Congratulations to Our Clients who were named to Forbes’ list of Top 100 financial Security Professionals!

We are excited to share that 27 of our clients were recently named to Forbes’ 2023 list of Top 100 Financial Security Professionals! This recognition is an incredible honor, and we feel so blessed to work with these advisors. They care so much about their clients, and it shows in everything they do. We can’t wait to see what the future has in store for them!

From all of us at LMG… CONGRATULATIONS!

Congratulations to Our Clients who made the Forbes list of Best-In-State Financial Security Professionals for 2023!

We are excited to congratulate our clients who were just named by Forbes as Best-In-State Financial Security Professionals for 2023! This is an incredible achievement, and we’re honored to work with advisors who aim for excellence in everything they do. This year, 217 of our clients were named to this prestigious list, and we’d like to wish each of them a very heartfelt “Congratulations!”

Does award marketing move the needle?

We often get questions from advisors about whether they should be applying for awards, or if they win awards, whether they should promote them. After all, it takes substantial time, energy, and money to apply for multiple industry awards—and you don’t want those efforts to go to waste.

So is award marketing truly valuable for financial advisors?

The short answer: YES.

Why Award Marketing is Beneficial for Financial Advisors

Financial advising is a referral- and relationship-centric industry. Choosing someone to manage your wealth is an incredibly important decision, so most people find their financial advisor through personal introductions (rather than blind Google searches). But online research is still part of the conversion process. Typically when someone is referred to you or you meet them somewhere and give them your card, their next step isn’t to call you or ask to meet with you—it’s going online to vet you and decide if they should.

When a prospect looks at your website and social media presence, they’re searching for information about you that helps them put check marks in a “yes” or “no” column in their mind. They’re trying to determine if they should talk to you or if they should move on.

And when they see that you’ve been named a “Best-In-State Wealth Advisor” by Forbes (or received a similar recognition)—that’s a definite check in the “yes” column.

Winning awards—just like having clients who rave about you—is further confirmation for prospects that you’re great at what you do.

So from a vetting and conversion standpoint, it can be incredibly beneficial.

Bridging the gap: Making Award Marketing Work For You

That said, winning awards isn’t enough—you have to promote them, too.

Some award companies will offer a listing in their directory as part of their award package. And while that can be beneficial for SEO purposes, most people won’t go to Forbes and search through their directory to find an advisor. (After all, this is about referral marketing, not marketing to strangers.) So it’s up to you to promote the award on your website, social media profiles, and anywhere else you can.

You have to bridge the gap and make it part of your online presence so that when someone is introduced to you and they research you, they see that you’ve won the award(s) and are suitably impressed.

“But won’t that seem like I’m… bragging?” (shudder)

Some people worry that this style of marketing will feel cheap or come across as “braggy.” In fact, we had a client years ago who was very successful and just as humble, and he didn’t like talking about his awards and accolades (even though he’d accomplished a lot in his career and received much well-deserved recognition for it). So, he asked us to remove all of his awards from his website and social media profiles. 

Later, he was talking to a prospect whose business he’d been trying to earn for quite a while. That prospect had hired someone else, and when our client asked why, the prospect said something to this effect:

“Honestly, you and the person I hired were equal in pretty much every way. But as I was researching, I saw that he had won lots of awards and you hadn’t, so that tipped the scales in his favor.”

Without knowing it, our client had removed a very vital checkmark in this prospect’s “yes” column. It was an unfortunate way to learn the lesson, but after this happened, our client put all of his awards back on his website and never looked back.

The fact is, when it’s done well, people don’t view award marketing as arrogant or braggy.

And here’s why: When you promote awards, you do so in the voice of your company. (Or at least, you should.)

Even though you may be the person behind your company, there’s an important distinction between ABC Financial Group promoting an award that Joe Advisor won and Joe Advisor promoting the same award. When you put awards on your website, it’s your company promoting the award, not you. And when you publish a post from your company’s LinkedIn page congratulating Joe on the award, that’s different from Joe himself posting about it.  

Plus, winning an award (especially a national, highly-sought-after award) is a big deal, and you deserve to share that news!

