Les plus grandes tendances marketing de 2024

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. I’m Samantha Russell, and we are so excited to talk with you this afternoon about some of the biggest trends we are seeing in marketing specifically for financial advisers right now and really hone in on which ones are worth your time to pay attention to. Right?

We all can get shiny object syndrome, but what’s actually gonna work, and what should you be paying attention to and actually spending some time on? On. So we’re gonna give everybody a minute or so to sign in. And if you’re just joining us today, maybe let us know in the comments where you’re joining us from.

I am actually down in Florida at the wealth management edge conference. So I’m in a hotel room. It’s a little different background for me. Mhmm. And while everybody’s letting us know in the chat where they’re joining us from, we can introduce ourselves and, see where everybody is.

So, oh, we got Minneapolis, Salem, Massachusetts, San Francisco, Dallas.

I love to see if anybody’s outside the country. We’ll see if we got any non USers.

All over this totally all over the country.

Yeah. Oh, wow. Lots Ohio. I’m an Ohioan from Cleveland. Any other Cleveland fans out there.

Awesome. So we really it’s like we got our every state. I love it. Oh, Cleveland from Akron.

So great. So let’s spend some time, and we can introduce ourselves.

So if I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting you before, I’m Samantha Russell, and I’m the chief evangelist here at FMG.

And I have been helping advisers for about a decade now, specifically, you know, look through everything in their marketing, what’s working, what’s not, and help them grow by adopting the strategies and tactics that are gonna work best for their business.

And I am so lucky because I get to work with our CMO, Susan Theater, every day. Susan, can you introduce yourself?

Yes. Hi, everybody. And for those who haven’t met me, I am the chief marketing officer and have the pleasure of getting to work alongside Sam.

And I’ll tee up our very special guest, and our wonderful advisers who are the reason we get up every day and what motivates us and is really the basis of our passion. And today, we have Siobhan Farler who is joining us, and I’ll let you just give a quick intro.

Hello, everyone. I’m glad to be on the call today.

I have been an adviser for twenty plus years, and I, obviously use FMG and, and I’m looking forward to being on the webinar today and kinda talking through some marketing aspects and see how we can all generate more business, which is the what we all want to do.

So Yes.

Absolutely. So for the format today, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna talk about the trends, and then we really wanted to get everybody’s perspective who’s already doing this, who wants to do it, or maybe who’s tried it and said, no. That’s not for me. And then we are gonna show you, with FMG how you can get it done. So I think it’s gonna be both insightful and practical, which is my favorite combination. So without further ado, I’m gonna go ahead and share my screen here. And, ladies, you can tell me once you can see it.

Okay.

It is up.

Alright. So we already introed that.

And I just wanted to pause for a second and mention that if you haven’t given FMG a look in a while, really, now is the time to do it. You can see all of the amazing awards our team has won over the last two years. We really are the marketing suite that works for everyone. Whether you’re just getting started or you’ve been in the business a long time, that’s the beauty of it.

It it’s customized and it grows with you. So we’ll be sharing more about FMG throughout, you know, today’s talk, but we each introduced ourselves. So I’m gonna go past those already and just jump right in. So the first, marketing trend that we are seeing and we’ve been seeing actually is what we call zero click content.

So let’s ask in the chat, who knows what this is? If you do, just a quick yes or no, we can see how everybody’s feeling. Shavon, you’re shaking your head yes. Did you know what this was?

Well, I’m gonna take a guess. Isn’t that just where they don’t click through? They just everything opens up at one time?

So it’s you’re on the right track. So the idea of zero click content is that the old way that we would see people, especially on social media, post content, was it would look like this. Right? So it’s a link to an article, not picking on Barron’s here. Everybody did it.

And it would say kind of like, this is what we’re gonna talk about. So here, they have a five point social media plan for your firm.

The new way, the zero click content way is without clicking to read an article or listen to a podcast, you get the gist of what the person will teach you if they did click.

Yeah. So the idea is that the algorithm specifically want people to stay on LinkedIn or stay on Facebook, right, and engage there more. They don’t want them clicking off. And so they started really prioritizing the posts where the information is given up front.

And it also we all love it because it’s a lot easier for me to go and respond to Thomas here because I have something to respond to, and so it’s gonna help you generate more comments.

Does that make sense?

It’s like a quick summary versus some versus a tease.

