Growing an advisory firm is no easy task – and advisors who start firms often have few resources to spare (beyond their own knowledge and time), face huge to-do lists, and are required to wear a number of hats. Foremost among their responsibilities is business development, which compels them to seek out prospects who will eventually become clients (so that they can grow their firms, allocate resources accordingly, and do even more financial planning!). That being said, the latest Kitces Research on Advisor Marketing suggests that the more marketing techniques (which can range from referrals to drip marketing to webinars) that advisors can implement, the faster their firms grow – advisory firms who cover at least 5 marketing techniques consistently land in the top third of growth for firms, regardless of their size. But with limited resources to invest in elaborate marketing campaigns, how can newer advisors leverage a multi-tactic approach to attract new clients and grow their firms?
In this article, Managing Editor Sydney Squires explains how 1 piece of video content can be reused to cover 6 different marketing techniques: the video itself, podcasting, social media, blogging, newsletter drip marketing campaigns, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) boosts. This approach allows advisors to get their name and brand spread across more areas, increasing the breadth of their marketing with just 1 piece of content.
The first step of this process is to record a video, being mindful to verbally describe any visual elements (so that the video can work in an audio and transcript format). Small video snippets can then be selected from the video as highlights to share; additionally, 1–2 sentence summaries, bullet-point lists, and overviews of individual video segments can also be impactful supplements. Thankfully, not all of this has to be done manually by the advisor – there are many software tools that can help advisors reformat most of their content relatively quickly without needing much technical knowledge.
With all of this “supporting material” taken from the original video, an advisor can make the most out of 1 recorded video. For example, a video with a transcript can be published as a blog post, and a summarizing sentence can be paired with a snippet and released on social media channels. As an added bonus, many of these techniques also impact the SEO score of the site, meaning that search engines may find the website more trustworthy – and thus, make it more visible in internet searches.
Ultimately, the key point is that by investing time upfront and using a bit of creativity to develop a repeatable process, advisors can get 1 piece of relevant content to cover a wide breadth of channels and mediums, both appealing to a variety of learning styles (e.g., podcasts for auditory learners, videos for visual learners, and transcripts for learners who prefer to read) and increasing the likelihood of finding prospects where they are. And as advisors gain more experience and their firms’ needs change and evolve over time, advisors can observe both what they enjoy and what clients respond to, which can offer valuable clarity on where to focus future marketing dollars and efforts!
