Financial advisors gain a majority of their new business from referrals—about 80% reported so in a recent internal Raymond James survey – so why should you focus your valuable time on creating an online brand and presence? Just like you wouldn’t hire someone to fix your car without doing some research first, clients are increasingly doing the same for their advisor.
When a prospective client gets referred to you, the first thing they’re going to do is look you up online. What they find can determine whether they ever pick up the phone to call you.
Digital marketing is about visibility and building a brand that creates trust and presents you as a reliable source of information before a prospect even steps in the door. While this can feel like a big undertaking, a crawl, walk, run approach can help get you off the starting line.
Identify Your Audience
From the outset, it’s important to understand your audience and their preferences so you know what kind of content to share and where.
One helpful way to do this is by imagining a persona—for example, a first-generation business owner with a young family. The business owner is likely to be short on time and have concerns about both her personal and her professional finances, like college planning, business growth (or even succession planning) and retirement planning.
If a persona feels too abstract, simply consider your top clients. Who are they? What are their interests? What social media channels do they use? If you don’t already know, ask them. You could even add a brief questionnaire to your onboarding process to collect this valuable information.
Begin to Crawl
As an advisor, you probably don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to creating content. That’s okay—this is the perfect place to apply the crawl-walk-run approach.
Among LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, X, Instagram, TikTok and many others, trying to be everywhere at once isn’t realistic, especially at first, so start small.
Consider your website the foundation of your digital presence, then identify one or two social media channels for posting content that originates from your website – ideally those where your prospects and clients are most active. LinkedIn, which is a great place for brand-building, is the most popular channel among Raymond James advisors, followed by Facebook Business.
At this stage, focus on becoming a content curator. Start by collecting articles, images or videos you think your audience will find useful or interesting. Share content with your followers and attach short captions that personalize it – this can be an important takeaway, stating why you’re sharing it, or even noting whom among your audience it’s most relevant to.
Content doesn’t have to be about the markets. It can be lifestyle articles, educational content or anything that speaks to the reader’s life stage or interests—think “The Top 10 Best Places to Retire” for your clients nearing retirement or “How to Teach Your Kids Financial Literacy” for your clients with young families.
Progress to a Walk
After you get comfortable working with one or two channels, you’re ready to walk and try more platforms.
Now’s the time to get personal. Once you get the hang of posting curated content, take things a step further by adding original and personal content to the mix. It doesn’t have to be much: You can share two sentences about a book you just read or a photo from a community event, or cheer on your favorite sports team before a big game.
Think about the things you’re already doing (like reading or going to baseball games) and take an extra moment to document and share them with your followers. This will help you keep up a consistent posting schedule and goes a long way toward building a unique brand by showing clients and prospects who you are.
If You’re Up for It, Run
This phase may not be right for everyone, and maybe your business is thriving in the crawl or walk stage. But to take it to the next level, become a content creator. If it’s an avenue you want to pursue, you can create your own content to share on social media. Start a blog on your website, record a video, host a webinar or even start a podcast and post it on Spotify. The types of content you create are up to you and if you choose something you enjoy, it becomes easier to commit to doing regularly.
Alternatively, consider delegating this task to the people on your team who may have a passion for social media or content creation. What’s most important in this phase is to just begin and not get hung up on perfection. Consider setting up a dedicated space in your office with a nice background and lighting to remove any barriers to sitting down and hitting “record.”
Build on the Momentum
One rule of social media: Consistency tops frequency. Building a connection with your followers requires you to be present and active on a regular basis. Whether you post once a day or once a month, your audience should know when to anticipate your content so you become a regular voice in their feed. Most of the advisors we talk to post one to two times per week.
Measuring success on social media can be tricky. While clicks and views are exciting to see, don’t lose sight of your objective—whether it’s educating your clients, being a thought leader or just having prospects feel like they know you when they show up to that first meeting. If your digital footprint accomplishes that, it’s a win.
Maggie Kokemuller is senior vice president, Marketing Services at Raymond James.