Exactly. And it’s it’s like the executive summary because who really I mean, is clicking to read every article that somebody’s sharing. And I think it just goes to another best practices. People wanna hear from you. And when you’re clicking to an article a, that’s time. A b, it’s gonna be a read, which they don’t wanna do. And if you’re summarizing and also sharing some opinions, that’s just improving the perception of you as a thought leader, but also making it really easy for the algorithm to pick you up, but also for people to scan and get the key points.

One hundred percent. And so somebody asked the question, do you still include the link? Yes. You still it’s not that you’re not including the link. It’s that you’re giving them a lot of the information, most of the information, the gist of it. So even if they didn’t click, they have enough to go off of to understand. So here’s some real examples, and these are both from the FMG library.

So if you are utilizing FMG, we recognize this trend about eighteen months ago and started rewriting the posts in our library to reflect the zeroes click way. So, when you’re posting, f the content that FMG is providing to you, this is what it looks like. Right? So we can see the one here on the right.

This is an integration we have with YCharts. We got a nice YCharts chart in the bottom. And then do you think your tax rate will be higher in the future? And it gives you information about it.

Right? The one on the left, is talking about election years, and we got a great graphic showing the stock market. So, hopefully, these will give you some ideas of what it looks like. Again, if you’re already utilizing FMG, we are using this strategy in the content we’re putting out, so you don’t have to worry about it.

If you’re not using FMG, really wanna think about how do I give away more me in the post itself.

Here’s a really good question. Do you know is it better to include the link and then it sort of auto generates the thumbnail or to provide a picture and have the link just in the copy?

Oh, that’s a great question. It depends on what the image in the thumbnail is. So if it’s an image like these images, yes. Absolutely.

They’re beautiful images. But a lot of times, the image is kinda grainy, blurry. It’s not the best. In those cases, it would be better.

So, like, if you’re pulling an article from Barron’s and the image they have is not the best image, then I would definitely replace it with something else. So it kinda depends which what the image is.

And what I also do is not only does it depend on what the image is, but it depends on what I’m wanting that big takeaway for the client, what they’re gonna remember or the prospect, what they’re gonna remember from my post.

Yeah. So they’re gonna remember the image because the image goes my post credibility.

And so it it’s gotta be something of, like they don’t need to necessarily remember all the details of the y chart, but just that there was a chart there that gave more credibility to what I was saying.

And you were talking a little bit right before we got on about social media and how you’ve seen it work already for you to get, you know, some some new clients. And I think one of the things I just wanna pause and have you tell us a little bit about is comments. People don’t realize the power of comments. So you can see here, right, with Chris.

I purposely didn’t cut it off. He got this great comment from somebody because they saw this chart, and it was enough information for them to pause and think and reflect. Comments are the currency of social media. Right?

So the more comments you get on a post, the more the algorithm says, oh, this is good content. We’re gonna show it to more people. So you wanna get as many comments as possible, but you also want to leave comments on other people’s posts because it exposes you to a wider network. So, Siobhan, can you tell us a little bit about what you were just telling me and Susan about how that worked for you in real real time?

Yeah. Absolutely.

That’s something that I make a a very active or conscientious effort to to go on is to make certain that I’m commenting on a variety of different things in the social media world. I’m just gonna use Facebook as an example. So I I’m a part of a lot of different groups on Facebook.

And, so and people look for everything from, hey. I need a plumber to, hey. I need a financial adviser Yeah. Or to, hey.

I’ve got six thousand dollars extra. What should I do with it? Now, obviously, stay within your SCC and your compliance rules, all of the disclaimers that we have to say. Okay?

So I’ve said all my disclaimers.

But, I had an interesting case about a month ago and got an a new client from, a lady called called me because she had seen all the different, comments that I’ve been making on a variety of different posts, about divorce. Divorce is kind of one of my marketing niches.

And so she called me because she had a friend going through a divorce. And so she she saw the blog that I had answered on one of the other posts. And, anyway, so she called me. She said, yes.

My friend needs to talk to you. She hung up the phone talking to me, immediately got her phone her friend called me, and I got a new client out out of out of the deal. Somebody I would have never met otherwise act and got a new prospect as well because the original friend. So I got a a prospect and a client out of people I would have never met otherwise if it hadn’t been through social media, me commenting throughout.

And then I’d, I was also sharing with Sam and Susan, you want to add credibility to yourself. So there’s a group of, of about twenty of us women who’ve gotten together, who are all entrepreneurs, who we have agreed we’re gonna give each other credence.

