Digital Marketing for Financial Advisors

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: while you’ve been perfecting your investment strategies and building client relationships the traditional way, a new generation of financial advisors is capturing tomorrow’s millionaire clients with smart digital marketing.

The good news? It’s never been easier to level the playing field.

Gone are the days when digital marketing meant throwing money at confusing ad platforms and hoping something stuck. Today’s financial advisors are using proven, compliance-friendly strategies to:

• Attract high-net-worth clients who are actively searching for expertise online
• Build trust before the first meeting through valuable content that showcases their knowledge
• Scale their practice without cold calling or endless networking events
• Stand out in a crowded marketplace with an authentic, professional digital presence

But here’s what separates the advisors who thrive online from those who waste thousands on ineffective campaigns: knowing the critical differences between generic marketing advice and what actually works in the heavily regulated financial services industry.

There are many strange rules and regulations within this RIA domain that can come back to bite you if you’re not careful. Many of my favorite digital marketing strategies are not employable as an advisor, given the various considerations around compliance.

But there are ways to make everyone happy. 

Marketing for Financial Advisors: The Rules of the Game

RIAs and wealth management firms have some rather severe marketing restrictions placed on them due to industry regulations. However, a new SEC Marketing Rule took effect on May 4, 2022, and changed the game for financial advisors. This new rule replaced the old advertising and solicitation restrictions with a more flexible framework.

You can now use client testimonials and endorsements on your website and marketing materials, as long as you include proper disclosures about compensation and conflicts of interest.

Here’s the big win: you can now ask clients for reviews, but there are specific conditions.

The rule allows solicitation of client reviews if you follow proper procedures and maintain adequate records of the relationship and performance information.

Either way, we must always maintain strict adherence to marketing compliance. 

Online reviews are one of the biggest drivers of “social proof”. In fact, according to an INC.com survey, 84 percent of people trust online reviews as much as a recommendation from a friend. 68% of people form an opinion after reading between one to six online reviews.

Online reviews are a modern and easy way for busy people to quickly determine if people are generally happy with the conduct of a particular business, or unhappy. 10s or hundreds of five-star reviews probably suggest the business is interested in making their clients happy.

Investment Advisors previously were prohibited from advertising, according to an outdated law. However, when a client leaves a review, they are acting as the publisher, with Google as the owner of the means of publishing.

This was fine, as long as the advisor didn’t solicit the review. Fortunately, times have changed, and the rules are far less restrictive.

Marketing for Financial Advisers: The Good News

(Yes, I know I spelled “Advisers” incorrectly in the above headline. Blame search engine users: people search and misspell when they search, and I want to capture that traffic! Now, back to our regularly-scheduled article.)

The Good News is that online reviews, while nice to have, are far from everything that can be done in the online marketing realm. Of course, all wealth managers and financial advisors must play by the same rules. That means the smart RIAs who employ a multi-pronged digital marketing strategy will result in the greatest AUM and ultimately build the most value in their business. 

So what are some of the ways Boomcycle can help our clients who are RIAs and wealth managers with their online marketing?

Stand Out from the Pack

Step 1 is not doing what everyone else is doing. 

Most wealth manager and financial advisor websites all pretty much do the very same thing.

I actually did a deep-dive survey of 43 wealth manager websites in the “Tri-Valley”*, assessing technical SEO as well as presentation and engagement. The survey rated a website’s adherence to best practices, including proper use of titles and meta descriptions, H-tag usage, schema usage, etc.

The median rating of these websites was 46 out of 100, leaving a lot of room for improvement.*

While some of the errors were technical in nature, most were just plain “Marketing 101”:

• Wasted web real estate. Over 95% had giant, pretty-but-ineffectual photographs on their home pages. Presumably, these photos are meant to inspire or calm their visitors. In fact, this is a faceless waste of valuable “above-the-fold” web real estate.
  
• No personality. Few of these websites first allowed their visitors to know, like and trust the company, or the people within the company. Most went for the contact and close right away.
  
• No differentiation. Of course all wealth managers and financial advisors want their clients to be happy, and take good care of your money. This virtual commoditization makes it especially tough to stand out from the crowd of wealth management firms out there. 
  
• No emphasis on location. These companies could have been located anywhere in the world; there was no overt connection made to the community in which they reside, aside from a few which featured the Golden Gate Bridge. 
  
• Technical website errors. Most of these websites had multiple technical errors which, no matter the presentation, are preventing them from achieving authority in the eyes of Google and Bing. 
  Missing structured data markup. Most financial advisor websites lack proper schema markup, which helps search engines understand your business type, services offered, and location details. Financial services schema like LocalBusiness, FinancialService, and ProfessionalService can help your website appear in rich snippets and local search results more effectively.