Does it have to be a major award? 

Well-known brands like Forbes and Barron’s have a ton of power behind them, so if you think you have a chance at qualifying or winning one of their awards, you should definitely make it a priority to apply (and continue putting your name in the hat each year). Winning an award from a big name like these carries great social clout, and that’s not something you want to pass up. 

But maybe you don’t have a Forbes or Barron’s recognition under your belt—that’s okay.

When it comes to lesser-known or industry-specific awards (like the NAIFA Quality Award, MDRT, etc.), there’s still value in adding these recognitions to your online presence.

Consumers may not know exactly what the awards are, and they may not consciously say to themselves, “Wow, these awards are very impressive,” but having them on your website and social media profiles still enhances your reputation. It looks impressive that you’ve won any kind of award, and that serves to add a checkmark in prospects’ “yes” columns.

Award Marketing Best Practices

So you won an award… Now what?

When you win an award, you should promote it in four key places (at minimum):

• Website
• Social media profiles
• Email signature
• Branded materials

Awards on Your Website

Major awards (Forbes, Barron’s, etc.) should be included somewhere on the homepage of your site with a blurb about the award and its accompanying logo. They should also be added to the lead advisor(s) bio, as applicable.

If your broker-dealer allows, promoting awards though press releases is also a great idea. Generally, we recommend writing a press release and then submitting it through an online distribution service like PR Web or EIN Newswire. These companies send your press release to multiple online publications, and typically a couple hundred or so will publish it (because they need filler content). These publications each generate a link back to your website, which is super powerful for SEO. From there, you identify the biggest name that published your release and share their link on your website (on a Press or Media page). Then you post about the article (with the accompanying link to your webpage) on your social media profiles.

This kind of press is just another way to add valuable credibility to your online presence.

Awards on Social Media

Not only should you add awards to your social media profiles (LinkedIn has a special section for this), but you should post about them from your company page(s) as well. You can also post about awards from your personal profiles with a “thank you to my clients” angle.

Awards in Your Email Signature

Adding award logos to your email signature is a great reinforcer. Every email you send for the next year (or however long the logo is licensed) will remind your clients, COIs, prospects, and everyone else that you’re one of the best.

Awards in Branded Materials

Finally, make sure any major awards are added to your capabilities deck, bio sheets, one-pagers, and other materials about your firm.

“Should I pay for award logos?”

Another question we’re often asked is whether it’s necessary or beneficial to pay to license award logos.

Some companies will give you the ability to use their award logos and badges once you’ve won the award—and for all the reasons stated above, you definitely should.

Other companies (like Forbes) require you to pay a fee to use their logo. And while that fee typically isn’t cheap (try ~$4,000 per year), it’s worth it—at least with powerful brands like Forbes. Because any time someone vets you, they’ll see, front and center, that a respected, iconic company has deemed you one of the best in the business. And that’s worth paying for.

Need help with award marketing?

We’re honored to work with top advisors across the country (more than 150 of whom have won Forbes awards), and we’re happy to help you with your award marketing efforts as well. If you need help capitalizing on a big win, schedule a call with us below!   

The Low-Hanging Fruit

When it comes to advisor marketing, the most effective (and typically the most enjoyable) way to grow is by building and strengthening relationships—and this holds true for your C-level clients just as it does your A-level folks. This segment of clients (those who engage you only for a specific service but not full-fledged planning or may have “fallen off the radar” for other reasons) represent an incredible opportunity for growth in your practice. They are your low-hanging fruit—they already know, like, and trust you on some level, so you’re a step ahead of the game when it comes to growing their relationship with you.

In this blog, we’ll cover a few ways to connect with your lower-level clients—all with the goal of encouraging them to engage your practice at a higher level.

First things first: segmenting your client database

If you haven’t already done so, the first thing you’ll want to do is segment your client database. (For more information on this, check out our previous blog, “How To Create and Use a Segmented Client Database Like a Pro.”) Essentially, the goal is to organize your clients so you have an easy reference point for marketing. For example, if you want to reach out to lower-level clients who are nearing retirement, it’ll help for you to have a database that’s organized by age range, services clients currently engage you for, and other criteria.

