Content creation helps advisors get their message across while attracting new customers. Therefore, crafting the right content on the right platform is paramount. To help you identify content types that may resonate with your audience, explore these five tried and tested evergreen content ideas:
- Start a YouTube channel sharing your financial expertise
- Create informative and insightful blog content around financial literacy
- Distribute an email newsletter that's relevant to the prospect journey
- Develop a financial podcast targeting your niche audience
- Collect and convert leads with a lead magnet
1. Start a YouTube channel sharing your financial expertise
A good social media presence showcases your expertise, engages your audience, and can elevate your brand above your competitors. Advisors commonly favor LinkedIn and Twitter, but a few advisors have successfully launched YouTube, for example, James Conole of Root Financial.
A close friend of James suggested he start filming his podcasts and upload the videos to YouTube. James gave it a try, and it paid off. His YouTube channel has garnered over 44k subscribers and 260k video views, bringing in $220M in AUM for his firm. James does admit that it wasn't a home run from the get-go, but with a bit of time, it gained traction and has become a continuous source of new business.
James explains that with social media, you're not there to sell your firm; you're there to share quality content to educate and entertain your target audience (with an outro that directs them to your website). And stay committed because consistency is a big part of the success.
According to James, this is how advisors can get started with YouTube:
- Find your niche: Speak to an audience you want to attract and work with.
- Don't be afraid to outsource: Focus on the parts you enjoy and outsource the rest. For James, he enjoys hitting the record button and delivering quality content to the camera. He then outsources the video for editing from a pro.
- Model what works: Learn from other advisors doing it well and follow that template. Specifically for YouTube, thumbnails and titles are crucial. Spend time learning how to make your images and copy eye-catching.
Tune into this episode of The Advisor Journey to learn more about James' approach–including proven advice advisors can implement in their social media strategies.
2. Create informative and insightful blog content around financial literacy
Finance is complicated. As the expert, you can lift and simplify the complexities, bringing prospects relief.
Written content helps with SEO and lets your audience get to know you before a face-to-face conversation. If you can educate them through well-crafted content, you're well on your way to building trust and credibility.
Samuel Deane of Deane Wealth Management focused on creating niche content around the life events affecting his target audience. This way, he's front and center when they're ready to hire an advisor.
This approach has helped him successfully grow his firm through inbound marketing, using his content in newsletters, emails, social media, etc., attracting the clients he desires to work with.
To start creating content for your audience, consider their search intent: What are they typing into Google? In Samuel's case, he targets millennials in tech and startups with stock options. He knows his audience is looking for information about how to negotiate their salary, handle company stock options, what to do when the company IPOs, etc. Every piece of content serves the searcher's intent.
Samuel further discusses his content creation and inbound marketing approach in this episode of The Advisor Journey.
To learn more about creating killer content, check out this in-depth guide.
3. Distribute an email newsletter that's relevant to prospects
Email marketing is still a prominent tool for advisors to engage with their audience. A newsletter that contains high-value content will keep your audience engaged and you front of mind.
Unlike social media, email gives you direct access to communicate with prospects through their inbox. Also, you can separate your clients into different audience groups, depending on their goals and interests, and deliver a customized message to meet their needs.
The design of your newsletter should be clean and easy to read. Avoid tons of text or jamming too many assets into one email. Ensure that every detail you include relates to one another and leads back to your website or towards booking a consultation with you.
Remember that your newsletter provides value to your audience's daily life. Keeping a finger on the pulse of daily news affecting your audience is essential. This way, you can address it promptly through the newsletter and provide helpful tips to navigate it.
Ryan A. Hughes of Bull Oak Capital has created a newsletter that follows a simple template. He begins by answering a timely question affecting his target audience–sharing concise information to help his audience understand. He then offers a link to a relevant video on YouTube and a link to schedule a consultation with him if they're interested.
Going one step further, RIAs can leverage sophisticated technologies to automate the time-consuming aspects of email newsletters, such as audience segmentation, delivery, and basic levels of personalization. Learn more about email marketing and automation in this in-depth guide.
4. Develop a financial podcast targeting your niche audience
Podcasts enable RIAs to add personality and forge meaningful connections with their audience. It also allows advisors to partner with other experts in the field, bringing in new voices that enrich your content and add value for your clients.
For Taylor Schulte of Define Financial, his podcast Stay Wealthy has landed on Apple's top 100 investing shows and Forbes' Top 10 Retirement Podcasts. It began as a hyper-localized podcast for San Diego, but Taylor decided to expand outside of San Diego and instead hyper-focus on his target audience. This shift resulted in exponential growth for his firm–bringing in more clients from outside of California that he enjoys working with.
Like James, Taylor learned that narrowing his focus and specifically speaking directly to his ideal client resulted in growing a client base that he can serve better.
In this episode, learn more about Taylor's approach to podcasting and the marketing flywheel.
5. Collect and convert prospects with lead magnets
A lead magnet lives permanently on an RIAs website. Typically, long-form resources, such as research reports or comprehensive how-to guides, lead magnets offer access to said resource in exchange for a prospect's contact details.
Lead magnets are a win-win situation for RIAs and prospects alike. For RIAs, they help build out your email database, establish more meaningful customer connections, and demonstrate your firm's expertise.
For customers, they receive an informative and actionable resource for free. Outside of generic reports and guides, RIAs' most common lead magnets include downloadable checklists (e.g., step-by-step guide to opening a retirement account) and calculators.
For example, Coastal Wealth Management's straightforward online calculator helps clients and prospects determine the value of their 401k by estimating how much their plan will accumulate leading up to retirement.
Start small, think big – but keep it simple
Regardless of the content types you choose to explore, one common thread tying all these tips together is simplicity. Keep your content clear and easy to digest. Finances are complicated enough without adding unnecessary complexity to the equation.
But more than that, don't overwhelm yourself by simultaneously adopting too many content types. Start with a couple of initiatives and get good at them before extending yourself into different content areas.
Next up, check out this in-depth guide about digital marketing for financial advisors.
