I speak with financial advisors on a daily basis about the importance of adapting their marketing for a wired world. One of the most critical relationship marketing tools of today is establishing a professional blog site. Blog sites have evolved and they are no longer simply about writing long form articles.
Rather, a financial advisor can utilize a blog site to post short insights, market overviews, financial planning topics, general investment philosophy or commentary, images (charts or graphs), videos, reviews, stories, and even surveys. A professional blog site also allows a financial advisor to showcase his or her personality, passions, interests, organizations and affiliations, and community or charitable involvement, which can all help to attract potential clients with similar likes and interests. In addition, all of a financial advisor’s social networking profiles can be integrated into their blog site for ultimate connectivity, sharing power, and viral reach.
A blog site is not a website. There is a difference.
Your website is your “static” online brochure that highlights your firm and your services. Financial Advisor websites are not designed with client development in mind. Can you simply add a blog component to an existing website? The problem with this strategy is that the dynamic blog content can get buried within the website and thus go undiscovered. In addition, as your connections read your articles and click through to visit the source, they will quickly abandon a traditional financial advisor website that appears to simply serve as overt marketing collateral. Creating a separate “Personal Brand Blog Site” that is linked to your website and not designed to “sell” will enable you to foster relationships through social networking connections and capture leads of those visitors who really enjoy reading about your personal and professional insights. Your connections will not be pressured to buy from you. The “buying” process happens later once you’ve had an opportunity to build trust and cultivate those connections.
A professional blog site IS the central nervous system of your online presence.
Your financial advisor blog site is your online relationship marketing hub. Why? Because it connects your brand across the web and serves as a magnet for your social media network connections. This blog site “magnet” can pull in qualified leads over time who have discovered your content in a variety of places online such as Google searches, aggregated article sites, and social networks. In addition, your blog site can help you stay connected with existing clients and automatically deliver fresh updates to them on a consistent basis. Consider the non-threatening introduction that an existing client can provide to a friend or colleague by simply passing along or “liking” or “sharing” one of your articles in Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter! Your professional blog site is “homebase” for your online influence, credibility, and social connections.
An Example of How Blogging and Social Media Can Work Together for Your Business
At Wired Advisor, we take advantage of both blogging and social media to build influence with financial advisors and financial services firms. In analyzing web traffic to the Wired Advisor E-Marketing Blog, over 50% of our visitors now come from our presence in social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and even our newer Facebook Business Page. Given that the target market for Wired Advisor is financial advisors, our social media profiles are optimized and designed to attract and appeal to this demographic.
As financial advisors discover our blog content within the social networks, they visit the blog, and ultimately a good number of them “subscribe” to our updates, or even inquire about our services. Our financial advisor subscribers then become “captive” leads that we can continue to share valuable educational content with regarding blogging and social media strategies. Ultimately, a certain percentage of these financial advisor subscribers can and will become clients. This same process can and will work for your financial advisory practice if implemented correctly.
A professional blog site is a long-term asset that will grow in value over time. For the small investment in having a customized professional blog site designed and developed for you, the return on investment can be substantial. Your blog site will continue to pay dividends for your personal brand as you build and share your online thought leadership across the social web.
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