So you’ve finally convinced your advisors to utilize a content marketing strategy. Except that it is not delivering the results they are expecting, and they are questioning the whole thing. The hope of content marketing is to build brand awareness, trust, and loyalty. The goal is that those consuming your quality content will start to build an impression of the brand, thus increasing traffic and conversions. Why isn’t your high-quality content generating those leads, well it could be the wrong kind of content…
Defining your advisors’ target market profiles is the key to having the content marketing efforts deliver the desired results. Having a different target markets will help the advisors choose who they want to serve, who the best customers are and their needs, and how to organize marketing efforts to win more of them.
Financial advisors should take these three steps to define and reach their ideal target market.
Who are you serving today
In an ideal world, a company would identify target customer before going to market. But the real world doesn’t usually work like that. Furthermore, a target customer may evolve over time. The bright side is that the business will already have information on their customers and their behaviours.
Advisors should ask themselves: “Who are my customers? Which are best for the business? Is there a certain kind of customer you want more of? Or less of? Is there a kind of customer you don’t have today that you would like in the future?”
What makes them tick
Once advisors have a sense of the kinds of customers they are serving, or want to serve, it’s time to find out who they are and what they need. This can include demographics like age or gender but should not be limited to that as it does not give an accurate picture as they can have the same characteristics but behaviourally be polar opposites. Other things that can be included are purchasing behaviours, social value, media consumption habits, and more. Your field staff are the ones who have the most interaction with the customer, that customer knowledge is very valuable as it is based on experience not assumption.
A lot of businesses think about their customers in terms of how much they spend, but that doesn’t tell you WHY they are your customer. Focusing on transactional behaviour makes it hard to know how to target your customers effectively. Go beyond this thinking.
A lot of businesses think about their customers in terms of how much they spend, but that doesn’t tell you WHY they are your customer.
Time to Focus In
Once an advisor’s target market profiles are built and they have a clear understanding of who they are selling to, it is time to focus on specific segments. This does not mean to forget about other segments or to make segments too broad to the point of losing the purpose of specific customer profiles.
Instead of the spray-and-pray method that tried to capture every possible prospect, advisors should be tailoring their content and messaging more thoughtfully to resonate with a specific type of customer. When advisors are providing that tailored content, they are providing a much stronger customer experience that people want and demand, and in turn the leads that the marketing efforts generate will be much stronger and more engaged with the advisor’s brand.
Content marketing can be a powerful strategy to nurture clients from the discovery phase all the way into the post-purchase value add. In order to unlock that potential, the content needs to be personalized to the priority groups. Instead of throwing content spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, establish those target markets. This is where advisors should concentrate their marketing time, money, effort. These groups may not necessarily be the largest customer, or ones who spend the most. They are customers whose habits and preferences align best with what your financial practice delivers. While defining a target market is about increasing sales, it also helps improve the customer experience and reinforce the advisor’s reputation.
