Good Marketing Is About Delivering Value
I wanted to share with you behind-the-curtain conversation I had with a client of ours the other day. A soundbite from the dialogue put a thought into words that I’ve always felt as a marketer. It’s time we stopped marketing for the sake of marketing and got back to an audience-first approach.
Using Marketing “On” Your Audience vs. “For” Your Audience
I had this conversation while working on a project for an RIA client of ours. They have an innovation-focused business model, and they’re always tweaking the business model to work better for the advisors under their umbrella.
We were working on a new marketing initiative internally with their advisors, and it facilitated some conversations with advisors one on one to just say, "Hey, here are some of the ideas we're thinking through. What are your thoughts on this?"
One of the advisors said something that turned into a phrase in my mind that I have been mulling over. This is broadly applicable, but it’s especially important if you are an organization marketing to advisors – like an RIA or a broker-dealer.
He asked me this question: “When it comes to the marketing resources our RIA has, are we trying to use them on advisors or for advisors?”
What Does Your Audience ACTUALLY Want From You?
What does that phrase mean? To provide more context, we were discussing ways we could deliver insights and tactics to the advisors under this RIA umbrella. In most cases, this looks like “traditional” digital channels like social media and email campaigns.
This presented a challenge because, in this advisor's words, he militantly unsubscribes from at least five companies a week just to keep his inbox decluttered.
Thankfully, we haven't made that list yet, but it highlights an assumption problem many marketers ignore.
There are often strategies that many claims form the “right” way to market your business. But it’s like medicine - the amount is important, and more isn’t necessarily better. It can get easy to get disconnected from your end audience.
Great Marketing Starts with the Truth
Within our work at Evergreen, we have these all the time. We ask our clients to connect with 2 or 3 of their prototypical ideal clients. We help them get their feedback on what they’d prefer to see from their digital relationship with the advisor or the RIA.
The feedback is always interesting. Honest conversations might tell you that the assumed “right way” is wrong for your audience. On the positive side though, the truth can fuel your creativity when it comes to putting together your marketing strategy.
Get Creative, Create Value With Your Marketing
This is the main question at the end of the day: How can you leverage your marketing resources FOR your audience, not just ON them?
If you're something like an RIA or a broker-dealer, how can you deliver resources to your advisors that equip them to grow and accomplish their goals?
If you're a financial advisor, don't just send out the occasional pre-written article or the occasional market commentary, but think creatively. How can we use our marketing resources to actually provide our clients with things that are valuable to them and not just reflective of us?
