Ready, Set, Grow!: An RIA Marketing Guide

Introduction Ready, Set, Grow! An RIA Marketing Guide
Chapter 1: Branding 101: Identifying Your "Who"
Chapter 2: Structural Elements: Your “What” and “Why” Streamline Marketing and Sales Efforts (and Increase Job Satisfaction!)
Chapter 3: Brand Elements: Your “How” Connects You
Chapter 4: The Beginning of a Beautiful Conversation
Chapter 5: The Buyer’s Journey for Financial Planning Firms
Chapter 6: Compliant Ways to Market Your RIA and Use Social Media
Chapter 7: Marketing Tools for Financial Planners
Chapter 8: Troubleshooting
Chapter 9: What’s Next for my RIA’s Marketing Plan?

Introduction Ready, Set, Grow! An RIA Marketing Guide

Turning on Your Client Tap

If you’re here, you’re ready to gain more clients and grow your financial planning firm. Whether it’s from 0 to 10 or 100 to 150, you understand that effective marketing is the tool that turns on the customer tap. Fortunately, you don’t have to hire an expensive agency or costly consultants to get your marketing engine off the ground. And once you have your RIA’s marketing engine purring, sales will be a breeze.

This guide will help you connect with your ideal customers in your core demographic (a.k.a. niche) in a way that gives you more time to run your business and work with clients. We’ll cover the basics of branding, inbound marketing, practical ways to approach SEO, tools to consider, and compliant ways to market your firm.

...Which takes us to our level set. When it comes to marketing your firm, the regulation guidelines are clear: don't lie/embellish/inadvertantly include an unprovable statement. But that's actually perfect because good marketing is about telling the truth about what you have to offer and connecting with your ideal clients who are seeking it.

So let's get started!

Before marketing funnels, blogs, SEO, and digital anything, there must be a brand establishing your identity or your “Who.” If you don’t understand who you are, how can you possibly communicate your value?

Take it from those who’ve seen success time and time again: the key to managing your business is managing your brand. Identified, defined, and managed well, your “Who” will give rise to everything necessary to market, sell, and engage your ideal clients. It’s a proven process. Just look to powerhouse brands like Coca-Cola, Disney or Apple. By developing crystal clear brands and consistently communicating at every touch point, they built empires that hold space within the mind and market in every corner of the world.

Okay, so what exactly is a brand?

A brand is the total experience we have with a company, product, or person, whether we interact with the brand or not. It functions as the simplest expression of an organization in which differentiators are communicated efficiently and consistently.

In a society where people defend against overcommunication by ignoring, “swiping left,” or deleting before reading, a good brand is the most effective way to reach a target audience, have your firm perceived how you would like it to be, and communicate your value.

How does your brand connect to your “Who”?

Because your brand lives in consumers' minds, it shapes how they perceive your firm and how they interact with it. Simply put, it forms your firm’s identity or its “Who.”

Imagine your brand as a person standing in a room filled with people—does it blend in or stand out? Does it appear open and friendly? Authoritative and professorial? Awkward but approachable? Is it always surrounded by others laughing at its jokes or nodding in agreement? Do kiddos feel welcome running around them—or do they shy away?

Would prospective clients cross a room to meet that “person?” Why? How would they sound during initial conversations? Warm? Vulnerable? Stoic but intelligent? Or laugh-out-loud funny? Do the clients like them?

What would make a client stay in the conversation? Are they a good listener? Do they have names for the client’s problems? Do they feel trustworthy enough to help them work through pain points? Is the conversation easy? Do they pass a vibe check?

Do they want to call their friends over to meet them, too? Or is the conversation forced and stilted so the customer drifts away in search of a connection more in alignment with their jam and interests?

In this fun exercise, you can see the impact of your firm’s identity—and all of its components like attributes (how they look and sound from “across the room”), values (principles that drive internal behaviors), Q-factors (likeability), personality (how they present themselves), and story (how they contextualize in order to connect)—will attract customers and engage the ideal ones who “match up” with your services and products.

You can also see why your brand is one of our business’s most valuable assets. Properly defined, activated, and managed, it will become its own lead generator, conversation starter, traction gainer, customer converter, and positioning powerhouse.

In the sections that follow, we will help you define and articulate the elements of your brand that will establish:

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Who you (as a firm) are
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What you value and why
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What you want others to value about you
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What you want to be known for when they hear your name or interact with you
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The emotional benefit experienced when encountering your brand

If your brand was a house, consider its structural elements as the internal framework upon which the externally expressed brand elements “hang.” Without its structure, the rest of the “house” collapses. With it, you’ll easily communicate your value at every touch point in your ideal client’s journey.

Similar to a house’s internal framework, your brand’s structural elements are not meant to be “seen”—or communicated—externally. They are meant to be navigational "plot points" against which you can make any organizational decision.

Added Bonus: When the support structures of your brand are in alignment with your principles, beliefs, and ideals, you will find great joy and “never work a day in your life,” as Confucius so pointedly said.

Your brand’s strategic framework includes six core components:

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Niche
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Ideal Customer
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Mission
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Core Values
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Differentiators
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What business you are in

1. Niche = Your “What”

It’s a drum we beat often and shamelessly at XYPN—but our Benchmarking Studies provide data-backed proof that riches are in the niches.