Better Digital Marketing for Financial Advisors

Emphasize Locality

Wealth managers and financial advisors must emphasize locality and accessibility within a particular region or community. In fact, your locality is your best weapon against the faceless “big box” wealth management firms like Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan, whose own advisors often feature an ironically meager web presence, other than a desultory listing of their office address and phone number. 

This leaves these advisors with the phone, email, and the local Chamber of Commerce or BNI group as nearly the only means of outreach. While these traditional sales outreach methods may never be completely obsolete, your ideal prospects are inundated with the online marketplace for every conceivable need. From a client’s perspective, why should shopping for a great financial advisor be any different? 

The trend these days is to “buy local“, and consumers (even high-end consumers) are buying into that message more than ever before. Wouldn’t your best clients rather meet in person and shake the hand (well, you know, post COVID-19, if there is such a time!) of the person who’s going to be managing their precious life savings? 

Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile (GBP) listing is one of your most important social properties. In my RIA Digital Marketing Survey, most financial advisor’s GBPs were cobbled together by a machine (Google), or at the very least, sub-optimally utilized.

You need to feed your GBP listing with fresh posts, photos, and laser-accurate NAPW (Name, Address, Phone and Website) information. If your NAPW info doesn’t match everywhere on the web, Google may give your listing less prominence.

Your Google Business Profile offers features that many financial advisors overlook. The Q&A section allows you to proactively address common questions about your services, minimum investment requirements, or appointment scheduling.

When potential clients see these answers, they get immediate clarity about working with you. Post to your profile weekly if possible.

Google rewards active profiles with better visibility in local search results. Your posts can include market updates, educational content about retirement planning, or announcements about new services.

Each post stays visible for seven days (even though most humans will never see them without substantial digging!), so consistent posting keeps your profile fresh and engaging.

Emphasize Who You Are

So who are these mysterious “wealth managers”? What do they think and what do they believe? Your best clients want to know you before they park their money with your firm. 

A written bio is a must-have. Even better is a “video bio” from each of your advisors, introducing themselves and telling a little bit about their background, education, and experience. Include something out of the ordinary (such as hobbies or sports teams) to help solidify the mental connection. 

Video is going to become even more important in our post-Coronavirus world. People will do more and more comparison shopping from the comfort of their homes and offices, and your video bios will become even more impactful. 

Create Helpful Content and Build Relationships

Your ability to help your prospects will keep you front and center in their minds. 

Answer questions. Search for “financial advisors” in Google, and look for the “People also ask” section. Write articles and create videos that address these questions. 

Create downloadable financial wellness and tax-time checklists as Lead Magnets. 

Write articles and make videos with titles like “The Top 5 Worst Money Mistakes to Avoid”, “10 Astonishingly Easy Ways to Save for Your Child’s Education”, “The Beginner’s Guide to Stocks and Bonds”. 

If you’re fairly comfortable speaking extemporaneously, videos are your most effective marketing tool, as they’re the most personal, and can be repurposed as podcasts and as a standard blog or written content (usually with a bit of editing). 

To make a solid video, make a punch list of topics you’d like to hit and speak on each topic. Resist the urge to become a “broadcaster” or news anchor. Simply speak to the camera as if it were a person.

Mostly, don’t overthink it. Your iPhone or Android, on a suitable stand with decent lighting, is more than adequate in order to create videos. If you’d rather use your webcam, OBS is a great and free video recorder and streamer. 

In the video, the enemy of progress is the insistence on perfection. 

LinkedIn Marketing for Financial Advisors

LinkedIn is where your ideal clients spend their professional time online. High-net-worth individuals and business owners use LinkedIn daily for networking and industry insights. Supposedly. However, there’s a ton of cringe on this platform, which makes it something of a dumpster fire for direct marketing effectiveness.

Theoretically, it could be your most powerful social platform for building relationships with prospects. No matter the results, your LinkedIn strategy should be almost 100% focused on providing value, never pitching services.

Share market insights, comment thoughtfully on posts from local business leaders, and publish articles about financial planning topics. The platform’s algorithm favors genuine engagement over promotional content.

LinkedIn’s publishing platform lets you write longer-form content that positions you as a thought leader. Articles about tax planning strategies or retirement preparation often get shared by your connections, expanding your reach to their networks.

LinkedIn articles are your best bet for visibility because when people subscribe to your newsletter, they end up directly in their email inboxes. Big marketing win.

This organic amplification is far more powerful than paid advertising. Connection requests should always include a personalized message.

