Jorge's Thoughts: Content is Critical to Advisors' Marketing Strategies

"Content marketing entails understanding exactly what your clients need to know in order to supply them with the most useful resources without seemingly wanting to sell them something." 

-Attach Media

As advisors, creating and distributing content can not only help to inform your target audience about their financial concerns but it can also help you build a strong reputation as a trusted expert. And if your target audience includes boomers - which it most likely does - you're in luck; boomers spend more time consuming content that any other generation. 

So what types of content should you create? Think about what you find compelling, what prompts you to stop scrolling online and read further. 

Infographics: Brafton notes that this type of content is critical for the financial services industry to consider, as it focuses on "delivering valuable information to online audiences that love real-time information and interesting visuals." (See Attach Media's example above.) 

Videos: The Weidert Group notes that "the average person can retain 95% of video after 72 hours." 

Social media: CNBC notes that "an effective social media strategy can single-handedly create a following of thousands—and a flow of prospective clients—in just a short period of time." 

Podcasts: Business 2 Community notes that "while podcasts have been around for about a decade, there’s been a surge in listenership in the last couple years that’s getting a lot of attention from business owners, celebrities, advertisers, and consumers alike." 

I've created a series of podcasts on seminar marketing and how to reach your prospects. If you have suggestions for topics you'd like for me to cover via this type of content (or any type of content), tweet me at @JorgeVillarRME! 

By: Jorge Villar, President and Founder 

#finservcontent

3 Tips for Creating Targeted Video Content

“You might make a video with 89 views. But one of those viewers could be a producer at CNN. Undervaluing just that one view is a huge mistake.”

-Gary Vaynerchuck, C

EO of Vaynermedia and host of Ask Gary Vee

We all want to produce video content that earns a million hits, right? But if your videos don't go viral, are they less valuable, entertaining or informative? Absolutely not! 

They're likely more targeted. 

Video content is undoubtedly the most powerful medium in your marketing toolbox. When done effectively, it prompts interaction, it puts a personality with a name, it adds a layer of dimension to your content marketing and it's likely more interesting and more compelling than written content. While the financial services industry is heavily regulated, there is most certainly flexibility in how advisors can - and should! - use video content to market to targeted audiences. 

Consider these stats: 

• 64% of marketers expect that video content will dominate their overall marketing strategy. 
• 78% said video is the most leveraged medium of content. 
• 57% of financial brands want to increase their marketing investment in video. 
• 57% of consumer internet traffic will be from video content by the end of 2015.

So what should you show in your videos? What should your focus be? What content should you present? Here are some ideas to help you get started: 

1. Create a vlog to tell a story. 

A vlog - or a video blog - is a cost-effective, effortless way to share who you are, to establish a personal connection and to build your reputation as a trusted local expert. Show your audience what matters to your brand, how you became an expert in your industry or how you've helped past clients. 

2. Use behind the scenes footage to show how your brand operates. 

You have a team who collaborates with you, puts in long hours with you and helps you provide excellent service to your target audience. Use video content to show that to your prospects and clients. Don't give away your secret sauce, but do give your audience a sneak peek into your culture and what makes it, your products and your services unique. Think of this content as the bonus footage on a DVD. 

3. Create a themed series to share knowledge. 

Share advice on topics that your target audience is concerned with. Present information in a concise, easy to follow and entertaining manner. Show your audience how your advice on these topics has helped clients by including testimonials from them or sharing their stories. 

For instance, our The Marketing Minute series focused on providing quick marketing tips to financial services professionals. Here's an example: 

What would you add to this list? Tell us below or tweet us!

@RME360

             By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

Jorge's Thoughts: How to Build Connections through Data

We volunteer a lot of information about ourselves to the digital world, and marketers know that. Good marketers make effective and appropriate use of data that will allow them to:

1) create messaging for products, services and solutions to target interested audiences

2) begin building relationships with prospects and clients 

With the vast array of marketing that arrives in the inboxes and mailboxes of our target audiences, it's crucial to the success of our campaigns to break through the noise. How do we do that? 

Build your connection based on data. 

For prospects: 

1. Use critical data points when prospecting. These include age, income, zip codes, IPA and net worth. This is the core set of information you need to ensure you market to those who will be best served by you. 