So what is a niche, why is it one of the most effective levers for connecting you with ideal clients, and how does it lead to greater job satisfaction?

At XYPN, we follow the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) business model. Central to the model is getting everyone in the organization on the same page when it comes to its vision in order to gain the most traction as a business.

There are three components to establishing that vision:

Niche, or your “What”
Mission, or your “Why”
Core Target, or your target audience

As defined by EOS, your Niche is the thing you “can be truly great at and enjoy doing.”

For XYPN, it’s “supporting fee-for-service financial planners with the autonomy to live their great lives.” Note it has three components:

Fee-for-service financial planners (who we support)
Support with autonomy (what we do)
To live their great lives (why we do it—spoiler alert: this is also part of our mission or “purpose”)

Also note the first component identifies whom we support. Because brands live in the mind of the consumer, it's very important to begin with your target audience when identifying and defining your niche. If you want to occupy the position you prefer in their minds (as opposed to one they make up for you—trust us, that's what happens if you don't clearly define it) it is critical to:

Know who the ideal customers are that benefit from your product
Outline what they value
Be relevant and meaningful
Deliver on a promise

"About four months after launch, I went 100% in on my niche—serving Childfree people—and changed my company's name to Childfree Wealth. I researched the niche and wrote a book entitled: Portraits of Childfree Wealth. I pitched the book to a bunch of press outlets, and on the same day MarketWatch and Wall Street Journal did a feature piece on childfree finances. From those two articles alone I got 15 prospects (6 of which became clients). Since then, it has been nothing but an upward trajectory. I have to admit that XYPN and Kitces are right, the riches are in the niches."

Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP®

Childfree Wealth

"My niche is those experiencing grief, likely single for the first time in a long time, and nearing traditional retirement age. The grieving part is because I lost my best friend which forever changed the trajectory of my life. The rest is through training and past client experience, understanding with whom I work best."

Dillon Cobb CPA, CFP®

SIMPLY HUMAN ADVISORS

Hear more on XYPN Radio

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Combination of Your Ideal Client + Experiences + Passions

For others, it was a combination of any of the above that helped them choose. One XYPN member chose “women in transition” as his niche after growing up watching his single mother struggle for years after her divorce. It was important to him that he help other women avoid the heartache she experienced over her financial struggles. Now he has a thriving business AND helps others in a way that’s meaningful to him.

2. Ideal Client = Your best match

Your ideal client can not only help you identify your niche like it did for Jay Zigmont and his childfree couples, they are also your best match when it comes to qualifying leads, converting them to clients and engaging with them in the most effective way.

To determine your Ideal Client, describe a client that’s a perfect fit for the services or products you provide. Imagine it like adding filters on a dating site to help your most compatible matches find you so you don’t waste valuable time (theirs or yours) having fruitless conversations.

After identifying your best match, drill down on their psychographic, demographic, and other traits to create a crystal clear picture of who you want to “court.”

Google

To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful

TedX

Spread ideas

Starbucks

To inspire and nurture the human spirit—one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time

Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful

XYPN

Help people live their great lives

Pro Tip:

If your purpose doesn’t crystallize immediately, that’s okay. When you finish these branding exercises, you will have a clearer idea of your purpose. You can always stick a pin in this one and return to it after other elements help it gel.

4. Core Values = Internal drivers

According to EOS, Core Values are “the principles that define your culture, demonstrate what sets you apart as a company, and guide how everyone in your organization is to operate to succeed.”

In other words, they are the things that excite you and your firm internally, are an expression of what you are passionate about, and what you strive to express. They are a vital element of your identity that defines your daily behavior and helps determine what you will deliver at your touchpoints—from your website to client calls, they are the places you interact with your target audience and everyone else.

They can be one-word values like “open,” “honest,” and “vulnerable,” or phrases like “do the right thing,” “balance is good, harmony is better,” or “knowledge is power.” If they had a recipe, it would be one part culture, one part differentiator, one part guiding passion.

No need to define so many you can’t keep track. Keep it clear and simple. Choosing three to five Core Values is perfect!

Pro Tip

Drill down on your differentiators by providing “proof points” that tell how you offer them. E.g.: one of XYPN's differentiators is Real Independence.

Proof Points:

Members always own 100% of their business, book and data
Members choose who they want to serve and how they want to serve them
Members can choose exactly the amount of control or support they want when it comes to back office and client support solutions
Members can take or leave any of our many benefits

6. What business you are in

Knowledge of what business you are in enables you to organize all of your resources to engage in that business.

In general, most organizations confuse the business they are in with the products and services they provide. For example, many assume McDonald's is in the food or quick service business. But they are actually in the convenience business—and the products it provides are a range of fast foods.

Because it is in the convenience business, McDonald's focuses on buying real estate that is easy to access as well as other elements of convenience such as quick service, play areas for children, clean restrooms, and a pleasant family environment. Once you take the “red pill” and see brands by the business they are in, you can suddenly understand how that decision gives structure and shape to the entire rest of its “house.”

So, what business are you in? The relationship business? Or how about the empowerment business? You can see how this choice can drive many organizational and communication decisions.

Virgin

In the “rock star” business

Dunkin Donuts

In the “comfort” business

BMW

In the “prestige” business

Chapter 3

Brand Elements: Your “How” Connects You

Similar to the periodic table of elements, brand elements are all the “materials” that make up your brand’s “world.” Given shape by your strategic framework, they make up the implicit and explicit ways your brand expresses itself.

