Build Brands and Build Leads
Emily and her team spend their days speaking with financial advisers. On the corporate side of XY, we’re focused on meeting with institutional clients. And we meet many of them. Over time we’ve had the chance to watch the trends and listen to the strategies. During this process, what did we find? While each product vertical experiences unique struggles, and each company proposes different solutions, most problems come down to building brand and building leads.
Build Brand
Advisers are a conservative audience. For many good reasons they’re largely not interested in standing out. An aspect of this personality trait means they are also slow to adopt new products or services. In many cases, they need to be personally familiar with the C Suite to even consider using a particular option. Even then, it can take many years of consistent positive messages for an adviser to come around.
This is where building brand is so important. At the very least, advisers need to see your brand on average ten different times before they are willing to take a first step. Is your company supported by external stakeholders? What is your company doing to support financial advice? Being prepared to carve out your place in the market over the long term is something that simply needs to be budgeted in each year.
Build Leads
As all good marketers know, there can be months of hard work allocated to a campaign, only for the distribution team to ask ‘where are the leads?’ As the purpose of marketing is to act as pre-sales, setting the distribution team up for success is a constant focus. So what are your strategies? Of course you want advisers to come running for your solution, but advisers don’t think that way. They currently have solutions, and any new solution is a major change to their process. They are moving from what they know works, to something untested for them. So what is your call to action? What is your next step they can take?
We’ve seen two strategies work, and they are entirely different. One strategy is to put everything behind a login, the other is to promote content far and wide without restriction. Regardless of which one your company follows, our clients who achieve the most success lean on XY to build interest from the ground up. We’ve always been an adviser-first platform. It’s our job to facilitate an environment for professional improvement. As a part of this mandate, we work with clients who provide great outcomes for advisers. We work with our corporate partners to build value for financial advisers. Value that is sort out rather than avoided.
Top Down and Bottom Up
We know the part we play, and we also know where the other stakeholders fit in. The licensee will always try to help an adviser make a decision. This top down approach has impact, there is no doubt. But as advisers are notoriously self-directed, a top down approach still always require bottom up demand. Ultimately the adviser is the decision maker, and they will simply move licensees if their choices are not met. So in order to achieve a great sales and marketing result, you need both.
Whether you’re a fund manager trying to get your value proposition across, or a tech player aiming for traction. An insurance company looking for solutions during difficult times, or an investment platform offering something unique. Feel free to reach out and explore how our custom corporate partnerships can help you build brand and build leads.