2. Obtain data on an audience 15-25 miles within your office. Those within this range are more likely to attend your seminars and visit your office. 

3. Identify 7,000-15,000 households that meet your criteria for a target audience. 

4. Use your selected data points to craft your message. Your messaging should speak directly and effectively to the audience profiled by the data. 

5. Stay top of mind. This requires you to send messages frequently and over a long period of time. Develop a strategy that includes messages delivered in a variety of ways for the next 8-10 months. 

Remember: Competition can be fierce. You may have 300-500 advisors within the 15-25 miles who market to audiences similar to yours. 

For clients: 

1. Dig deep within your data on existing clients. In building relationships with your clients, you learn more about them. Use that data when crafting your messaging. This includes data points such as hobbies, habits and affiliations. 

2. Create personal and individualized messages that do more than sell your products and solutions. Acknowledge your clients' birthdays or ask them about their children's softball teams. 

3. Use social media to complement data you've obtained from lists, but use data gathered there responsibly. Craft messages based on social media information in a respectful tone and with content that provides value to your clients. 

Remember: Clients often rely on emotions when making decision. Establish a solid emotional connection with them as you build your relationship. 

Tweet me and let's chat about using data to connect with your target audience:

 @JorgeVillarRME

By: Jorge Villar, President and Founder 

#connectdata

Boomers & Mobile Marketing: Tips to Entice Them to Respond

"Limiting your mobile strategy to younger demographics will 

exclude an increasingly mobile market."

If your target market is boomers, it's critical to acknowledge that they DO respond to mobile marketing and to understand that they WILL interact with it. Check out the tips below to help you improve your mobile marketing efforts for this growing audience. 

1. Create clear content. 
While boomers are using mobile technology, it's a good idea to avoid using it in a way that is uncomfortable, unclear or unfamiliar to them. Combine your content with their interests or with seasonal events to establish a connection with them. Provide valuable and personalized information to entice them to believe in your brand. Target your content carefully though; avoid casting your net too wide, as boomers are not all alike. 

2. Learn how boomers text. 
A texting program can be a meaningful addition to your mobile marketing strategy, but it's important to understand how boomers use text messaging before you launch it. Sure, they use it to communicate with their families, but how do they use it for their personal interests? Do they like receiving reminders? Do they respond to promotional offers? Targeting their needs and your messaging is crucial to ensuring this program succeeds. Again, remember that boomers are not all alike.

3. Give boomers a variety of ways to respond to you. 

Mobile marketing doesn't mean just social media or just email or just text messages; it's a far more thorough approach that - when executed effectively - provides personalized, targeted and valuable information to specific audiences. With that said, it's important to consider not only how to best deliver your mobile messaging but also how boomers may want to respond. Combinations of mobile chat, social media links, email and phone conversations can provide you with powerful avenues to build awareness of your brand, answer questions about your services and convert sales. Limiting your response options may alienate your audience and make it less convenient for them to complete a transaction with you. 

What would you add to this list? Tell us below or tweet us!

@rme360

             By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

Jorge's Thoughts: 3 Tips to Develop Messaging that Converts Sales

If you've got leads, great! 

If you've got qualified prospects, congratulations! 

But how do you move them down the funnel? How does your current messaging impact your conversion rate and what can you do to improve it?

Believe it or not, every piece of written real estate matters when it comes to conversions. Each word on your print marketing, your digital messaging and your presentation materials has the power to lead to conversions, but some words have more power than others. 

Check out these 3 tips to consider when developing your messaging:

1. Stand out. Valuable prospects already have financial advisors. To earn their business, it's important to recognize that your messaging must be in steal away mode. What are you saying that is different from their current advisors? Inspire those valuable prospects to consider your services by showcasing what makes you unique. 

2. Identify pain points as well as solutions. Your prospects are likely to have several pain points of various concerns . While they won't find it pleasant or comfortable to discuss them,  they may not to do business with you unless there is something to resolve. Put the spotlight on how you can solve their pain points and make them more comfortable with their financial futures. 