Your brand elements include six core components:

Q Factors
Brand Attributes
Brand Pyramid
Core Essence
Brand Promise, Mantra & Tagline
Positioning Statement
Short-form Description / Boilerplate
Brand Personality
Brand Story

Quiz time: Do you remember what happens when someone likes your brand?

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They see its positives
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They forgive its negatives
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They choose it automatically
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They work for its success

That’s powerful amplification, right?! Imagine having all that working in your favor without you doing anything! Neuroscience explains why: once someone likes a brand, the “decider” part of the brain is activated, opening the gate for the next two essential dominoes—trust and believe—to fall so messages can be heard and acted upon.

In other words, once the brain likes a brand, it “decides” to trust and eventually believe whatever is being communicated. Conversely, if it doesn’t like the brand, the gatekeeper portion of our brain locks down, and the message—no matter how it’s positioned, value propositioned, or explained—does not advance to being heard or acted upon. It’s dismissed with the other 1000 messages our brains receive daily.

To better understand why your Q or "Likability" Factors are so important, a quick lesson in neuroscience—

The first stop for every single stimulus our brain processes is the Reptilian Brain (a.k.a. Old or Lower Brain). It has been keeping us alive since we had brains. It governs “fight or flight,” “attract and repel,” and whether or not we like something. It also gatekeeps whether or not the stimulus is allowed to pass to the next two sections of the brain. If the stimulus—your brand for example—is accepted based on your ideal customer’s Reptilian Brain “gut” reaction and “likability” is achieved, it decides to allow passage to the next two sections of their brain for further processing. If it isn’t liked, the Reptilian Brain rejects it and moves on to the next zillionth stimulus. And thus why it’s the true “Decider” part of the brain.
The Emotional or Mid Brain is where our emotional responses to stimuli occur (positive, such as warmth, joy, and amusement, or negative, such as disgust and anxiety, etc.). It is also where “trust” can be achieved. If positive emotions are felt toward a brand, it may be trusted and allowed advancement to the “Rational” Brain.
The Rational, New, or Front Brain is where we rationalize why we like and/or trust. You think you think you want to buy that toothpaste because of <reason>, but in fact, you just liked and then trusted something about the brand and then assigned reasoning to the decision your Reptilian Brain made. Once that final domino falls, “belief” is achieved, and any following message from that brand is believed and instantly accepted. And that’s how we come full circle to “what happens when someone likes your brand.”

Thank you for joining our TED talk. You can now understand why we are better described as “rationalizing” beings and not “rational” beings. And why your Q or "Likability" Factors are so important.

2. Brand Attributes = What “sticks” about your brand

Core values motivate us internally. The things that engage externally—and which stick to us—we call “attributes”—kind of like the Post-it notes of the brand world.

Not to be confused with the benefits your products and services offer, attributes are the things that you want to "stick" to your firm and that you want people to think of and tell others when they think of your firm or hear your name.

Think Volvo and “safety” or Apple and “cool, rebel, innovator.” Attributes are developed through actions at your touchpoints that give rise to impressions and perceptions that people have about your firm.

3. Brand Pyramid = Visual Representation that frames and positions your brand

Many financial planning firms compete on product attributes that resemble pillars of financial advice: Financial Planning, Investment Planning, Retirement Savings and Income Planning, Tax Planning, Estate Planning, etc.—but these offer little to no differentiation. Differentiation begins when you uniquely offer your services. Start at the bottom of your Brand Pyramid by thinking of your services as unique offerings that solve for your ideal clients’ problems.

The bottom of the pyramid lists your product attributes. These are features that makes your financial services unique such as “tax planning for traveling nurses,” “financial wealth education” or “shame-free safe space.”

The next level of differentiation is known as a “functional benefit.” This is the simplest expression of what your brand does and offers to its customers. In the car industry, BMW’s functional benefit is “the experience of driving” and is expressed in their tagline, or brand promise, “The Ultimate Driving Machine.”

XYPN’s functional benefit—that is, the composite expression of all of our products and services—is: Your business, your way.

Your functional benefit gives rise to an emotional experience or benefit that is highly differentiated and ideally only experienced when interacting with you. This is a feeling experienced only when interacting with your brand—and no other.

When you can make someone feel a way that no one else can, it becomes your greatest value benefit—that no one else can duplicate. Trust us on the importance of this one. Especially in the field of financial advice. Your value is established, communicated and maintained if you help them feel <fill in the blank with what’s most important to your ideal client> on an ongoing basis. (Recall in Neuroscience 101 how, if you make someone feel a way they are seeking—secure, safe, empowered, etc.—you will earn the essential trust you need to gain them as a client).

XYPN’s emotional benefit/how we make those who interact with us feel: Empowered.

Here's our brand pyramid to help you create yours:

4. Brand Essence = The heart of your brand

Your brand essence is the heart from which everything flows and brings your brand to life. It is the simplest expression of your brand and explicitly dramatizes what business you are in. Your values, attributes, and emotional benefit flow from it.

Two excellent examples of core essence are Disney’s “Family Magic” and Mayo Clinic’s “Finding Answers.” One can easily understand how each drives their organizations internally, is dramatized at all their touchpoints and ultimately is felt in their emotional benefits: “delight” and “hope.”