Implement Frequent Client Touchpoints

One of the most important parts of any relationship is communication. If a client hears from you often, it shows that you care and keeps you top of mind in their world. The reverse is also true—if you “go dark” because you don’t have a specific reason (e.g., a review meeting) to contact someone, it’s easy for them to assume they’re not that important to you, and you run the risk of falling off their radar as well.   

Here are some great ways to stay in touch with lower-level clients and keep the relationship alive:

Send “Thinking of You” Content

This is a super simple strategy to implement, and the key is to plan ahead. Find five to ten articles, podcasts, and/or videos that are engaging, relatively short, and relevant to your target markets. They can be about anything from work-life balance to building a healthy company culture in a small business. From there, make a schedule that outlines when you’re going to send what to whom. Then, all you have to do is craft a simple email every quarter or so that says something like, “Hey, I read this article the other day and thought you might like it. Hope you and Rachel are doing well!”

Create a Company Newsletter

Following the same principle as the “thinking of you” content, this is a great way to stay top of mind with clients you wouldn’t otherwise communicate with often. (And you can send the newsletter to everyone, not just your lower-level clients.) The best approach is to include a mix of content, and the more personal, the better. You can include a short section with financial updates, but we recommend lifting the veil as much as possible—have each of your team members write a section with a “life update,” include photos from team events, or highlight a time your team volunteered to support a local organization. The key is to show clients a more personal side of you, which builds trust and strengthens the relationship. You should also include a short section about the services you offer, which is a great reminder for those clients who engage you for something specific like life insurance but may not realize you offer retirement planning or business succession planning.

Respond to Financial News

This is especially important in today’s economic client—there is no shortage of news for clients to worry about, and it’s your job to quell those fears. Whether someone engages you for comprehensive planning or you service their 401k, you can be the person they rely on for financial truth and consolation.

Any time something noteworthy happens in the financial world, send an email to your clients briefly explaining the situation and how it could affect them (along with the things you’re doing or can do to protect them). Better yet, send a short video (if compliance allows)—it’s more personal, and clients will get to experience your passion and expertise in a more tangible way. 

Make it a Junior Advisor Project

Another great way to love on your lower-level clients is to “assign them” to your junior advisors. The reality is, principal advisors typically don’t have the time to offer red-carpet service to every client in the firm—and honestly, if someone isn’t relying on you for full-fledged planning, it doesn’t make sense to. But these clients are great “warm leads” for advisors who are just starting their career, and there are several ways your junior advisors can cultivate relationships with them that lead to more business in the future. 

You can have junior advisors reach out to your C-level clients and have one-on-one meetings to see how they’re doing, how their life as changed, and how the practice can help them moving forward; your junior advisors can host educational events specifically for the children or grandchildren of your top clients (building a relationship with the next generation before they’re successful is not only beneficial from a business standpoint; it shows your clients you care about their family); or you can have them implement some of the relationship-building activities you would typically reserve for A-level clients, like calling them on their birthday or sending a Christmas gift (although the gift should be different than the one you would send an A-level client).

Create a Plan

There are lots of ways to reconnect with your lower-level clients, and the important thing is to create a plan for how you’re going to engage them. It’s always better to start small and remain constant than to aim for the moon and fall flat. (That’s why when it comes to initiatives like a company newsletter, for example, we recommend starting with quarterly, rather than monthly—you often don’t realize the time it takes to put something like that together until you’ve done it once or twice, and it can quickly become overwhelming.)

If you want help putting together a strategic communication plan, we’d love to talk with you. We’ll help you outline specific goals and strategies to grow your practice through the people you already know—simply schedule a consultation below to get started. 

If you didn’t read our last blog about SEO, it’s important to note that for most advisors, trying to rank for unbranded search terms (ones where someone isn’t searching for a specific person or business; e.g., “financial advisor near me” or “retirement planning for executives”) isn’t the most effective approach for business growth. That’s because financial planning is a very personal industry, and most people don’t look for an advisor online—they ask their friends and family for recommendations and then search for them by name (a branded search) to vet them before deciding if they want to reach out to them.