3. Be top of mind. Your target prospects may not need you today, next week or next month, but inevitably they will need you. Your brand should be what they think of when they are ready to seek financial resolutions. That means your marketing efforts need to be consistent and that your messaging needs to address a variety of issues. For instance, if your target market consists of those age 55 and up, consider that their lives change every 4-6 months. Life events such as retirement, major illness or death in the family will trigger their need for you, so your messaging must speak to those concerns. 

Tweet me and let's chat about tips to convert sales:

 @JorgeVillarRME

By: Jorge Villar, President and Founder 

#convertthissale

Engaging Advocates: 5 Tips to Earn Brand Advocate Online Support

Think managing online reviews isn’t worth your brand’s time? Think again.

      88% of consumers have read reviews to determine the quality of a local business. Prospects who are unfamiliar with your brand are likely to reach out to the digital space to find what your customers say about you.

      72% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more. Do you have advocates who are praising your brand on social media and encouraging prospects to trust you? Check out these 5 tips to help you earn and engage with your advocates!
  

1.     Focus on managing customer expectations. According to the Gartner Group, 80% offuture profits will come from only 20% of your existing customers. These are relationships are at your fingertips and deserve to be fostered. What do you expect from brands you love? How do those brands interact with you and show their appreciation for your business? Every point of contact you and your team have with your customers should begin with those questions in mind. Exceed their expectations and give them an experience they will talk about online. 

2.     Be proactive. If there is a mistake made, be aware and don’t wait for your customer to complain. Offer your customer something that not only makes up for the mistake but also the inconvenience. This level of attention and service is what prompts customers to speak out for your brand. 

3.     Establish a customer rewards program. According to Forbes, a rewards program for your top brand advocates creates “and environment of exclusivity” and is appealing because your advocates want to be first in line to get a peek behind the curtain. Customers love to share reviews on rewards they've earned. 

4.     Offer helpful (and shareable) original content. Walk your customers’ journey with them and anticipate their questions and needs. Include links to infographics, videos or other types of compelling content that focuses on answering those questions and making their journey more convenient and easy to understand. Customers will share this content online and talk about how it helped them. 

5.     Turn employees into brand advocates. Recent research shows that employees have “10X more followers than corporate social accounts” and that a “12% increase in brand advocacy generally generates a 2X increase in revenue growth.” Harness the power of your employees’ voice and social sharing clout to give your brand an authentic voice and to achieve higher ROI.

What would you add to this list? Tell us below or tweet us!

@RME360

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

"Once Upon A Time...": Why Storytelling Matters in Marketing

Your audience is attracted to stories. 

We all are. We're social creatures and enjoy relating to other people.

We also enjoy relating to and connecting with brands. How does your brand use storytelling in its marketing? We'd love to hear about it in the comments below!

To see a larger version of this infographic, click here. 

Tweet us about your brand's story!

@RME360

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

Your Brand Has A Story to Tell: The Value of Storytelling in Your Marketing

Happy Monday! 

We're kicking off a week of social media focus on the value and power of storytelling in your marketing with this infographic.

Your brand has a story to tell, but do you know the optimal times to do so on social media?













What would you add to this infographic? What tools do you use to post on social media? Tell us about your social media experience in the comments below!

How do you tell your brand's story? Tweet us about it:

@RME360

             By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

4 Tips to An Innovative Marketing Runway

"It’s always about timing. If it’s too soon, no one understands. If it’s too late, everyone’s forgotten.’”

-Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief for Vogue, on innovation and creativity 

Considering today's array of choices in products and services at consumers' fingertips and the ease of comparing them to competitors, the marketing runway is ripe for a messaging style that tells an authentic story and connects with prospects and clients. 

To that end, there are many less than innovative trends, tricks, tools and tactics to avoid. In the fashion world, Wintour would refer to the continued of these as a faux pas. 



Remember: timing is everything, and it's time to retire a few things from your marketing closet. 

1. Say no to spam. 

Your marketing should speak to a specific audience who needs your products and/or services and who will respond to your messaging; it shouldn't be a net you cast out to a broad population as you hope for the best. Use data to identify your target audience and personalize your messaging to connect with them. Segmented emails may cast a smaller net, but the results will be worth it. 