Disney

Family Magic

Mayo Clinic

Finding Answers

5. Brand Promise, Mantra & Tagline

Everything you do to build your brand comes down to making and keeping a single promise. That is known as a “brand promise.” It’s what anyone interacting with your brand any time should expect from you—whether seeing your firm’s name and logo, reading a blog on your website, or feeling during a call. It’s also why they choose to engage with you and what they will value most about that engagement.

This comes directly from your differentiator, or Functional Benefit, which you determined in the Brand Pyramid exercise. When turned into a promise you can deliver on at all of your touch points—from your website to emails, calls and branded materials—it becomes a very simple, clear way of communicating your value as a financial advisor.

Think of it as your highly differentiated value proposition, but made as a pinky promise that you and anyone in your firm keeps in word and action no matter the channel, touchpoint or delivery device.

Recognize these stand-out Brand Promises?:

FedEx

Overnight delivery

Walmart

Low prices

A tagline dramatizes a brand promise. Sometimes, but not always, it is the same or very similar to your brand promise. As you can see with FedEx and Walmart, their brand promises are directly reflected in their taglines. They are explicitly communicated across their marketing channels and felt at their touchpoints through implicit actions as the promises are kept.

Your promise becomes part of your daily life through the repetition of your “brand mantra,” a short phrase that reminds you how you will keep our promise. It is not explicit, but rather what you are “thinking” and how you act as you communicate on your website, blog, calls or any other touchpoint.

6. Positioning Statement = Your place in the mind and the market

The reasoning behind positioning is that we tend to understand things in relationship to other things and this set of relationships occupies both a place in the mind and a place in the market. So the goal is to articulate the value of your brand in such a way that it describes your unique value to your target market and differentiates you in relationship to your competitors.

It also provides the foundation for your short-form description (a distillation of what you’ll advertise on your website and other channels to describe your offerings) and boilerplate (what you'll send to publications to describe your firm).

Key components of your positioning statement include who (target audience), what (you deliver) and how (your differentiation).

Let's Try One

ELI5 Financial teaches financial literacy to minors and their parents so they can create investment plans they both can stick to

Target audience: Parents seeking an advisor to help them teach their children financial literacy and help them create plans that they both can stick to.
Promise they deliver on: teaching financial literacy
What they do: help minors (and vis-a-vis their parents) create investment plans

For anyone wondering how to turn teaching children financial literacy and planning into a sustainable business model, imagine the positive “halo effect” (also known in marketing as “good by association” as opposed to “guilt by association”) your financial planning firm will benefit from when their parents watch their children learn a life skill that sets them up for success in life and removes the burden from them. And do it so simply that anyone—including the parents—can do it too.

Guess who’ll be on the parents’ short list of go-to financial advisors when they want simplified advice from a trusted partner that doesn't intimidate? And in turn, their friends? And then their friends? The amplification opportunities are endless.

7. Short-form description / boilerplate = Your value in a nutshell

Your short-form description or boilerplate is how you describe your firm in the shortest, most simplest terms. Also known as an elevator pitch. You will use it on your website and short versions of it on other advertising. You’ll send it to publications or other outlets to include when describing your firm.

It’s either your positioning statement or a shorter, more "market-y" version of it. Continuing on the example above, think along the lines of:

ELI5 Financial makes planning and saving so simple you and your five- year-old can do it

ELI5 Financial teaches your children how to plan and save for their future—so you don’t have to

8. Brand Personality = Describes the traits your brand uses to attract

Remember that room that ideal clients either did or didn’t cross to engage with the personification of your firm who they felt attracted to, liked, and connected with? This is the section of your branding where you get to describe their personality. Because brands, like people, have personalities that bring the brand to life and are external expressions of a brand’s internal “character” or values. They are expressed in your visual identity, tone, and voice.

Many look to the 12 Jungian Brand Personality Archetypes to help formulate the basis of their personality: Creator, Caregiver, Innocent, Rebel/Outlaw, Sage, Explorer, Magician, Hero, Jester, Everyman, Ruler and Lover. There are more definitions, examples, and even quizzes out there than there are archetypes. Search around for the type and description that fits your brand best. Then expand on that with examples or further insights.

For example, perhaps your brand archetype is Everyman. You are easily approached, make clients feel instantly comfortable and at ease, and provide financial plans that are very easy to understand or interact with. Describe why and how that is accomplished. Have fun with it. You are describing the type of “person” who makes your ideal clients want to cross the room to connect and engage with you!

9. Brand Story = Contextualizes your brand & creates connection

Your brand story is an internal “origin story” that can be externalized at various touchpoints, such as your “About” page. It pulls the elements of your brand together into a story arc that contextualizes your brand in a way that makes it easy to understand and connect with.

Rather than go into further explanation, check out Simply Human Advisor’s “About us” page. Dillon Cobb’s “My Mark Story” video is a spot-on example of superb brand storytelling—not just because of the story, but the way he tells it—open, honest, and vulnerable—dramatizing his Brand Elements in a masterful way.

You can imagine how easy it is for his niche audience, those navigating a major life transition, to feel immediately connected and secure in their decision to engage with him at a time in their lives when that’s exactly the emotional benefit they need.

Congratulations!

You’ve just completed your first Brand Book. Now what?

