3 Reasons Financial Advisors Need to Create Original Content

I want to start today with a dumb question. Would you say that relationships are critical to growing your financial planning practice? Assuming you said yes to that, here's the next question. Does your marketing reflect that?

Why Is Pre-written Content So Popular?

If relationships are so important to financial planners, why is so much of the industry dependent on pre-written content for their marketing? Well, it's a little bit of an obvious answer, and that is that the best thing about pre-written content is that it's pre-written. It saves you time. It's compliance-friendly, but it does have its limits.

I should clarify, right out of the gate, that we are not against pre-written content. In fact, we use it in a lot of our financial advisor marketing strategies. But there are certain things that pre-written content can't do that are critical to establishing better relationships with your clients and your prospects.

Today, we're talking about three reasons that financial advisors need to be creating their own original marketing content.

Reason 1: Most of your client relationships happen digitally.

It seems like not that long ago that having clients come in maybe once or twice a year was the norm and, for some of you, that might still be the case. Post-COVID, we've gotten a lot more used to things being done digitally, over Zoom or phone calls.

Regardless of which camp you fall into, the truth is that most of your relationship happens digitally with your clients and your prospects. While pre-written content is useful for certain things – like having a well-stocked library of resources to send a client and prospects – it doesn't replace the value of your voice and personality. I tell this to our clients all the time.

You don't want to outsource the number one thing that differentiates you from the rest of the financial planning world, and that is your unique voice, face, and presence.

Relying on pre-written content alone robs your digital presence of its relational aspect, which affects your clients and your prospects. If you want to continue to build critical relationships, and not just when clients come to the office, you need to give time and attention to personalizing your digital relationship experience.

Reason 2: You de-commoditize your brand as a financial advisor.

Original content plays a critical role in de-commoditizing your brand. Younger households are used to a very different digital marketplace than generations before. These days, you're not just competing with thousands of other financial advisors who also have access to the same pre-written content libraries. You're also competing with platforms and services, with the rise of roboadvisors and self-driven investing.

Your primary edge that will drive your growth into the future is de-commoditization.

It's not enough to compete with larger practices and larger platforms that have deep marketing pockets. You need to compete on a relational level.

Creating original content on a regular basis is one of the most accessible yet powerful ways to establish your relational presence in the digital world. You can start for free and leverage your reputation in stronger ways.

Reason 3: It drives warmer leads who trust you more.

The last item I want to mention ties into your sales and retention. You want your prospects to have built momentum by the time they pick up the phone and call you, right? Original content helps give them that introduction.

This is especially important because while financial planning is still largely driven by word of mouth, that process has evolved massively since the first Rolodex was carved on the inside of a cave.

In times past, if someone got a referral, the next thing to do was to pick up the phone and give them a call, have an introductory meeting, and decide if you like each other from there.

Now, it is far more common for prospects to get a recommendation and start by judging the book by its cover.

There are a number of elements that are important in making a great first impression with your digital footprint, but original content helps them understand more about you, who you are and how you connect with them. Original content is what helps distinguish your brand from the person they're looking to work with.

At the end of the day, your prospects are looking for a financial advisor that they can trust with their financial future and can connect with relationally so that they can feel understood. A logo slapped onto pre-written content doesn't have the same power here as seeing your face, your voice, and your personality on camera.

With all this access that potential clients have to you, your brand and your personality, many of them will make the decision of whether or not they want to work with you well before they ever pick up the phone or submit a contact form.

By giving them this kind of sample on the front end, you are helping them narrow down their decisions before they ever reach out. If you're looking to get warmer leads picking up the phone and filling out your contact forms, original content is one of the best ways that you can do that.

Need Help Getting Started?

If you're looking for more support to help you and your team get this kind of system in place, at Evergreen, this is what we specialize in. We help financial advisors create original content that de-commoditizes their brand and drives their growth. To see how we do it, check out our process.