How Outsourcing Your Marketing Could Save Your Financial Practice

1. Save Your Expertise

At LMG, one of our hiring philosophies is to get the right people “on the bus,” then make sure they’re in the right “seat.” We want our team members to use their talents where they’ll provide the most benefit to the agency and get the most satisfaction from their workday. You should look at your firm the same way—if you’re great at building relationships, solving problems, and identifying creative solutions others don’t see—why waste your valuable time writing your LinkedIn bio or creating a slide deck? Outsourcing your marketing can ultimately make your job more fulfilling because you get to focus on what you do best. After all, you’re in this business for a reason—don’t waste your talents on something you find frustrating or tedious.

That said, your next thought might be to hire a college intern or one of your relatives to handle some of these tertiary responsibilities. But while these young hires are typically driven and even marketing savvy, their best intentions could also turn into your worst nightmare. Which brings us to our next point…

2. Save Yourself from a Compliance Disaster

This is usually one of the biggest concerns for advisors when it comes to hiring someone to do their marketing. Your industry has a unique set of rules and restrictions, and while they’re inconvenient at times, it’s important to remember that compliance exists for a reason, and they’re on your side. They’re the ones who keep you out of (potentially) serious trouble.

And while you may know the rules, it can be difficult to communicate all of them to a team member, intern, or agency that isn’t used to working with advisors. Anytime you outsource your marketing (even to someone in-house), you have to make sure they’re clear about compliance rules before they ever have control over your marketing initiatives. Otherwise, their proactive nature and marketing know-how could mean your firm inadvertently breaks a few compliance rules—which will only make your life harder. That’s why if you outsource, you need to find an agency familiar with compliance rules (we’ll cover more about this in our next blog, How to Hire the Right Marketing Agency for Your Financial Practice.)

That said, if you decide it’s best to hire an in-house marketing professional, be sure you have the time to train them properly. Even the most experienced professionals will need clear instructions and systems in place if they’ve never worked in the financial sector before. Otherwise, you run the risk of them taking the reins (with perfectly good intentions) and doing something that could get you in trouble with compliance. Even if they are committed to learning, that’s time, money, and energy your firm could better spend elsewhere.

3. Save Time & Money

Everyone is busy, and the more successful you become, the more precious your time is. You could hire someone in-house to focus on your marketing, but as we mentioned, you’ll have to spend time training and onboarding them, which is a hassle you can avoid by working with a reputable agency. And by outsourcing your marketing, not only do you give yourself more hours in the day, but the agency will likely be able to achieve what you could do in half the time. And while it is an extra expense, when it frees you to focus on building your business in ways only you can, you get more out of your time and money.

It’s also more cost-effective than hiring a full-time team member to do the job. (That said, you could hire a part-time person to work on a few marketing initiatives, but again, unless that person has ample experience marketing for advisors, you run the risk of him or her doing something that isn’t compliant, or simply isn’t effective for your market.)

4. Save Your Energy

Targeting the right people and generating referrals requires an in-depth knowledge of your industry and understanding of your clients’ behavior. When you outsource to an agency that understands advisor marketing, you gain access to professionals who help you avoid much of the trial-and-error strategies many entrepreneurs waste time on.

Hiring an agency also gives you the ability to “set it and forget it.” This is especially beneficial for ongoing initiatives like social media. An experienced agency should be able to spend time with you gathering initial information, then handle your social media completely so you don’t have to keep track of it. When you’re on retainer with a reputable company, you don’t have to delegate or brainstorm (not often, at least) to keep things moving—you just get to relax knowing someone behind the scenes is making you look good.