Celebrate.
It becomes your brand “bible,” a living document that you can pass along to a website or logo designer, employee, outsourcing agent, successor, or anyone else who needs to align with your firm’s brand and bring it to life.
It also becomes an organizational blueprint that you can hold all future decisions against. Whatever the question is, ask yourself, “Is this in alignment with my firm’s mission? Does it reflect its values? Does it support the business it’s in and its emotional benefit? Does it live up to my brand promise? Can I deliver on it? Etc. etc.

Connect with clients and guide their journey through Inbound Marketing and your Marketing Funnel

You’ve built your “Field of Dreams” RIA firm complete with its brand framework, elements, visual and voice identities, differentiators, and emotional benefit…so they will come, right?

Sure. If you have Kevin Costner out telling people about it. If you don’t have him to strike up conversations with retired reporters and other strangers though, it’s up to you to start “talking.”

But how?

Write, post, record, publish, and attend events (including local farmers markets—look beyond traditional networking events!).

And remember: this is no time for perfection. This is the time to just be yourself and start talking about what you know and love. Then keep talking so your ideal clients can connect and join your conversation.

Remember that large room where you imagined your firm as a person? Imagine yourself there again, only you are talking with a small group of your ideal clients. You are putting a name to their problem(s). You inform them about their problem, educate them, and arm them with knowledge to better understand and gain clarity. You are discussing solutions. Most importantly, you are making them feel your emotional benefit as you speak.

Perfect. Now capture that somewhere—a blog, YouTube channel, social media posts, your neighborhood telephone pole. The channel isn’t important. Just that you are providing a “circle” in that large room where your ideal clients can join in your conversation. And where other ideal clients overhear and join as well—then tell others to join in!

That's right. Then they will come.

Oh and btw, you’ve just passed your crash course on inbound marketing. Congratulations!

Inbound vs. Outbound or “Barketing”

Now that you’ve had a crash course in inbound marketing which starts as a conversation your ideal client “overhears” or is searching for answers to and “crosses that large room” to learn more about, versus outbound marketing (or as we like to call it, “barketing” like a carnival barker standing outside a tent soliciting everyone who walks by in an attempt to capture interest—qualified or not) check out:

TLDR; Inbound marketing plans focus on creating content that your ideal client is searching for, already is interested in, and will readily engage with when they find it. Outbound “barketing” involves paying an outside source to campaign qualified and unqualified customers into your pipeline.

Often for RIA owners, the latter creates more work, doesn’t speak to those you want to reach, wastes time on those who wander into your “tent” and ultimately takes more resources than it returns on. It also gives very little room for you to share your truth about what you love.

Mapping Your Ideal Customer’s Journey

Creating content takes time and energy. How do you decide where to spend it to get the most ROI?
Great news. You get to start using the Ideal Client & Persona Workbook you finished in Chapter 2 to map out what your ideal client wants to hear from you and when—in order for them to engage with you!

Our Marketing Funnel Template helps you map your prospective client’s journey as they move through your funnel—or pipeline—from the first touchpoint to engagement. It also lays the groundwork for the next steps in your “conversation” as you plan out what you are going to say.

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Familiarity: tell a story that makes your customer feel “seen” and understood because it’s what they know
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Relevance: message in terms of what hits closest to home for your ideal client and resonates at a personal level
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Esteem: build likeability, trust, and belief: the three dominoes which cascade into one another until your prospective client finds themselves not only wanting to engage with you, but also wanting to invite you to their next barbeque!
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Differentiation: builds on the equity of your niche to define the value only you can provide them

Your prospective clients may take different journeys to engage your services, but there are three main stages they go through as your "conversation" advances toward that engagement (or in marketing-ese, conversion from lead to prospect to client). We define these as the awareness, consideration, and decision stages of the buyer's journey. These make up the main sections of your marketing funnel. Defining these stages allows you to create content appropriate for each prospective client's stage in the funnel.

Why is it important to understand these stages? Well, if someone is evaluating what kind of financial advice they need, it might not be appropriate to show them a pricing or spec sheet as soon as they step into your conversation. It may feel like transparency to you, but how can you build likability and trust if you jump ahead of where they are at in the conversation?

Let's go back to that large room. An ideal client has crossed to hear more about the problem they're experiencing. Let's say it's planning for retirement when they are caring for both children and parents. Do you invite them into your circle and immediately outline your client engagement process? Or do you educate them with blogs, videos or a simple infographic? We call this "putting a name to their problem." Feeling seen at this stage will go far to build likability and trust. Certainly enough to provide an email so you can nurture them with further conversation.

Keep that in mind as we look at each stage of your marketing funnel and outline how you can create content appropriate for where they are in your conversation throughout their buyer's journey.

The Awareness Stage

In this stage, your prospective client realizes they have a problem that needs solving. They’ll do some research to figure out what that problem really is and what kind of solutions exist. That's your opportunity to appear in search results from "across that large room." But to ensure they find you, you’ll need to optimize your website and other content as close as possible to the exact keywords they are searching.

SEO & Keywords: Finding the keywords you want to use is no exact science, but there are some free keyword research tools that can help you with your search. Learn about those tools and practical approaches to optimizing your website and content in RIA SEO: Keyword Strategies for Financial Planners.

Next, grab your Ideal Client & Persona Workbook.