That’s not to say that ranking for unbranded terms is wholly ineffective or impossible. It’s doable, and if you’ve evaluated your goals and determined that’s the route you want to take, there are several strategies you can implement both on your website and other places online to improve your rankings. Just know that ranking for unbranded searches requires an aggressive approach to SEO, and you’ll need a decent budget and time commitment to see it through.

ONSITE SEARCH-ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

If you’re looking to improve your rankings for specific unbranded terms, there are a few things you need to know about onsite search-engine optimization

Content is King

For any topic or term you want to show up for, you need to have a decent volume of content about that subject on your website, and it needs to be something you continually add to over time. That might mean adding a static page on your site that talks about the subject you want to rank for and then also publishing regular blog posts about that subject.

For example, if you want your website to show up when someone searches for “special-needs planning,” you should devote a substantial amount of content on your website to that subject. Simply having “special-needs planning” listed on a page of services or adding a short paragraph about it isn’t enough to make you show up in a competitive market.

Videos also work really well for search-engine optimization because they’re “sticky,” meaning they keep people on a webpage longer. Google measures how long people stay on your website, and when people are on your website for a long time, that helps it rank higher. To maximize the use of video content on your site, be sure to include transcriptions of the videos (which makes them ADA compliant, another factor Google measures) and add to the videos regularly over time.

Location Matters

If you want to rank for something like “financial advisor in Dallas, TX,” you have to actually be in Dallas. You can’t be near Dallas. That’s because if someone searches for a financial advisor in Dallas, Google is going to exhaust all of its results for businesses in Dallas before it presents results in surrounding suburbs. That means if you don’t have a physical space in a city, you’re not going to show up for a geographic search term like that.

The exception is if you’re in a small town targeting smaller towns near you. Our headquarters is in Lawton, Oklahoma, a community of about 100,000 people. Nearby is Elgin, a community of about 15,000. If somebody in Elgin searches for “financial advisor near me” or “financial advisor in Elgin,” they could very well get results for businesses in Lawton because there aren’t very many advisors in Elgin to fill up the first page of Google.

Short of that scenario, you have to physically be in the market you want to rank for

Meta Data is Essential

The other key to onsite SEO is making sure you have all your metadata in place—things like title tags, meta descriptions, alt image tags, schema, etc. These are all things any marketing agency or SEO professional can help you with, but they essentially make up the code of a website that helps search engines understand what each page of a website is about

COMPETING IN THE GOOGLE GAME

In the realm of SEO, there are lots of factors that determine who ranks where. If you want to rank high in a competitive market (i.e., most unbranded searches), you have to go “all out” in terms of search-engine optimization. That means having your metadata professionally optimized, creating and publishing a substantial volume of content about the subjects you want to rank for, continually adding to that content over time, and making sure you have a modern website built in a modern code language.

OFFSITE SEARCH-ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Once you’ve done (or started doing, in the case of ongoing content creation) all these things on your website, you can pivot to offsite search-engine optimization, strategies you implement off your website to help it rank higher. That might include publishing press releases to generate verified backlinks (“trustworthy” links that lead to your website), updating your company information in online directories (consistency across all platforms is essential for good rankings), or creating social media ads to drive traffic to your site.

There are a lot of different elements to SEO, and the approach you take will depend on your target markets and growth goals. If you need help determining the best strategy for you or you’d like help optimizing your website, we’d love to chat with you. You can schedule a consultation with us below and in the meantime, follow us on Facebook for more marketing and branding tips.

Lots of times, people will ask us, “How do I get my website ranking higher in Google?”

Already, this implies a slight misunderstanding about search-engine optimization (SEO) and how it works. Because websites as a whole don’t rank high or low—they rank for specific terms or phrases (for example, “financial advisor in Houston” or “estate planning”).

So when it comes to improving your rankings, you first have to decide which search terms or phrases you want to show up for—and then you can determine which strategy is right for you.

To do that, it’s important to understand the difference between branded and unbranded searches and how they play into the referral process.

