When it comes to financial advisor marketing, the time to move from “all business” and “just the facts” has come and gone. Today, people want to feel a more personal connection to the brands they engage with, even in the financial space. Statistics and reports and risk analyses all have their place, but if you don’t tap into the power of personalization in your marketing messages, your prospective clients may end up going elsewhere. Here’s a quick breakdown of some ways you can use personalization to build relationships and boost your marketing efforts.

Where to Personalize Your Financial Advisor Marketing 

First, it’s a good idea to outline where you’d want to use personalization. This will largely be dictated by your personal marketing strategy. Are you hosting a podcast? Sending a weekly email? Posting to social media every day? These are all spaces where you (and/or the other member of your advisory team) can be front and center. 

But don’t neglect your website and third-party profiles, either. One technique that really helps put a “stamp” of personalization on your marketing can be in the team bios. If you’re a solo advisor, I highly recommend using the first person in your bio. If you’re a team, be sure to include some personal details about each team member after the obligatory roles, education, and experience details. 

Blogs are also a great way to share some personal details. Consider doing a series on topics like “How I Became a Financial Advisor” or “Money Lessons Learned from Mom.” You can post each team member separately or do a round robin style post. The possibilities are endless, but one thing is for sure—clients and prospects alike love personalized messaging woven throughout your online presence.

Ways to Personalize Your Marketing WITHOUT Being “Too Personal”

There are several ways that financial advisors can create a more personalized experience in their marketing without being “too personal.” Authenticity is great, but you don’t want to border on oversharing. The idea is to create a nice, healthy crossover from business to personal. 

One way to accomplish this is to list awards you may have won and conferences you’ve attended or detail your charity participation on social media platforms. This kind of information will let people know that you’re more than just a company that’s going to advise them on their finances and there are real humans on the other end.

Tell Stories

Regardless of what type of personalization you use, storytelling is a great way to personalize your marketing efforts even further to help build relationships and boost engagement. Since humans have been able to communicate, telling stories has been a way to pass down information and get across a particular point of view in the most engaging way possible.

And just because the financial industry may not always lend itself to a storytelling model, you can still use real-life examples, anecdotes, or case studies to add a human touch to your content so readers will have an easier time identifying and relating with what you’re trying to say.

Pro Tip: Make sure you’re using case studies and testimonials at the right stages of your sales funnel. What you say—and when and where and how you say it—are just as important as any other part of your marketing strategy.

I love financial advisors and have been helping them grow their businesses for more than 20 years. This blog contains all sorts of proof to the value of a financial advisor – feel free to use it to add just a few more nuggets to your significant value.

Money, money, money. No matter who you are, it just seems to make everyone unhappy. 

According to Thriving Wallet, 90% of Americans are stressed about money. Yikes.

And it’s not any better if you have someone to lean on, as 1 in 5 couples say that money is their greatest relationship challenge and 44% admit to arguing with their spouse about money at least occasionally, according to a study by Fidelity Investments. 

If money alone spikes everyone’s blood pressure, just imagine what the more complicated concepts of investing and financial planning can do.

But financial advisors can not only take that stress away but also improve their clients’ outlook and outcomes. You have the power to make your clients’ lives better, because those who work with a financial advisor are reportedly about 3x happier than those who don’t. 

THAT’S RIGHT!  —- 3 times happier!

The financial services space is definitely not short on sports references. 

“Investing is a marathon. Not a sprint!”

“Your financial advisor is your financial quarterback.”

But have you, as a financial advisor, ever tried taking a cue from the sports world and using it for yourself? Here’s what I mean.

Over the past couple years, the college sports world has been transformed by the changes around name, image, likeness (NIL). They can use their name, image, and likeness for their own monetary benefit. I’ve been personally involved in the effort at Oklahoma State University through our business school and athletic department partnerships, The Brand Squad, and I wrote a textbook for educating student athletes.

In more ways than one, NIL is the perfect recipe for building a personal brand, shaping a marketing strategy, and helping student differentiate themselves in a crowded space; here’s how you can take a page out of the student-athlete playbook and use your own name, image, and likeness as the basis for financial advisor marketing.

What if your clients reviewed every interaction they had with you? That may seem like a frightening proposition to financial advisors because of what it might reveal. But isn’t that the point? 

Reviews are nothing to fear, even the critical ones. Because sometimes it takes a few critical reviews to achieve that consistent level of service that produces raving fans.

Hiding the most relevant pieces of a story within other distracting information is called burying the lede and can be fatal in advisor marketing. The phrase “don’t bury the lede” was originally coined in journalism to teach writers how to grab the attention of their audience, but has since been adopted in marketing for the same reason. 

All too often financial advisors suffer from burying the lede when describing who they are, what they do, and why others should work with them. They lead with irrelevant information or jargon that causes their audience to tune out and miss the most valuable parts of their offer.