Hello everyone, welcome to the best and most current Financial Advisor Seminar Marketing piece of the year.
After reading this piece, we assure you that you will be able to organize a well-planned, successful, and impactful wealth management seminar that will yield the desired results.
In today’s article, you’ll learn:
Let’s get started!
Best Practices for Financial Advisor Seminar Marketing
Financial Advisor seminar marketing is one of the best means through which Wealth Planners scout for new clients.
It is an educational marketing strategy that allows an advisory firm to prove its worth to prospects.
When you rightly plan the seminar, you don’t have to bother whether it would be worth the investment and time.
Before we consider some ways to make a seminar work, you should know that every good thing takes time.
Prospecting through seminars allows you to build a relationship with prospective clients even before you strike a formal deal with them.
Many people have trust issues; they don’t want to commit their resources into the hands of a professional without proven records.
Thus, organizing seminars is a way to prove to the doubters that you are not a pushover in the financial planning industry.
However, seminar marketing isn’t magical; you have to pay your dues before the results begin to manifest.
So, if it doesn’t look like it in the first few trials, don’t be tired; you should hit harder for desired results.
Now, what are the best practices that guarantee results in this marketing strategy?
Clearly state the aim of the seminar
As simple as this point appears to be, many Advisors do not care about it; they don’t define the objective of their seminars clearly.
For instance, some Advisors organize financial seminars to increase their assets under management (AUM) or have a certain number of prospects book an appointment with their company.
They believe they can easily convert from their RSVP.
You can hardly plan a successful seminar with such goals because you are self-centered.
Instead of you being the focus of the seminar, think of what the attendees stand to gain.
A prompt like this will serve you right: “At the end of this seminar, I want the participants to………..”
Your marketing goal should be about offering value to prospective clients.
When you offer value, clients will be enthusiastic about paying for your financial services.
To set your objectives right, ask yourself the kinds of changes you want to see in the attendees.
Once you’re able to answer this question, you will then align the content of your presentation along this route.
Forecast your audience
To select the correct event logistics, you must first understand who your audiences are.
When you understand your audience well, you will know the right topic, the best location to use, the best marketing strategies to reach them, and the right time to host the event.
Generally, financial planning workshops are better hosted on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
Also, please don’t plan a seminar for a day after a national holiday; it doesn’t work well!
We also do not recommend hosting a seminar in the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year because you might not get the attention of qualified prospects.
Most importantly, who are the targets of the seminar?
This question is most crucial because it determines every other variable.
Your audience will determine your topic, your style of presentation, time, venue, etc.
For example, you can’t focus on the trio of estate planning, retirement planning, and Medicare in the same seminar.
You must be strategic with the timing; if the seminar focuses on boomers, a 6 PM start time is the most ideal, but if it’s seniors-focused, 4 PM will work best.
After defining your target audience, the location of the seminar should be the next consideration.
Carefully select the location
Be very strategic about your choice of location because a wrong venue can ruin a well-planned seminar.
If you don’t want to host the seminar in your office, you have two options at your disposal.
First, to make it look like an “educational” seminar, you may consider a local college, community center, or library.
Alternatively, you may give preference to a food-centric location such as a brewery, coffee shop, winery, restaurant, among others.
Specifically, dinner seminars seem to work best for boomers.
Whatever option you favor, you must understand and be ready for its consequences.
For instance, many people don’t turn up for educational seminars, but you can be sure that the few that show up are there to learn.
Hence, you will have better audience engagement as participants are intentional about learning.
On the other hand, dinner seminars have a lower audience engagement rate despite the high turn-up rate.
There are many distractions in the location, and some attendees will only concentrate on the food.
So, what should determine the choice of your location?
It’s simple: your budget, the thematic preoccupation of the seminar, and the niche of your advisory firm!
Again, seminars for Financial Advisors must be well planned if you want to get the right outcome!
After you’ve got all the setup right, how can you get leads after spending so much?
How to Generate Seminar Leads for Financial Advisors
Let’s now look at some of the best ways to generate leads as a Financial Advisor.
Host webinars
Lead generation is easy for Advisors who know the right strategies to get to new clients.
In the preceding section, we focused on the best ways to host educational seminars, but it’s not the only way that Financial Advisors can generate leads.
Webinars have become the better alternative to generating leads.
It has offered Advisors limitless opportunities to reach prospects with ease.
With webinars, you can get to anybody, anywhere, and at any time!
When prospects register for live financial investment seminars, you will have their details stored on your system.
It is an opportunity for you to know the prospects better, follow them up after the live sessions, and build a more solid relationship.
Keep in mind that most business deals are not sealed after one interaction; you have to consistently stay in touch with prospects to convert them to new clients.
One resounding advantage of webinars over conventional seminars is that you don’t have to deal with the depression of no-shows.
While making arrangements for a Financial Advisor seminar, one of the fears on the top of the mind of Wealth Managers is that people might not turn up.
If this becomes a reality, it means the money spent on mailers, venues, and refreshment is a waste.
But for webinars, you don’t need to bother about no-shows because you won’t incur any debt based on that.
Regularly update your website
If your website is as silent as the cemetery, you are not ready for business!