Branded Search

As an advisor, when someone visits your website, they’re typically there because someone referred you to them, and then they googled your name (or the name of your practice) to learn more about you. That’s called a branded search—when someone looks for a specific person or business.

This is important to know because financial advising is always going to be a referral-centric industry. Very few people (especially those in the HNW space) search for an advisor by googling “financial advisor near me” or “financial advisor specializing in estate planning”. Instead, they ask friends or family members they trust for recommendations.

From there, their next step is not contacting the advisor—it’s googling them to vet them and decide if they should. That’s why branded search rankings are so important for advisors. When someone is referred to you and they search for you online, it should be easy for them to find you—and once they do, everything they find needs to send the right message and inspire them to get in touch with you.

When it comes to SEO goals, in most cases, the important thing for a financial advisor is to make sure your website shows up in branded searches (e.g., “John Doe advisor” or “ABC Financial”). As long as you build a website that aligns with modern, best-practice standards (with a comprehensive bio and relevant, compelling information about your company), you’re generally going to be in good shape for a branded search.

Unbranded search

Unbranded searches, on the other hand, are when someone searches a topic, a question, or a general inquiry to find a person, business, or information. Here are some examples:

• “financial advisor near me”
• “special-needs planning”
• “life insurance for a trust”
• “are fee-based advisors better?”

Ranking for these kinds of terms requires a much more aggressive (and ongoing) SEO strategy. It’s doable, but it requires a long-term commitment and a decent budget. So you need to ask yourself, “Is it worth it?”

If most of your clients are high-net-worth or ultra-high-net-worth or they have complex planning needs, it’s important to know that the amount of people in that market who are going to use Google (or another search engine) as a “referral source” is extremely low. Most of them will not hop online and search for “financial planning in Dallas” or “HNW advisor near me.”

So you have to determine if you want to invest your time and money in order to show up for the few people who will search for those terms and find an advisor that way. This goal is possible with the right strategies and time commitment, but it’s not the right approach for every advisor.

If you’ve evaluated your goals, done your target-market research, and determined you want to rank higher for unbranded searches, you’ll need to implement both onsite and offsite SEO strategies, which we’ll cover in our next blog.

If you want to review your goals with a team that understands the world of advisor marketing, we’d love to chat with you. You can contact us here, and in the meantime, follow us on Facebook for more marketing and branding tips.

Scott Stratten is the author of some of Kelly’s all-time favorite marketing books—including QR Codes Kill Kittens* and Unmarketing. He writes about the ins and outs of marketing, the mistakes people make, and how to market yourself the right way—and if you can’t tell by the titles of his books, his approach is always humorous.

While not everything he teaches will apply to advisors, many of the big-picture principles he teaches are applicable to just about any industry. He is one of the funniest presenters you’ll ever watch, and in fact, the first time Kelly heard him speak at PubCon, she laughed herself into an asthma attack.

Literally.

So our first piece of advice is this: if you ever get the chance to see Scott present live, please do.

That said, a client’s segmentation value doesn’t have to be determined solely by the income they generate directly. If they’re a referral powerhouse, consider bumping them up a notch, as they could be just as valuable to your practice as some of your higher-net-worth clients.

And the second is this: watch this video. In this clip, Scott shares a story about Ritz Carlton and an incredible example of raving-fan service. This is something we talk about a lot in our agency because it’s the one thing that turns a great, referrable advisor into a referral magnet.

FROM “HE’S GREAT” TO “OH MY GOODNESS, YOU HAVE TO CALL MY GUY.”

Most advisors we work with are highly successful, and they’ve risen to the top of a very competitive industry because they do a lot of things right. But here’s the thing—being a trustworthy person, offering wise counsel, effectively helping clients grow and protect their money, being available and responsive—those are all things you should be doing as part of your job. And that’s usually enough to “pass the test” when one of your client’s friends asks for a recommendation. That will be enough for them to say, “Yeah, my advisor is great,” and introduce you.

But what if you could do more? What if, beyond being a great advisor, you could create experiences that made your clients go out of their way to tell stories about you and share the things you’re doing with their family and friends—even when they haven’t asked for a recommendation?