Reference something specific about their business or a mutual connection. Generic connection requests get ignored by busy professionals, but personalized ones often start meaningful conversations.

The key compliance consideration on LinkedIn involves avoiding any investment advice or performance claims in your posts. Stick to educational content and general market commentary.

Save the specific financial advice for private meetings with qualified prospects.

Your Website is the Hub of Your Online Marketing Strategy

Your website is the only online property you truly control. 

People can become enamored with various social media platforms. Recently, I asked a CMO if her company had a digital marketing strategy. 

“Oh yes, we do social media.”

Your business will never own the friends or followers on any social platform. The social platform is the owner of those connections. 

“Your business will never own its social media properties, nor its followers. The social media platforms own everything. That is why you must have a business website.”

David Victor, Founder & CEO, Boomcycle Digital Marketing

Social media is an important component of an overall digital marketing strategy, but it’s not the be-all, end-all. People hang out on social media anyway and feel as if they “get it”. However, organic social reach is declining every year as platforms discover they need to sell advertising to pay their employees and satisfy investors or shareholders. 

And people are fickle; social media platforms have a lifespan. Will your firm outlive Facebook? It’s quite possible.

Remember, no one can take your website away from you, as long as you keep paying your hosting bill and your domain registration. 

Be sure your website is engaging. Anyone can put together a website. This was obvious from my RIA website survey. However, it takes more than a few photos and some inspirational text in order to create an engaging and effective marketing presentation. 

First and foremost, your website needs to answer the “Big 3 Whats” for your visitors: 

• What does your company do?
• So what?
• What should the visitor do to engage with you?

What is your Unique Selling Proposition? Your website’s presentation should emphasize the transformation and benefits of working with you as opposed to any other RIA. 

Your website should also feature phrases that a searcher looking for your types of services would type (this is part of our Intelligent Web Design process). 

It’s always surprising to me how many companies take a “we” approach to their financial advisor marketing presentation when it’s the visitor who should be held up as the “hero” of the story you’re about to share. 

Lastly, be sure your website is technically sound. A poor user experience, broken SSL certificates, slow loading time, broken links, inaccurate HTML tags or meta tags, lack of structured data…these are all problems that must be fixed to rise above your competition in the search engine rankings.

Page speed directly impacts your search rankings and user experience. Google’s Core Web Vitals measure three key areas: Largest Contentful Paint (how quickly your main content loads), First Input Delay (how fast your page responds to clicks), and Cumulative Layout Shift (how stable your page layout remains while loading). When your website loads slowly, visitors leave before seeing your content.

Studies show that financial services websites that take more than three seconds to load lose up to 40% of their visitors. Simple fixes like compressing images (the best bang for the buck fix you can make), using a content delivery network, and enabling browser caching can dramatically improve your site’s performance.

Build Your Email List

It is estimated that 80-90% of the visitors to your website are not ready to buy yet. These people are in browse mode. Many will get distracted, get a phone call, a text message, an email…for whatever reason, they leave your website and they may never return.

Since you did get them to your website (one of the toughest things to do!), you owe it to yourself to at least try to capture their email to stay in touch with them. 

Email marketing for financial advisors comes with specific compliance requirements you can’t ignore. The CAN-SPAM Act requires clear sender identification, truthful subject lines, and easy unsubscribe options.

Every email must include your physical business address and make it simple for recipients to opt out. If you work with international clients, GDPR rules apply even if you’re US-based.

You need explicit consent to email EU residents and must provide clear privacy policies about how you use their data. Keep detailed records of when and how people subscribed to your email list.

Your email list, which you develop primarily through your website, is your marketing lifeline. A healthy email list enables you to stay top of mind with your ideal prospects.

Growing, nurturing, and emailing to your email list is the most important marketing activity. 

Digital Marketing for Financial Services

Do a great job with your RIA marketing online, and it will pay dividends. 

A truly great digital marketing campaign will create engagement with your ideal prospects and ultimately, generate inbound leads. Who wouldn’t take orders from new clients over the phone over the prospect of sitting in another leads club meeting?

And just like any new prospect would check out your firm, you must do your own due diligence when looking for a web marketing company to help you raise your visibility above the other local RIAs and national firms.

The idea that you as a financial advisor could crush digital marketing without professional help is as suspect as a web designer who thinks they can do a bang-up job managing their own investments. 

To paraphrase a smart man, if you think it’s expensive to hire a pro, try hiring an amateur. 

However you accomplish the mission, work with a professional digital marketing agency that understands the financial services industry, and you will realize a tremendous return on your investment.