The Top Reason Your Online Marketing Isn't Getting Results

The Real Way To Grow

First, we must acknowledge that "growth" encompasses many things. It includes building an audience, nurturing that audience, converting leads into prospects and prospects into clients. It requires maintaining client relationships and "growing" them into referral sources. The list goes on. All that being said though, the journey of growth begins with building an audience.

Herein lies the problem.

There are two primary ways to reach this goal. The first is to do so organically. Advisors can build an audience organically by collecting business cards at networking events, connecting with prospects on social media, building an email subscriber list, and so on. This kind of grassroots marketing takes time, energy and commitment, but it works.

Another powerful way to build an audience is by advertising online. This method has seen staggering growth in nearly all industries, but financial advisors have largely failed to benefit from it. For the most part, only the biggest and most innovative firms in the nation are using online advertising to grow business.

Considering the high degree of mathematical competency financial advisors have, it's shocking that more of them aren't leveraging this marketing channel. The return on ad spend (ROAS) averages $2 for every $1 spent on Google or Facebook, which is quite impressive. Spend $1,000 and get back $2,000? That's pretty easy math! And for advisors, the numbers often prove to be much better. When a $3 click can lead to a $3 million client, it's not hard to justify significant ad spend.

Here are a few more reasons advisors should be advertising online:

• Targeting (and Retargeting) — Online advertising allows advisors to zone in on their ideal prospect profile. Demographic and geographic criteria can be specified to a remarkable degree. Even interests and behaviors can be targeted. Lookalike audiences even empower advisors to target people with similar characteristics as their best clients! Furthermore, once a prospect visits an advisor's landing page or website, retargeting ensures the right message shows up over and over again, dramatically increasing the likelihood that cold opportunities will convert into warm leads.

• Brand Awareness — Even if prospects don't click and convert from ads right away, the repeated exposure to a specific brand can burn an indelible impression over time. By seeing the same company and value proposition over and over, it gradually forms an emotional connection and makes people aware of who the advertiser is and what they have to offer.

• Scale — Unlike traditional advertising methods, digital ad campaigns can be deployed and optimized quickly. If one channel isn't performing well, it's easy to turn off. If another is excelling, it's easy to double down. By looking at the data, advisors can make agile moves to spend more on what's working and cut what's not.

Perhaps the reason more advisors aren't advertising online is because they lack the time or expertise to do so themselves. That's OK! Advisors shouldn't be expected to act as professional marketers. They're usually far better off delegating or outsourcing this kind of work, so they can focus on client relationships.

This is why our industry must demand more from marketing providers than cloned websites and canned content that doesn't really move the needle. It's time to start insisting that marketing companies deliver what advisors really need: results!

— Check out the earlier articles in this series:

• The Worst Kind of Financial Advisor Marketing
• The Biggest Lie Advisor Marketing Companies Sell

Sources: https://economicimpact.google.com/methodology/, http://www.markeko.com/return-on-ad-spend-roas-facebook-definition-formula-calculation/