If you can find ways to create “Joshy moments” that go above and beyond expectations—if you can do something that makes people talk—it’s incredibly powerful.

This story about Ritz Carlton truly exemplifies raving-fan-worthy service. So watch it, take notes, and think about ways you can implement wow moments into your practice.

NEED IDEAS?

We help advisors build Referral Magnet Roadmaps, their comprehensive plan to strategically enhance client service and impress people in a way that inspires more referrals. Send us a message to learn more!

*A note from Kelly: It’s a weird name, I know—but trust me, it’s funny and full of great advice.

Segmented client databases are essential for advisors who want to produce powerful, intentional marketing campaigns, and there are seemingly endless ways to customize and leverage this tool to your advantage. In this month’s blog, you’ll learn how to use a segmented client database like a pro.

Methods for Segmenting

Database segmentation is all about sorting clients based on specific qualities. This process makes it easy to use the data in your marketing efforts and general operations. It’s a valuable tool for any industry, but it’s vital for financial advisors, given the personal nature of your work. Here are a few ways you can segment your clients:

Value Segmenting

Many of our clients use a value-centric structure based on profitability. For example, clients who are the most profitable to your firm, either because of the revenue they generate or the amount of assets under management, are given an “A” label. The firm identifies their quantifiable definition of an “A” client, then continues this method with “B” clients, “C” clients, and so on.

That said, a client’s segmentation value doesn’t have to be determined solely by the income they generate directly. If they’re a referral powerhouse, consider bumping them up a notch, as they could be just as valuable to your practice as some of your higher-net-worth clients.

Regardless of how you define their value, if a client is extremely important to your practice, they should be in a top-tier category. The goal is to create a system that allows you to easily recognize your best clients so you can identify the kind of people you want more of in your firm and who to spend the most time and effort on. 

Type Segmenting

Another way to segment clients is by type, where you sort clients according to what you do for them, what stage of life they’re in, where they are in the sales process, or another category (or all of the above). 

Type segmenting can include categories such as:

• Retirement planning
• Investment management
• Special needs planning
• Life insurance
• Education planning
• Second-generation client
• COI
• Prospect
• Referral

This method is incredibly useful for touchpoints and information campaigns. For example, if you’re sending educational content, you can easily sort clients by “special needs planning,” “retirement planning,” and so on to ensure you’re sending the most helpful, relevant information to each client. 

4 Reasons To Use a Segmented Client Database

While it takes a lot of time to fully segment your client database, once you’ve done it, it’s relatively easy to maintain, and it becomes an incredible tool for you to use in your marketing and relationship-building efforts. If you’re on the fence about whether to embark on this tedious process, here are a few things to think about:

1. Send Targeted Marketing Messages

Like we mentioned above, segmenting your database by service is a great place to start because it enables you to send highly relevant information to your clients. If you want to start writing a monthly blog, you can tailor the content to different client segments based on their needs. For example, you could put together a blog about where to retire or top travel destinations for retirees, publish it on your website, and then create an email campaign only for clients in or nearing retirement. 

This helps clients see that you have your finger on the pulse of what matters to them as individuals. It also helps you avoid sending clients irrelevant information. For example, you probably don’t want to send resources for special needs planning to a client who hired you solely for your expertise in retirement planning. If you send this type of blanket message in an email, you risk appearing lazy or like you don’t truly understand your clients’ needs.

Of course, there is a way to send “bonus information” strategically and encourage clients to do more business with you. For example, if you send information about retirement planning to a client focused on their child’s education, you might plant a seed and get them thinking about their own future. 

2. Harvest the Low-Hanging Fruit

Depending on how you run your practice, it’s likely that not all your clients start with full-fledged financial planning. Some might just want life insurance or help with their 401(k). Clients like this may start in your “C” category, but you can potentially bump them up to a “B” or even an “A” by nurturing the relationship and reaching out to them when you know they could benefit from another service.