This is where the rubber meets the road and your foundational work starts paying off. It puts you squarely in their shoes and helps you determine the words or terms they are searching to identify and solve their problem(s). Describe their needs, wants, fears, and motivations and you'll have a goldmine of search terms. Then, add in their demo and psychographics to meet them where they're at.

If you have clients already, ask them how they found you. What did they search for in order to find you?

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Blogs

This is the most tried-and-true way of answering your prospective clients’ questions. You can design entire blog topics around questions or problems they are searching for answers or solutions to. Every single blog should have your target keywords in the heading, title, and meta description. That will signal to Google that you’re writing specifically about that topic and boost ranking.

Good resources:
8 Steps to Better Blogging
Stop Doing This — and Boost Financial Blogging Productivity
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FAQs

An FAQ page is a wonderful place to replicate the exact questions that your prospective clients are typing into Google. For example, if you identify a keyword centered around “Financial literacy for minors,” you can make that the exact heading of an item in your FAQ, "What are 5 financial literacy tips for minors?"

Good resources:
RIA Marketing: A Realistic Approach to SEO for Financial Advisors

How to Mine the Market to Find & Maximize Your Niche
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Infographics

Most people are visual problem solvers, meaning their eyes will gravitate toward the most visually appealing answer to their questions. Creating infographics can be a powerful way to answer these questions and put a name to their problem.

Good resources:
A Financial Advisor's Guide to Creating Visual Content
Content Marketing in the Digital Age - An Interview with Ric McConkey of FMeX
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Converting

Once you’ve captured their attention with one of your awareness pieces, you’ll want to offer ways for your prospective clients to "join the conversation." These are conversion points or CTAs (Calls To Action) in which you invite them to engage in a way that captures enough information (at least an email address) for you to start nurturing your conversation further. Avenues that continue your conversation can include subscribing to your blog or newsletter, downloading some consideration stage content or even booking a call (if appropriate).

Good resources:
How to Convert Prospects into Leads: A 5 Step Process for Financial Advisors
Nurture Prospects, Nurture Your Bottom Line

The Consideration Stage

The consideration stage of your buyer's journey will hopefully be shorter than in traditional marketing funnels. In this stage, your ideal RIA client now has a name for their problem. They’ve found out how to ask the right questions, and they’re considering what to do about it.

Here are some ideas for the consideration stage content you can create to convert your prospective clients into Marketing Qualified Leads. An important rule of thumb when creating consideration stage content is to focus on the value you’re providing. If you’re asking for someone’s name and email address, you want to ensure the perceived value of the content behind that form is worth it to them.

Let’s put it this way: If someone would pay $1 for it, you can ask for an email address. If someone would pay $5 for it, you can ask for a first name, last name, and email address. Generally, you will want to target that $5 “perceived value” range for your consideration stage content. So what does this look like in practice?

Types of Consideration Stage Content

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E-book & Guides

Creating an informative and visually appealing E-book or Guide is a great way to offer information to your prospective RIA clients in a curated manner. For example, you could create a guide on how to select the right financial planner, with all the steps involved, or a how-to guide on planning for planning.

Good resources: Storytelling to Build Your Brand: A Conversation with Kelly Moorman
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Checklists

People love checklists. Often times folks will ask themselves, “What is my next step?” This is an opportunity to lay it out for them plain as day. Examples might include <___> Steps to Financial Freedom From Student Loans or <___> Things to Consider Before Refinancing. Make sure it’s hyper-relevant to your niche so the leads you’re getting are all qualified.

Good resources: A Financial Advisor's Guide to Creating Visual Content
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Nurturing Leads

Once the leads start rolling into your Marketing Automation Platform (MAP), you’ll want to have some automated emails in place to keep them engaged. The goal of these sequenced emails is to slowly nurture your Marketing Qualified Leads into booking a discovery call. This is an excellent opportunity to build trust by segmenting and personalizing your emails with content that offers education and understanding of their specific problem(s) and possibly an overview of the path to solving them. While frequency is key to stay top of mind, even more important is to make them feel seen and safe in choosing to take the next step toward deciding to engage with you.

Good resources: Convert Financial Planning Leads to Clients with Nancy Bleeke

The Decision Stage

Your prospective client has now built enough likability and trust to make an informed decision about who they want to engage with. You’re in the running, and this is your time to shine. In your email nurtures, you’re giving them ways to connect with you, ways to learn more, and perhaps even some decision-stage content.

Your Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) turns into a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) in this stage. As they prepare to talk with you in person, it's fair to officially call simply call them a prospect.

Types of Decision Stage Content

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Spec Sheets

If your prospective clients want to know exactly what services you offer, put them all in a PDF. Folks who download this PDF are highly likely to know what kind of services they want and can be considered in the “decision stage.”

Good resources: Developing a Mini-Service as an Independent Financial Advisor
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Virtual Office Hours

If someone isn’t ready to book a call with you but would rather be part of a group, they’re probably ready to make a decision. Holding regular virtual office hours that prospects can register for will help you see who’s ready to take the leap. XYPN does this regularly to help advisors understand what they should do next.

Good resources: Getting the Most Out of Virtual Conferences: Tips for Financial Advisors
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Sales Follow-Up

Once you’ve connected with these prospects, you want to have a way to engage with them on a regular basis. Ensure you set the next meeting before you’re off the last call. Behavioral science tells us that if you ask out loud for someone to agree to a next step (also out loud), you'll increase the chances of them doing so exponentially.

