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Today, financial advisors have access to an extensive array of investment products to create precise portfolios for their clients. For asset managers, however, this creates a challenge. Breaking through the noise and reaching prospective advisors and investors is harder than ever.
In addition to this headwind, product fees are compressing, and asset manager profit margins are being squeezed; sales and marketing teams are increasingly pressured to prove their value and justify their spend.
As such, we are seeing marketing teams lean into lower-funnel tactics at an accelerating rate – and drop brand building programs from their media mix. Why? Lower funnel measures can tie more easily and closely to sales, making reporting back to management on the results of marketing spend ‘easier.’
Unfortunately, this can come at an expense over the long-term. Marketers are trading success that compounds over time for easy, short-term wins today. Full funnel approaches are critical to driving long-term success. Every stage of the funnel has a role to play in your media mix, and if designed correctly, they will work together to convert prospects into clients.
Fortunately, you can build an efficient full funnel marketing program with these 3 tactics.
The 95-5 Rule expresses the idea that only 5% of your buyers are in market looking for solutions today, while a whopping 95% are not. Knowing this, having channels in your media mix that drive brand and product awareness, and investing in these channels for the long-term, are critical.
There are many well-established strategies for raising awareness; we are partial to digital ads, as they can be a highly efficient way to reach your target audience. With programmatic targeting, asset managers can leverage their CRM or demographic parameters to reach their ideal prospects across digital properties.
Direct buys on contextually relevant websites, such as ETFTrends.com or AdvisorPerspectives.com, are strong complements to programmatic advertising. By advertising on advisor-oriented websites, you are reaching your target audience while they are consuming relevant content (i.e. researching a ticker, reading about a new fund launch), further strengthening your brand with portfolio and investment decisions.
On average, it takes ten touchpoints to convert a prospect into a client. As such, marketers tend to strive for the digital ‘sweet spot:’ a frequency of ten touchpoints. Digital ads are a cost-effective way to increase your frequency and push prospects towards conversion.
Lastly, awareness-building channels are important to fuel the bottom of your marketing funnel. If nobody knows who you are or what your products do, they will not consider them during their research phase nor choose them when making an investment allocation. Seeing your company name or product ticker repeatedly strengthens the effectiveness of your lower funnel channels; digital ads are an easy way to do that.
Make sure your brand and products are top of mind when the 95% turns into the 5%.
Bottom line: Don’t shy away from brand-building tactics, they are important in the long term. Display ads are a great way to support brand building as they:
But remember! Brand building takes time to realize its full impact. “Branding campaigns typically take more than 6-12 months to have their greatest impact. They can still be increasing their effectiveness after 2-3 years,” Revenue & Associates, 2019. Brands that patiently put in continued investment will reap the rewards.
Once prospects know the brand and the product, their journey can be fostered through educational content and information. Advisors consume content for a variety of purposes.
Some seek short form, digestible content to help them rapidly get up to speed on new products or contextualize an investment in the current environment.
Other advisors are more drawn to long form content that digs deep into technical analysis.
There is an array of channels where advisors will seek out content. Having a variety of content that touches on or illuminates your products across several channels can help facilitate success for your full funnel efforts. Whether it’s a short form article on a news site, a first party white paper, or a podcast discussion, content about your product can help move prospects toward the bottom of your marketing funnel (intent).
Having ongoing thought leadership and a steady drum of diverse content is critical for staying relevant, keeping your products top of mind, and piquing the interest of advisors and investors alike.
It is important that you meet advisors where they are in their journey – and that you have content available through a medium or channel that they prefer.
Bottom line: The right content at the right time can:
But remember! Middle funnel tactics are about driving interest via engagement. They are typically measured by engagement-oriented metrics, such as pageviews, document downloads, average view time etc.
Financial advisors are pressed for time and must organize their calendars for optimal efficiency. One lasting impact of the pandemic is the ability to access investment professionals through digital channels (vs. face-to-face meetings). Virtual product due diligence sessions, also known as webcasts or virtual events, have gained traction with the advisor community, as they enable advisors to conduct research from the comfort of their office, hear from portfolio experts directly, and often earn CE credits at the same time.
As marketers, we know the challenges of capturing and maintaining audience attention in today’s digital world. This is particularly true for financial advisors.
Virtual events are an effective lower-funnel tactic to snag and hold attention. Additionally, they are a strong mechanism for facilitating product consideration and capturing intent.
By incorporating webcasts into your media mix, you can reach an audience of highly engaged advisors, thoughtfully walk through your product message, and capitalize on a full 30 - 60 minutes of undivided advisor attention. Polling the audience and live Q&As provide an additional layer of engagement and an even deeper indicator of interest. Whether 10 or 500 advisors attend, those are high quality leads to fuel your sales pipeline. We like to say quality > quantity.
Bottom line: Digital events are important lower-funnel tactics to reach interested advisors at scale and drive distribution efficiency. Virtual events allow your firm to:
But remember! These leads should be followed-up with in a timely manner to maximize your investment. Prioritize sales outreach to investors most interested in your products (i.e. those who just listened to your pitch for an hour).
Full funnel approaches are critical to maximizing the impact of your marketing strategy and driving long-term success. Every stage of the funnel has a role to play in your media mix, and if designed correctly, they will work together to convert prospects into clients.
For those asset managers who are pressured to do more with less, partnering with one firm can save costs and build efficiencies of scale. VettaFi offers a full funnel suite of media services to support your product and AUM goals.
