Using the same advisor marketing solution for years and years that doesn’t continue to bring you value is the definition of insanity. Enterprise marketers sometimes resist looking at new options because the perceived cost of switching platforms is too high. They think that getting approvals from the right buying group would either take too long or something they have very little influence on. I’d like to stress that if an advisor marketing platform is not operating in a way that gives you and your organization the best value then it’s a disservice to you and your team to not explore options that could result in better results and value for the organization.
So you’ve decided to explore alternative enterprise marketing solutions, how do you begin and what features should you be looking for? In getting to know our clients’ needs, I can tell you what matters most to companies just like yours and your competition. These companies are committed to providing exceptional value to their advisors to help them grow their business and improve the advisor marketing program. Here are 5 key features to look for in your next enterprise marketing solution.
Without having organized data, enterprises spend hours of time updating different spreadsheets, databases or websites to ensure advisor profile information and location information is up to date and accurate. If a piece of data fails to get updated correctly, this could cause a firm to face compliance and regulatory issues. It’s important financial advisors certifications are accurate across a corporate website, advisor websites and any other listing of the advisor online. Additionally, this could lead to a client to have a poor experience with your brand. That’s the last thing any marketer wants for their brand.
When researching evaluating an enterprise marketing solution, asking the right questions is important. Knowing how your data will be structured and managed is vital. As a busy marketer, this will ensure you are not wasting time organizing and importing data into right places online to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date. This can be an automated process and something that should be considered when evaluating vendors.
Does your enterprise currently have the peace of mind knowing that all website versions are automatically stored and easily accessible for auditing purposes? We often hear of organizations who have been fined for not following regulatory and compliance rules. When this happens, organizations often have to spend countless hours trying to find the information they need in order to submit to regulatory firms. The platform you use should capture and store all instances of compliance reviews and website history. This simple feature could save your enterprises hours and hours of retrieving necessary data if requested for auditing purposes.
It’s important to identify and create a vision for the type of experience you want end users to have. What experience should clients have when they interact with financial advisors? The enterprise marketing solution that you evaluate should be able to easily deliver personalized content experiences. This means that clients and prospects should be able to accurately view and evaluate financial advisors and read and browse relevant articles.
When evaluating compliance features, be sure to consider how would the tool help compliance teams be more productive and efficient. A compliance tool should have a simple to use interface that makes it easy to view, sort, make suggestions and approve submissions from advisors. We have seen that advisors are typically more active when web content is approved by compliance in less than 3 days.
Having a website builder that is simple and intuitive is important for having a high number of active advisors. We often hear from companies that advisors aren’t using their website platform. After further discussion, we learned this is because advisors found the platform difficult to use; they simply don’t see the value. As a marketer, you want to ensure that the platform has the capability for advisors at varying levels of marketing knowledge to be able to easily use the platform. If it’s easy to use, advisors will likely sign in more often, they will feel empowered to grow online. As more advisors, use the platform, others will follow resulting greater advisor adoption.
The days are gone when financial advisors can depend on offline referrals and traditional networking to get new clients. We live in a digital world where standing out and personal branding is more important than ever before. While companies may try to sell on many features of their product, consider what are the main problems or challenges that a new enterprise marketing solution should try to solve.
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