In the meantime, send them emails aligned with what you heard them express to reinforce that you were listening to them and not just selling to them. This process is manual, but if your marketing funnel is set up as automated as possible, you should be able to allocate most of your time to this area.

The goal is to have a consistent flow of leads into your sales pipeline who know you, what you do, what they want, and how to get it. You’ll likely have to turn this on and off as your capacity waxes and wanes, which is totally normal.

Good resources: Want More Clients? Follow This Sales Philosophy

Delight Your Clients

It’s universally true that your current clients are the best source of new leads. The more time and effort you put into delighting your clients, the more likely they will refer others in their circle to your circle. Probably, those folks will already be part of your ideal client profile.

A shining recommendation from someone they trust will go so much further than any e-book, checklist, or blog you can crank out. Keep that in mind as you’re managing your relationships, and don’t be afraid to ask your clients for feedback or advice on how to reach more clients like them. Keep it to those two questions to steer clear of solicitation rules and testimonial regulations that we cover in the next chapter.

In our How to Attract a New Generation of Clients to Your RIA Marketing Guide, we recommend meeting your prospective clients “where they’re at”—on line. Our digital universe has become the hub around which our personal and consumer media consumption revolves and searching for financial advice is no exception. This is both democratizing and jeopardizing however, in that it increases the opportunities for your ideal clients to find and connect with you, but it also increases the channels where you can (inadvertantly or not) fraudulently represent your firm.

So where do you start, and, more importantly, how do you stay compliant?

Remember when we told you your brand book will be the blue print for all organizational decisions? This is a great example. Explore social media channels such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit for a good fit to express your brand voice. Ask yourself: does this channel offer the right platform for me to express my mission, brand voice and personality? Is it where my ideal clients are spending their time?

Once you’ve identified your fit, grab your Marketing Funnel and Content Plan. Social Media platforms are a great place to build awareness, so you’ll want to think about posts, articles or videos that will speak to your ideal client’s needs or problems at that stage. Remember that they may not have a name for their problem yet and this channel could help them find out what it is.

Example: You serve travel nurses. You could write a blog, “Top Tax Complications Travel Nurses Face” or “Retirement Investment Traps Travel Nurses Can Avoid” and then post it on LinkedIn or Reddit. Cross promote it with a video on TikTok or short on YouTube that offers the same content. That way you satisfy those who consume media by reading and watching—and give your audience a chance to connect with you as a person when they see you on video.

Keep these rules in mind as you market your RIA across all channels including your website and social media:

Rule No. 3

Stay compliant.

SEC's new Marketing Rule 206(4)(1) under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 has two prongs: the first covers direct and indirect advertising and the second testimonials and endorsements. In Kitces.com article, Marketing Compliance Under Advertising Rule 206(4)-1 And Avoiding (Accidental) Testimonials, Les Abromovitz, an attorney with deep expertise of the RIA Advertising Rule, discusses both prongs and provides very helpful guidance. We highly recommend reading it for a better understanding of the “fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative acts, practices, or courses of business” the Marketing Rule is designed to prevent.

If you need further clarification about what’s allowed when it comes to testimonials and endorsements on your website and social media channels, check out:

How Does the SEC’s RIA Marketing Rules Affect RIA Compliance?

Your Guide to Social Media Compliance and the New SEC Marketing Rules.

Or you can just avoid them all together. You may be surprised to find out that while social proof is a very valid behavioral marketing tool, it also is not necessary if you establish a relationship with your prospective clients through trusted channels like blogs or vlogs that they rely on—instead of third-party validation. If they like, trust and believe you based on your ongoing conversations with them, you won’t have to rely on the external validation.

The TL;DR? Stick to the provable truth

Whether it’s an embellishment of funds you manage (e.g.: net versus gross amount), using hyperbole (looking at you, “best,” “most trusted,” “premier firm” etc.) or posting unprovable testimonials, there’s a lot to avoid when it comes to "disseminating any advertisement that violates any paragraphs” of the Marketing Rule.

But that’s easy because, as you learned in your branding excercise, those aren’t the differentiators you want to communicate anyway.

Being honest about exactly what you DO deliver (recall your brand promise) and making provable statements is easy when you focus on what business you're in, your brand promise, and emotional benefit (e.g.: "We empower travel nurses to make informed decisions about their tax and retirement planning" instead of "We're the trusted go-to source for travel nurses seeking revolutionary financial planning")

PROS

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Industry standard for tracking and reporting.
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Know which pages are performing well and which ones need work.
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Free… ahem… free! No upsells or add-on costs.
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Integrates with all major website platforms for easy set-up.

PROS

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Another free tool! It’s worth starting here before paying for an SEO tool to make sure you’re getting the ROI.
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Paid SEO tools like MOZ SEO and SEMRush are expensive. ROI isn’t provable for independent firms, which is why we recommend starting with the Google Ads Keyword Planner.

PROS

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You can build virtually anything!
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Massive template library to choose from.
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Almost any marketing tool you use will have a WordPress plugin, making integration a breeze.
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There are thousands of forums to help you debug issues that come up - someone has most likely done it before.
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Cost-effective.

