How to Grow Your Financial Advisory Firm in 2023
Are you excited for the new year? It’s safe to say 2022 was anything but predictable. From geopolitical unrest to prolonged market volatility, it’s about time we put 2022 to rest.
With the arrival of 2023, your firm is likely setting some goals and milestones for the new year.
If your team is focused on continued growth, have you considered how you’ll achieve it? Adapting to the digital age is no longer an option for advisory firms looking to scale. But if you’re unsure where to start, here are a few suggestions.
First, Turn Your Focus to Digital Marketing
Think about the last time you tried a new restaurant, found a mechanic, or shopped for a new pair of pants. When searching for a new service or product, you first turn to Google, right? For the next generation of clients, finding a financial partner is no different.
So, how do you get these next-gen clients as a financial advisor? By focusing on your firm’s digital marketing.
Building an online presence has quickly become a necessity for the growth and preservation of your firm. In fact, 76% of consumers look at a business’s online presence before visiting it in person. Money is personal, and people want to know right off the bat if you’re trustworthy and professional.
To build credibility and attract new clients, you must amp up your digital marketing efforts. Here’s how to do it.
Convert Your Website into a Lead-Generating Machine
When a website is optimized for lead generation, qualified prospective clients land in your inbox with no extra effort on your part. For firms looking to grow in 2023, this is a huge win.
Clean Up Your Copy
If it’s been a while (maybe even years) since you touched your website, it’s time for a refresh — or major overhaul. We suggest starting with your content.
Put yourself in the shoes of your clients.
Do they care that…
- You’re an experienced financial professional who can offer wealth management services?
- Or, will you help them meet their financial goals and feel confident in retirement?
Both messages lead to the same results, but the latter focuses on the reader. It gives them something to relate to and connect with while making you the solution to their problem.
Your content should:
- Help the reader self-identify as an ideal client
- Position your clients as the “hero” of the story, and your firm as the sage or the side kick, helping the hero to achieve their goals
- Be relatable and easy to read, and avoid industry jargon
- Present your value in a streamlined way, not bogging down the reader with extraneous details or facts
Create Better Calls to Action
Once you’ve tweaked your messaging, focus on creating compelling calls to action. These are the next steps you’d like your website visitor to take. They often include scheduling a discovery meeting, emailing questions, downloading a whitepaper or Ebook, getting on the mailing list, etc.
A call to action is really what helps your website shift from a virtual business card to an effective financial advisor prospecting tool. Make sure your calls to action are action-packed, and reader-focused. Avoid overused terms like “Learn More” or “Click Here.”
Instead, opt for exciting phrases like “Get Started” or “Discover Our Difference.”
Embrace Simplicity
People spend on average less than 55 seconds on a financial advisor’s website. In other words, you have less than a minute to make an impression. This leaves no time for dense paragraphs of text or confusing copy.
Instead, it’s time to edit yourself and create a simple, engaging website that gets straight to the point. Use lots of visuals, break up heavy copy with headlines and limit the number of pages in the navigation bar so as to not overwhelm the viewer.
Integrate Technology to Improve User Experience
Integrating technology into your website is another essential component to converting your website from a business card to a lead-generating machine.
An online scheduler, for example, makes it easy and FAST for prospects to book a time on your calendar. Directing them to call your office or send an email puts a hurdle in your prospect’s way, making it more likely that they’ll drop out of the sales funnel altogether.
Establish a Content Creation Strategy
Once you’ve taken some time to reassess and update your website, you’ll need a way to attract prospects to it. That’s where a content creation strategy comes into play.
Regularly producing quality content helps put your firm directly in front of your clients and ideal prospects. It’s effective at establishing your advisors as thought leaders and educators while giving you fresh ideas to share with your network via email, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
Then, Put Your Technology to Work
The technology available to financial professionals has grown exponentially in recent years. But knowing what platforms bring efficiency and organization to your business is key to growing your firm in the new year.
Proactive Communication Is Key to Client Retention
Keeping clients satisfied during periods of market volatility, or economic downturn is difficult. We recommend financial advisors be proactive in their client engagement efforts, especially when you know your clients may be concerned about portfolio performance.
Nitrogen offers a personalized Check-ins feature, which gauges client market sentiment through periodic, automatic email check-ins. This is a prime example of leveraging technology to keep clients engaged while eliminating the manual need to write and send dozens of personal emails.
Not to mention, Nitrogen’s check-ins feature helps the advisors on your team gain useful insights into the psychology of their clients, which can provide measurable and actionable data.
Button Up Compliance Practices for the New Year
It’s MUCH easier to focus on growing your firm when you aren’t stressed about regulatory issues.
Nitrogen’s growth platform now includes new compliance tools for pinpointing misalignment, finding concentrated holdings, and flagging issues across accounts and households.
The Nitrogen growth platform gives compliance officers the tools they need to standardize the firm’s business practices around the common language of risk. Easily review which accounts have inappropriate investments, concentrated positions or are out of alignment with their target so your firm can take steps to remedy the situation proactively.
Encourage Firmwide Adoption of Tech Solutions
Tech solutions only truly work when the entire team is aligned in using it.
To get your firm scaling to new heights in 2023, focus on promoting firmwide adoption of new tools. Offer in-depth, ongoing training that encourages use and appoint someone on your team to be the go-to if advisors have questions at any time.
Scattered integration of tech into your practice may be more harmful than helpful. Many tools are designed to replace traditional, manual processes, but they tend only to work if every team member uses them the right way.
Discover What Nitrogen Can Do For You in 2023
Nitrogen has developed a powerful lineup of tech platforms and solutions designed to help every facet of your advisory firm grow. These offerings are designed to enhance both the advisor and client experience while delivering strong business protection and growth to firm leaders and executives.
Get an inside look at how Nitrogen Ultimate can transform your firm’s operations in 2023 and book a demo today.