Marketing Tips That Help You Stand Out

Voiceover:

The latest news, updates, and insights from LPL leaders on what's happening in the industry and at the firm. This is the LPL Share-Cast.

Samantha Davison:

Hello and thank you for tuning in to this episode of the LPL Share-Cast series. I'm your host, Samantha Davison. Through this series, we are bringing you news and insights from LPL leaders and partners to help you run your business, day in and day out. What does it take to run a successful business? It begins with planning and asking yourself questions like, "where do I want to go and what do I need to get there?" For financial professionals, you must also focus on establishing your brand and executing a well-thought-out marketing strategy if you want to stand out from the competition. Here to talk to us about this today is Vice President of Marketing, Sarah LeBlanc. Thank you so much for being here, Sarah.

Sarah LeBlanc:

Glad to be here.

Samantha Davison:

Sarah, I think a good place to start is by explaining what we mean when we say "marketing" and when we say "you need to have a marketing strategy." Explain that to us.

Sarah LeBlanc:

Yeah, great question. There are a lot of advisors out there who don't think they do any marketing when in reality they do. It's not just direct mail and cold calling; marketing includes things like client events, email newsletters, and referral marketing. The reason why you need to have a strategy is because understanding where new business is coming from, or even has the potential to come from, is important for client acquisition, retention, and even wallet-share growth.

Samantha Davison:

So where do you start then? If you want to create a marketing strategy?

Sarah LeBlanc:

I'd say it starts with your value proposition. What do you want to be known for? Why should a prospect choose you over another advisor, and why should your current clients and their heirs continue to work with you going forward? You really need to differentiate yourself from the crowd, and a great place to start is by examining your current book of business and defining your target market. Are there common characteristics they share? And then connect that to your areas of expertise to identify how you're better positioned to serve them. Then the next step is to develop your brand name if you haven't already along with a visual identity that reflects your value proposition in some way. So one example of how that might come to life is if your value prop is all about how you serve entire families, then your brand might be something like "Generational Wealth Management" with a visual that represents a family tree. You get the idea.

Samantha Davison:

I love that. Let's talk about determining a target audience. Why is that so important, and can you have more than one?

Sarah LeBlanc:

So the more you define your target market, the better you'll be able to serve them with valuable content and other services. And yes, you can absolutely have more than one, and I'll give you a couple examples of that. Let's say most of your clients are baby boomers so you might consider that your primary target, but then you might also want to target their Gen X kids to prepare for future wealth transfer. Or maybe you serve both small business owners and executives nearing retirement. To help you define your target market or markets, whichever direction you go in, you might want to check out our blog which is entitled "Five Steps to Creating a Client Persona." It walks you through the process for defining exactly who you're looking to reach with your marketing efforts.

Samantha Davison:

That's great. So once you have your target audience, then what do you do?

Sarah LeBlanc:

You'll wanna develop a marketing plan in order to reach them where they are with valuable, relevant information. I'll give you an example of that. Let's say you work with young professionals. They might be looking to expand their own professional networks. So hosting special events and connecting on LinkedIn would be good tactics, or keep in touch with your current clients using regular email newsletters and consistent social media content that addresses their top financial questions. This is going to help generate that top of mind brand awareness that's so important to inspiring more referrals.

Samantha Davison:

In the last couple of years with the pandemic, advisors really have had to come up with new ways to engage with clients or prospective clients. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Sarah LeBlanc:

I saw this great quote recently that said "COVID didn't cause digital transformation; it accelerated it," and I couldn't agree more. Activities like in-person events, seminars, and networking groups were no longer possible, so advisors had to pivot to new technologies like FaceTime client meetings and Zoom webinars and ramp up social media activity in order to replace that face-to-face networking. We ended up getting a ton of questions about webinars. I'll talk about that for just a minute. Our marketing consulting team put together a best practice guide to help our advisors be successful in that area. You can find it out on the Resource Center on ClientWorks. It's called the "Webinar and Event Guide and Checklist." It walks you through everything from selecting a platform to the steps needed to set up your next event. A couple other tips specific to webinars I would offer are to keep them fairly short compared to in-person seminars. I would say 30 minutes or so is best. Have a plan to promote them, record each session, and then, importantly, have a plan to follow up so you keep that momentum going. That's especially important with prospects

Samantha Davison:

It's really important to use all of these things together. There's not just one way to reach clients or prospective clients or engage with them. It really is a combination of all of these efforts and consistency is key.

Sarah LeBlanc:

Yep, that's right. Everything works together. So just as an example - if you host an event, make sure you're collecting that contact information from all of your attendees, then invite them to connect on social media and add them to your email newsletter database after the fact. The key is to consistently offer valuable information in multiple channels so it hits your target audience where and how they want to hear from you. Keep in mind, if this sounds like a lot to take on, we totally get it. That's why LPL offers a ton of support. So tools like our Gainfully social media content library to keep you active on social; Marketing On Demand has libraries of pre-approved content plus the support of our Marketing Consulting team to get you started with best practices and recommendations. Plus, if you want help with execution, you can partner with Marketing Solutions and they'll design and execute digital marketing strategies on your behalf.

Samantha Davison:

One thing we should point out is that depending on whether you are an LPL advisor or not, there may be some compliance requirements when embarking on any type of marketing activity.

Sarah LeBlanc:

Yeah, absolutely. It's always recommended to speak with your firm's compliance department for the rules of the road. Of course, here at LPL, you can reach out to your assigned analyst in Marketing Regulatory Review for guidance. And then just specific to social media, because I think that's a pretty unique area here at LPL, our advisors should take the required 20-minute training course and sign up for Social Patrol which captures everything you're posting in real time, and it also archives automatically. This is a huge benefit because you're able to post your own original, content in a timely manner without having to wait for compliance review.

Samantha Davison:

Sarah, this has been great. Thank you so much for your time and your insights.

Sarah LeBlanc:

Thanks so much for having me.

Samantha Davison:

For additional information about what we talked about, check out the "Five Steps to Creating a Client Persona" blog on lpl.com or LPL advisors can visit the Resource Center and search 'marketing your practice." If you have questions, email [email protected]. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.