CONS

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WordPress gets deep pretty quickly. So many features make it hard to learn what’s necessary.
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The user interface is lacking; therefore, the learning curve is steep.
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You’ll most likely need a developer at some point because code edits to templates are not straightforward.

PROS

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Can create forms, landing pages, and store contact information.
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Can “tag” and segment contacts by their stage in the buyer’s journey.
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Automated email follow-up.
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One-off emails to lists.
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A vast network of support and forums for troubleshooting.

PROS

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Landing pages, forms, automated emails, and more!
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Audience segmentation, reporting, and tagging.
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Easier to learn than most platforms.
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Fantastic support.
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Can scale with you no matter how large your RIA becomes.

Every marketing effort you make should drive a desired behavior in your audience. Whether you want a journalist to quote you in their article, an ideal client to subscribe to your blog, or an MQL to convert to an SQL, there are three elements necessary to drive desired behavior: motivation, ability, and a prompt.

Think of the behavioral psychology studies done with rats designed to get them to push a lever to receive a pellet or other motivating factor. If your marketing tactics are your levers, your ideal client needs to be motivated by the reward, have the ability to find/see/understand how to work the lever (e.g.: navigate your website, subscribe to a blog, book a call etc.) and a prompt (CTA) to push the lever.

In The 3 Reasons Marketing Campaigns Fail to Drive Results for RIAs, you learn how this behavioral science can also help you troubleshoot why you aren’t getting the desired results you’re looking for.

TL,DR: If your marketing tactics aren’t driving the desired behavior from your ideal clients, you are likely missing one of these three elements: motivation, ability, or a clear prompt.

In this chapter, we will examine common issues and the elements you may be missing to fix them.

My email metrics are low

Let’s run it through the checklist:

Motivation Are you offering value that motivates your ideal client to open your email in the subject line? Does your body copy motivate them to take action?

Ability Are you making it simple and easy to understand what you are offering? Are you being clear and concise about its value?

Prompt Does your CTA match where your ideal client is in their journey? Does it drive them to where you want it to?

If you aren’t able to identify your missing piece, find a “rat” (third party who is unbiased or unfamiliar) and ask for feedback. Does the value you’re offering in your subject line and email body make them feel motivated to “push the lever” and click on your CTA? Are you making it clear and easy for them to understand what you’re offering and what action you want them to take? Adjust accordingly and watch your results improve!

No one clicks on my email CTAs

You’re not alone! No matter what the channel (website, email, blog, YouTube etc.), if you aren’t leveraging your call-to-action (CTA) in a way that motivates your ideal client, run them through the checklist.

Are you motivating them with curiosity? High value? FOMO? Is your CTA brief and clear about the value they receive if they click? Why should they click? Is the CTA an easily accessible button or hidden in the body of a long paragraph? Is it visually appealing?

Here's a few examples of how to spice up a CTA:

My prospects are not converting

If you’re getting a lot of leads in the door but you’re not getting them across the finish line, you might check under the hood. Your Mid-funnel should be automated enough to send touchpoints to your leads at least once per week. If you have an automated email cadence regularly sending emails to your leads, check and see which ones are underperforming.

Check all of your CTAs—do they take them right to right to its promised destination or do they have to click again to receive their “reward?”

Start with opens. If your open rate is low, try adjusting the subject line and preview text.
If your click rate is low, try adjusting your CTAs.
If your leads aren’t booking calls with you, try adjusting the topics of the emails to better reflect their problem and your ability to solve it.
Look into their journey to gain insights about them and nurture them manually with emails or content specific to what interested them in the first place. Was it a particular infographic or blog? Did they click on a specific newsletter topic? Never underestimate the power of personalized follow up.

I have a good conversation, but then I get ghosted

Getting ghosted is a badge of honor in sales. It’s happened to all of us, and the only way to combat “ghosting” is to ensure your follow-up is well-timed. Make sure you get commitments to talk again, whether it be a month, a week, or a few days. When folks commit to something, they are more likely to follow through.

There’s something in behavior science referred to as the consistency principle that states people are more likely to stay consistent with behavior or commitments they’ve previously stated. Once you’ve gotten them to commit to a follow-up meeting, time your interim follow-up appropriately to stay top of mind.

My buyer’s journey is too long

This can be hard to overcome, but we suggest spending more time and effort on the contacts that are closest to converting. If your average days to close a new client is 60 days, and you’d like to be closer to 30, you might need to redefine how you treat your leads. Those that aren’t committed to joining within your 30-day timeline should be handled with care by your marketing automation. Once they show more intent to engage your services, they should get more personal touches from you. This will fine-tune the time you spend on marketing and sales.

You could also use paid advertising to fill your marketing funnel. Once your funnel is full, you’ll probably have more prospective clients to choose from. Focus on the ones with the shortest timeline to join, and you’ll be using your time efficiently.

If you take care to outline your sales & marketing processes, you shouldn’t have to redo them every time you’re looking for growth. All you need to do is fan the flames, add a little kindling, and let the fire grow.

To do so, grab your Brand Book. Review your Ideal Client & Persona Workbook. Either validate or refine them to reflect your current (or near future-state) offering and ideal client match based on what you've learned so far. Update your Marketing Funnel Content and Calendar based on any refinements. With all that you've learned, it will be fun to see more ideal clients cross that room to join your circle.

Happy marketing!

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