C-level clients often fall by the wayside because they don’t bring in as much revenue as other clients, but when you show that you care (despite their lower-level engagement), you’ll build trust and loyalty. Then, when they need help planning for retirement or managing their investments, you’ll be the one they call because they’ll know you genuinely care about their wellbeing.

Reaching out to lower-level clients is also a great strategy for new advisors. Have your new recruits start cultivating relationships with your C-level clients with the goal of converting them to A- and B-level clients. This is an incredible opportunity to give your young advisors a list of warm leads while also generating more revenue for your firm. 

3. Streamline Your Gifting Strategy

Sending gifts is a great way to wow clients and show them you care, but it needs to be done strategically. Obviously, it’s not practical to send an expensive gift to every client of your firm, so you want to choose the right gifts for each client segment—and you can’t do this effectively without a segmented database. 

Once your clients are divided into As, Bs, Cs, and so on, you can choose gifts that are appropriate for each level. If you send a Christmas gift, for example, you might send a nice bottle of wine, a fresh balsam wreath, and a card to all your A clients; just a wreath or bottle of wine and a card to your B clients; and just a card to your C clients. 

That way, you can send everyone a thoughtful gesture, and you can really impress the clients who mean the most to your practice.  

4. Save Your Brain

Client segmentation will also save your brain power for other pursuits. When you have a fully segmented database, you don’t have to remember which clients to send a Christmas gift to, who you should invite to an event, or who’s interested in planning for college. Instead, all that information is right at your fingertips (i.e., in your CRM). 

Make It Happen

If you want to take your relationship marketing to the next level, segmenting your client database is a great place to start. You can have an assistant tackle the project initially, but generally, advisors know their clients best, so consider setting aside time each month to make it happen (or at the very least, add some personal notes for your team members to leverage). 

Once your database is fully sorted, decide how you’re going to keep up with it. You could categorize each client after their first meeting or annual review, assign a team member to update it monthly, or make it part of your annual marketing strategy (although we recommend one of the more frequent methods, so the task doesn’t become too daunting). 

If your database is ready to go and you want to take advantage of focused marketing opportunities, let us know! We can help you brainstorm powerful strategies and plan specific initiatives that help you strengthen relationships and increase referrals.

Financial advising is a highly personal, referral-centric business, so it’s worth asking—what makes someone want to refer you?

Think about a time you raved to a friend about a business you worked with. Were you impressed by an amazing product or facility? A snazzy logo? Or were you impressed by the way you were treated?

More often than not, people rave about a business because they received incredible service, not because a product was amazing or an office was especially clean (although those things matter). But people remember—and can often repeat the details of—something someone did for them.

To create a referral-worthy practice, you need all the other elements of an incredible brand, too (a modern and easy-to-navigate website, compelling messaging, cohesive branded materials, etc.), but great client service is what puts you over the top. It’s what stays with people days, weeks, even years later.

Client service is one of the most vital aspects of success because it determines how people feel when they interact with your business.

When you create an exceptional client experience in addition to being great at what you do, your practice becomes a rave-worthy referral magnet. If you need help identifying and implementing great service opportunities, give us a shout! We can assess your client service model and help you take things to the next level. In the meantime, check out The Referral Magnet, where our CEO Kelly Edwards gives her top recommendations to build a referral-worthy financial practice. 

As a financial services professional, you know that the holiday season is a busy time of year. Your clients are probably more focused on their families and taking time off, not worrying about their finances or business needs. For some, the holiday season also brings challenges, such as those who have lost loved ones or are experiencing a difficult time in their personal lives. 

However, the busyness of this time of year doesn’t mean you should go dark between the months of November and January. Instead, look for creative ways to stay in touch with clients that feel personal and meaningful without feeling overbearing. Explore our tips for keeping the line of communication open during the holiday season.

The most important consideration to make in holiday communication is authenticity. If you’re hurrying to get a holiday email out because you feel pressured to do so or want to reach a year-end goal, it won’t give the impression you want. Plan ahead, incorporate your personality, and handle the process correctly. If you need help, let us know! We create custom cards and event invitations or stationery, and we provide suggestions around relationship marketing strategy. Send us a message to get started.