There are thousands of organic traffic on search engines that you can only capture through blogging.
When you constantly update your website, you demonstrate your expertise to potential clients.
Offer them premium contents that will make readers stick to your site.
To generate more leads for your advisory firm, distribute your website content through your email list and social media.
Specifically, you will get to more prospects with well-set Facebook ads.
Almost all businesses are going digital these days, so if you want to be visible to the online community, you must keep your site active.
Carve out a niche for yourself in the industry and demonstrate how your in-house experts can help prospects meet their financial goals.
Advisor websites must consistently deliver value for readers.
Also, you can use your website content to promote scheduled online financial planning seminars.
By this, you’ll have landing pages where registrants can fill in their details and get the link to the training.
The number of landing pages you create on your site depends on the number of specialized services you offer.
For instance, you may have a dedicated page for the pricing of your services and another page where you appreciate clients for subscribing to your services.
Create a podcast section
One feature common to top-rated Advisor websites is that they have a podcast section.
They host shows on some defined days and times where they discuss important industry issues with their clients.
To build cult-like followers for your podcasts, you must be consistent with them.
Make it very lively, engaging, and problem-solving.
Over time, it has been discovered that people like audio/video content than texts.
Being able to listen to podcasts on-the-go while driving is a huge plus.
Hence, this is an avenue to engage clients and prospects productively.
Engage on LinkedIn
Social media is an invaluable tool for marketing for Financial Advisors.
Specifically, LinkedIn offers you an opportunity to meet with ideal clients with less effort.
With the network tab, you can filter and sort contacts and send well-crafted messages to prospects about your services.
In your message, tell them about your upcoming financial training seminar and what they stand to gain if they attend.
Be courteous, brief, conversational, professional, and precise in your message.
To stand a higher chance of brokering relationships with prospects, celebrate their career achievements, like their posts, and commend them reasonably.
There are many high-net-worth people on this platform, so if you can play your game well, you’re on your way to increasing your AUM.
This social media platform works better than sending direct mail to prospects.
Most times, your direct mails go into spam or junk; this means that the recipients don’t get to read them.
If you rely on LinkedIn to generate leads, you don’t have any reason to incur the expenses of direct mailers.
You may also join the numerous Financial Advisors’ networks on different platforms to make yourself visible to ideal clients.
Word of mouth
How well you engage your existing clients determines if they will refer you to their networks or not.
When you offer excellent services to clients, tell them how invaluable their referral will be to your business growth.
Referral specifically works well because clients will only refer those who need your services, perhaps their colleagues, spouses, or friends who need the same or similar services you offered them.
Client referrals can make you consistently generate leads even without running ads on Google or social media.
Your RSVP will increase, and you may even need more hands to engage prospects who book an appointment with you.
How to Organize Financial Advisor Training Sessions
As a Registered Independent Advisor (RIA), if you want to organize training sessions and you want it to be effective, there are some strategies you must employ:
Clearly define your audience
This seems to be the most over-flogged point in this article because everything revolves around the client in this industry.
You must know who you are organizing the training for, their highest pain point, how to resolve their problems, and the amount of time they can spare.
Carry out a needs assessment
This step is necessary for you to know the knowledge gap you want to fill in your audience.
It also allows you to know your audience better.
The primary essence of a needs analysis is to know what your target audience wants.
Knowing your audience’s needs will make your training topic well defined and engaging.
For instance, if your training focuses on annuities, you should understand the net worth of the target audience, their preference, and how enlightened they are on the subject matter.
It will help you enlighten them on the risks and prospects of the preferred annuities.
To train properly, you shouldn’t just select a topic of interest; you should answer the questions in the minds of your audience.
For example, if the majority of the registrants are disabled, unemployed, or pensioners, the seminar should focus on social security.
Make your purpose clear
Be very explicit about your purpose for organizing the seminar.
You must then align your objectives with that of your audience.
The training can only become productive and engaging if you’re both on the same page.
Draft the learning objectives of the course
The purpose of this step is to help you clearly articulate your expectations of the participants.
The course objective will help your audience understand what they will benefit from participating in the course.
The learning objective will also help you organize the contents and materials for the presentation.
In drafting the objectives, be specific, use verbs intentionally, and make them measurable to track the success or failure of the training.
Follow suit on other steps
Firstly, define the training prerequisites and create its outline.
The next step is to create the training—depending on your choice and other variables, and you might make it a webinar or conventional workshop.
You may even make it a self-guided course for learners.
Create a platform to collect feedback and measure the impact of the course on participants.
The final step is to deliver the course contents.
Conclusion
We believe this article has offered you insights into how to make your prospecting more results-driven.
Although digital marketing has become a threat to seminar marketing, this doesn’t mean it’s no longer a potent prospecting tool.
Financial Advisors only have to be creative by making the contents of their seminar digital.
In other words, Advisors should rely on webinars to host educational seminars instead of the somewhat ineffective traditional marketing strategy that is even more costly.
Prospects can sit in the comfort of their rooms and join your webinars.
As the world evolves, Financial Planners must also think of sustainable and more acceptable marketing strategies to stay relevant in the industry.
There are a lot of questions surrounding this topic, but we’ve shortlisted some of the most commmon ones below.
