As I shared in the first part of this post, its inspiration is a recent survey by Rydex|SGI AdvisorBenchmarking, shared on AdvisorOne, that evaluated the marketing methods being used by RIAs in 2011 versus 2010. The survey found a notable decrease in advisors' recent use of social media—as many early adopters have seen only limited success thus far—as well as a decline in the use of blogs and newsletters. Many categories held relatively stable, such as seminar marketing, client appreciation events and direct mail. Yet the one surprising category with the biggest rise from 2010 to 2011: online search.
Ultimately, advisory firms that want to succeed at marketing in the digital world must take action on the following four steps:
1) Have a clearly defined target market. If you can't explain exactly who would be searching for you, what problems that person would be facing and what solutions you can provide, you'll never be found amid the sea of other financial planners who all basically say they do the same thing. This is why ultimately, most professionals will need a well-defined niche to succeed in the digital world, unless they have the size and scale to be a regionally or nationally dominant firm with a substantive marketing budget.
2) Create relevant content. People use the internet to search for the answers to their problems all the time. The key is to create content that answers and solves the problems your target clients face—so that when they search for the answers to their problems, they find you (and your content).
