Marketing is crucial to your business’s success. Without marketing, customers won’t know your product or service exists. Following the trends and meeting your customers where they are — on social media — can make a huge difference. That’s why social media marketing for financial planners is important. You can still send out a direct mail piece or have a radio spot, but you need to be online, too.
How social media fits into a marketing plan
Social media is unlike other forms of marketing. It allows you to engage with your potential and current clients in real-time. You’re able to have a conversation that not only demonstrates your authority but also shows your personality and helps you connect to your audience.
Social media also allows you to gain insight into what others think of you and your business. It can give more immediate and relevant feedback. This can be a useful marketing strategy because you can respond to issues and offer solutions to client problems faster.
Social media marketing builds trust. It helps the client feel relaxed and less pressured to take action than a direct marketing approach might. It can also take some of the pressure of following up off of you as a business because the contact is already ongoing.
The likelihood of a sale increases the more contact you have, and it’s easier to do that through social media than several direct marketing tries. Here’s a quick list of how social media marketing for financial services boosts business. It:
- Increases brand awareness
- Improves search engine rankings
- Promotes higher conversion rates
- Produces more inbound traffic
- Increases customer satisfaction
- Improves brand loyalty
- Increases brand authority
- Allows you to gain insight
- Builds trust
- Brings in new customers
Get the expert marketing advice and tools you need to find new financial clients and increase investment from existing ones.
Using social media to help you find new customers
When looking at marketing on social media for the first time, many businesses aren’t sure which platforms to use or how to best develop a strategy. Thinking about your customers, what they need, and how you can provide it can help you use social media effectively to find new customers.
Understand the power of social media
According to GlobalWebIndex, more than half of users on social media use it to research products. Many rely on influencer recommendations to help make a decision. And research has shown that almost three-quarters of consumers who have a positive brand encounter on social media will go on to recommend the brand.
Know where your customers are at
Knowing which platform your customers prefer can be helpful. Here are the top three your business will want to focus on.
Facebook is currently the most used platform — and the one brands are most consistently active across. That makes it a great place to start when targeting social media marketing for financial services. According to global social media research released by RivalIQ in 2020, financial services were in the top half of industries for engagement rates.
LinkedIn:
If your goal is to get businesses as clients, then LinkedIn is a smart choice. There, B2B (business-to-business) relationships thrive. You can still share relevant information and engage with potential clients while establishing yourself as an authority.
Instagram:
Instagram is a thriving market for brands, but the brands having the most success are product-driven. Instagram’s own business stats state that 90% of accounts follow at least one business. Financial services did surprisingly well here, though, and it took fewer posts to reach similar engagement levels on other platforms.
These aren’t the only platforms to choose from. Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and other similar platforms are worth looking into as well.
Age is more than a number
Millennials are still the largest group on social media. More than 90% of them use it, with Gen X coming in second at around 78% and baby boomers bringing up the rear with almost 50%.
Knowing which demographic you’re most likely to reach can help you gear your financial services business’s marketing efforts. Users over 50 are most likely to be on Facebook, for example, while Instagram’s user base leans younger.
The type of content matters
You can’t post on social media and expect to hit it out of the park every time. Strategy plays an important role in winning at the social media game, and what you post is as important as anything else.
Live video is the most popular type of post among users on Facebook, with images, videos, links, and status updates following behind. For LinkedIn, the same is almost true, although video is ahead of images. Instagram users value images more.
Though video is broadly popular on all platforms, the length of the video matters. Shorter videos tend to do better.
Timing is everything
It takes some trial and error to find the best timing for your posts on each social media channel. Twitter, for example, tends to have higher effectiveness the more you post, whereas it’s best to post about once per day on Facebook.
Research has shown that Sunday is the worst day for businesses to post, while midday and midweek are generally the best times.
Tips: social media marketing for financial planners
So now that you know more about social media, what exactly should you be posting? It will depend on your services. Here are some general tips for posting content and interacting on social media, along with some with ideas for how to implement them.
Post smart content
What you post is important. It needs to be relevant, informative, and helpful. Stay aware of and sensitive to current events so that so you can post relevant information — and so you don’t post anything offensive.
You can share links to articles from trusted sources or your blog. Using hashtags is also important for giving users a way to find information from your brand easily. They are a smart addition to your posts.
Connect to users
Customers want to feel like you’re paying attention to them. You can encourage a positive relationship by connecting with users about issues that are important to them. Use interactive posts — such as a poll, quiz, or survey — as a way to build engagement. You can even ask for reviews. It’s also important to tell stories or share behind the scenes info about you and your company.
Be responsive and responsible
The hardest part about social media is that you have to pay attention to your accounts very closely. You need to be prepared to respond to customer comments, especially negative ones.
It’s also important to keep in mind that you may have legal obligations or privacy standards to uphold when you are posting.
Promote yourself carefully
With all these posts, it can be easy to get a bit too promotional. There is a right way and a wrong way to market your business. Limit purely promotional content to less than one third of your total posts. You can highlight where you stand out from the competition, but don’t get too negative.
Paid advertising shouldn’t be overlooked, either, as it can help you overcome plateaus. You can even try for sponsorships or partnerships with influencers.
Get help with your marketing plan
Remember to be patient with your expectations. Social media marketing won’t result in immediate growth for your financial services business, but the investment will pay off over time. If you focus on building brand awareness and client relationships, you will see positive outcomes.
Constant Contact offers comprehensive marketing tools and specialized advisors for small businesses to help take your marketing efforts to the next level. By learning to use social media posting, scheduling, and advertising tools, you’ll find it easier to locate and engage new clients.