2. Don't write thin content. 

Thin - or shallow - content does not provide value to your audience. Keyword stuffing as a tactic has been far from trendy for quite some time, but it's still present among less savvy content marketing. Invest the time and effort into providing useful and insightful content that your audience will not only want to read but will also want to share. This level of crowd marketing is an excellent way to create buzz about your brand and also increases your rank among search results. 

3. Avoid smoke and mirrors storytelling. 

Your prospects and clients are keenly aware of marketing tactics. They recognize when they're being sold to and when a brand is attempting to connect with them to fulfill a legitimate need. Don't overlook this awareness; avoid using misrepresentations in your messaging that will put off your prospects and clients. 

4. Remember to interact with your audience. 

Don't rely on talking to them through your messaging; instead, talk with them about their needs, their expectations and what you can do to serve and exceed both. 

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

The Do's and Don'ts of Vlogging for Prospects

Looking to add shareable elements to your content marketing? 


Vlogging - or video blogging - provides dynamic content that helps you develop connections and helps your brand earn more digital interaction.






















By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

20 Email Marketing Tips for Reaching Your Audience

What tips would you add to the list? 

What is it about email campaigns you receive that resonates with you the most? 

How can you improve the way you reach your audience today? 

Tell us in the comments below! 

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

This 30 Day Challenge Is Just What Your Social Media Needs

Yes, it can be a struggle to come up with interesting content to post across your brand's social media accounts each day. How do you deal with that struggle? Why not try this 30 day challenge?

See this link for a larger version of the infographic. 

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360

Lead Generation Tips for Today's Marketing Landscape

According to findings in the B2B Content Marketing 2015: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends survey, lead generation is second only to brand awareness as a major goal for content marketers in 2015. But what strategies should you use? What small tasks can you accomplish each day to earn more qualified leads?

Let’s take a look at 6 ideas that can help you begin your sales cycle. 

1.      Embrace social media.

This concept isn’t rocket science, but it does mean more than just creating a Facebook page. Embracing social media to generate leads means selecting channels that your target audience uses, creating and curating content daily that works for those channels and that is compelling and relevant to your audience, developing a reputation as a thought leader in your industry and talking with your followers, not just to them. While you won’t see an immediate train of quality leads pulling into your brand’s station, you will begin to connect with those interested in your services and begin to foster relationships.

2.      Send direct mail.

Yes, you read that correctly. Direct mail may have its detractors, but don’t count it out when it comes to your lead generation strategies. HubSpot notes that 18-34 year olds prefer direct mail and that it’s an effective lead generation investment when targeting hyper-local communities. Many marketers focus solely on email to generate leads, so direct mail has more of an opportunity to stand out. Work with professionals who understand how to create the right content and who can target the right audience for your brand.

3.      Hold contests on social media.

There are several ways to hold contests on each social media channel, but for the purpose of lead generation, focus on email-gated contests. Followers will need to enter their email addresses before they can successfully enter your contest, and you can also ask for a follow or a retweet in addition to their contact information. If your contests include the submission of videos or photos, you can collect user-generated content (UGC) as well.

4.      Test and use hashtags.

In 2015, using hashtags should be a no-brainer. What some marketers tend to overlook is the need to test hashtags. Having your brand be a part of the conversation on trending topics and participating in Twitter chats are good ways to be seen as a thought leader, but as you become seen as more of an expert, you also want to create your own content and your own hashtags. Ensuring those hashtags will stick means ensuring your message will amplify its reach. 

5.      Create original content for LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is giving its members access to its long-form blog publishing privileges as a way to create a stronger community of professional insights. These blogs can be great resources for lead generation and can be posted to your company’s LinkedIn page as you further establish yourself as an expert in the industry. Create content that is helpful and interesting to your target prospects. Include a specific call-to-action to subscribe to your company blog or YouTube page and to follow your company’s social media accounts. You can also include a CTA to sign up for a webinar or download a white paper, but be careful not to leave your prospects with the feeling that they are being sold to. 

6.      Revise your strategies as needed.

Your marketing strategies are living, breathing entities; as the behavior and needs of your prospects change, so should your marketing. Measure the results of each activity regularly and revise accordingly. There is nothing about your target audience that is set in stone, so how you interact with them and earn them as leads must evolve as needed.

By: Susan Gail Taylor, Social Media Manager and Copywriter at RME360