, or setting goals without establishing any reliable metrics for tracking them
- Not understanding who your target audience is and the type of marketing efforts they’re most likely to be responsive to
- Being unclear on your unique value proposition and what it is you have to offer to your clients
- Chasing trends without paying attention to the long game
- Being inconsistent and underestimating the value of utilizing technology tools to manage marketing tasks
- Failing to follow up on marketing efforts to gauge their effectiveness, or missing out on opportunities to promote your brand
- Attempting to handle everything yourself, rather than delegating marketing activities for which you lack the time, knowledge or skill set
- Assuming you don’t have time for marketing or that it can wait until your schedule is less cluttered
When it comes down to it, marketing and selling go hand in hand. If you struggle with the former, then you may do very little of the latter.
How to Market Yourself as an Independent Financial Advisor
There are a variety of strategies independent advisors can use to market themselves, both online and offline. What works for you may be less effective for another advisor, based on your geographic location, marketing budget and the types of clients you’re hoping to target.
With that in mind, here are some of the avenues you might consider when building out a marketing plan.
1. SEO
SEO or search engine optimization means optimizing your firm’s website so that it ranks higher in search engines. There are various aspects to SEO, including keywords and backlinks, but the gist is that the better your site is optimized, the more traffic it could bring in from web searches.
Once a visitor lands on your website, you have an opportunity to get them into your sales funnel by encouraging them to sign up for your lead magnet. A lead magnet is a free offering you provide to a prospective client in exchange for their email address. This allows you to send them your email newsletter, which is another part of the independent advisor marketing puzzle.
2. Email
Email marketing allows you to open the lines of communication with prospective clients and build trust. You can send out regular newsletters offering firm news and updates, sharing insights on the latest industry news and trends, dispensing helpful tips, and answering prospects’ most frequently asked questions.
That can help you build trust and spark interest in the services that you offer. It’s also an opportunity to guide prospects toward a specific action, such as visiting your website to read your latest blog post or getting in touch to schedule a free consultation.
3. Social Media
Social media can be invaluable to your marketing plan if you know who you want to target, which platforms they spend time on most often, and what kind of content they’re looking for.
Deciding which channels to focus on goes back to knowing who your clients are demographically and what kind of financial advice they’re most likely searching for. Some of the most popular social media platforms include:
- YouTube
- X.com
- TikTok
If you have limited time to devote to social media marketing, you might choose to focus on just one or two channels to start. That can shape the kind of content that you share.
Creating a social media content calendar, using AI to generate content and taking advantage of automated scheduler tools can help you get organized and save time when promoting your firm on social media.
4. Digital Ads
Online advertising can bring more prospective clients your way, but there are some nuances to know to build successful ad campaigns.
First, you’ll need to decide where you want your ads to be seen. Facebook and Google are two of the most popular options for purchasing advertising space, but that also makes them competitive.
Next, you’ll have to consider your budget and how much you want to pour into ads based on your expected results or returns. Some helpful metrics you can use to track the success of an ad campaign include click-through rate, conversion rate and cost-per-lead.
What if you don’t have any money to spend on ads right now? You could still increase your visibility by:
- Creating a Facebook business profile for your firm
- Registering with Google Business and creating a detailed profile
- Getting listed in business directories like Yelp or Manta
Those are all free ways to gain exposure for your business until you’re ready to move ahead with a paid ad campaign.
5. Collaborate
Being independent doesn’t mean you’re limited to marketing yourself alone. Collaborations and partnerships can also help you gain exposure for your business and build out your professional network.
Here are some of the ways you might cross-promote your business:
- Reach out to a financial influencer who’s seeking interview subjects for their podcast and volunteer to share some of your insights
- Offer to write a guest post or article for a financial blog or website
- Participate in an online roundtable discussion or seminar
- Connect with financial journalists who may be seeking expert advisors to share quotes for stories
- Host a live-stream Q&A event on social media with another advisor whose target audience is adjacent to yours
Offline outreach options include participating in local community events, volunteering your time as a pro bono advisor and speaking at financial advisor conferences.
6. Show Your Appreciation
You want the clients you have to remain loyal to you and be open to referring their friends, family members or coworkers to your business. Offering service that goes above and beyond their expectations is one way to encourage loyalty but it’s not the only way to gain referrals.
Hosting client appreciation events, for instance, can give you space to get to know your clients a little better while showing them that you value their business. You could treat clients to a private cooking class with a local chef or hold a family-friendly outing at a local theme park.
If you don’t have the budget to host a large-scale event, you can show appreciation on a smaller scale. For instance, you might send out personalized greeting cards around the holidays or offer an annual birthday gift, within regulatory gifting limits.
7. Utilize Online Marketing Platforms
Online marketing platforms take some of the guesswork out of marketing by equipping you with the tools you need to reach the prospective clients you want to serve.
For example, LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps you leverage your network to connect with prospects through the platform and warm them up to the idea of working with you. You’ll have access to tools that can help you identify potential leads and nurture relationships so that you can drive more sales.
SmartAsset AMP, meanwhile, offers a holistic approach to lead generation. The platform helps you match with leads while giving you access to automated text and email messaging so that you don’t miss out on opportunities to connect.
These and similar online marketing platforms have a cost component to consider. However, it may be worth the investment if you’re able to refine your marketing while saving time.
Bottom Line
Marketing for independent financial advisors can sometimes be difficult, but it’s not impossible. Expanding your efforts to market your business online and delivering superior service to your clients to encourage referrals can help you build a solid foundation for long-term success.
Tips for Growing Your Advisory Business
- If marketing seems complicated or overwhelming, it’s helpful to look at what you can do to simplify it. Working with an advisor marketing platform is one way to streamline your efforts so that you can focus on serving clients. SmartAsset AMP can offer a holistic marketing approach to help you grow at a comfortable pace. Schedule a demo to learn how it works.
- When developing a marketing plan it’s important to keep compliance in mind. The SEC’s marketing rule, for instance, specifies what registered investment advisors can and can’t do or say when promoting their firms. Familiarizing yourself with regulatory and recordkeeping requirements can help you avoid falling into noncompliance.
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