So if somebody sees on a Facebook group that somebody is looking for a financial advisor, my friend is gonna post, hey. You need to talk to Siobhan, and then I reply with whatever. Or if I somebody’s looking for a real estate agent, well, then I plug my friend and then they reply versus it always being where I’m replying and going, hey. Here’s what you need to do. You need to talk to a financial advisor. And by the way, I am one. It just kinda sometimes reads funny.

Right. Brilliant. Brilliant.

And so we’re all we’re all recognizing there’s so much power in the social media place, and so we need to work together, in in in that space. And so absolutely.

Have you also asked them, another way to leverage that group is when when you post or, you know, in your case, when FMG is posting for you, you’re letting them know that you’ve just posted so that they can go in and engage because the quicker they engage and the more comments you get, the more people are going to see it too. That’s another way to, leverage a group like that.

Absolutely. And so that would need to be, targeted.

You know, I wouldn’t want my necessarily my real estate people posting about, I don’t know, taxes Not posting.

Just when, like, you know, when you Sharing.

Yes. Just having them go on and say, great post. Thanks for sharing this information.

Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Commenting. Yes. And then if there’s something that I have that is specific for their industry, then I we’re gonna we ask for each person to share it.

And so we’re really trying to amplify in a social media place because that’s where, people don’t think to go to Google to ask a question anymore. They’re gonna go to Twitter and Facebook or LinkedIn. That’s where they’re gonna post their question. And so, you want, I’d rather spend my time and energy getting more of my things seen in those spaces than necessarily a Google search, which, you know, everybody’s been doing.

So Yeah.

I love that. I think there are so many great tips there. Hopefully, everybody listening in that makes sense, of the strategy. And the idea being the takeaway there is, yes, the zero click is so important, and, also, the commenting is just as important, if not more so. Those two things combined are major, major part of success with, specifically, social media marketing.

Okay. The second trend, AI. We would never be able to have a marketing webinar without talking about AI anymore. Right? And this is, like, I’m sure everybody’s sick of it.

But, you know, we people will say, like, you know, should I be doing this? Should I be going to chat GPT and just having them having them as if they’re a person. Chat GPT right right for me.

And obviously, there’s differing opinions about this. But, Susan, why don’t I’ll I’ll just pause here, and let’s scare your philosophy, and you could tell us a little bit about how we’ve thought about it with FMG.

Yeah. This is cool. You can see this animation on this slide. This is an example from FMG’s mobile app.

So if you go into the mobile app, it pulls up all kinds of articles, and you could just click to share. And when you click to share, it says, you know, write me text if you wanted to. You just click on that box, and it writes you the caption based on Samantha and my and others’ sort of thought leadership. We’re training it, constantly on the best practices.

And what I think of this I think of chat g p t and and AI as the first draft. I don’t think most people should take it and just say, off it goes. Like, you can’t have, like, actually dollar sign emoji we shouldn’t have in there.

But, I I think this is honestly it’s a beta version.

Sorry. A demo from, like, when we first were launching. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We’ve changed it up since then, which is also another thing that we’re Yeah.

We keep changing it. Like, I And even this started with way too many emojis. Right. If you look at this, like, how many people want their post to start with, hey, everyone, with an exclamation point.

Right?

Like paragraphs.

Like Probably not.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I wanna sing Susan’s praises here because, I’m gonna tell a a story. I guess it was two or three months ago. I was being interviewed, for local media, and they wanted written responses. And it was right in the middle of tax time, and I did not have time to write a, you know, a dissertation.

And she goes, put it into AI.

And so I put it into AI as my first draft.

Then I went in and edited it, made it sound like me, took out things that didn’t sound right for the client base, kind of, you know, polished it up, and was done in, like, ten minutes. Yeah. And and I also got published. So, there are ways to use AI to your advantages.

And and Susan Susan and Samantha suggesting that was a lifesaver.

Oh, that’s awesome. Yes. I think it just is it’s an efficiency play to get you a decent first draft that you can also fine tune with another prompt, you know, where it missed. You could say that’s too long, add emojis, and use bullets.

But it is not the final it is not the final version. It also the pitfalls I find are it gets sources wrong. It gets stats wrong. So, you know, definitely don’t trust it if it’s giving you, you know, x percent of the country is doing blankety blank. Google that and make sure you find a source and validate it. Nine need to like, nine times out of ten, I find that it’s making those things up.

But it’s so much easier to red pen something that’s been done versus Oh, right. Blank document and come up with it. And I see a lot of people saying, I didn’t even know we had a mobile app. So I lucky I’m glad I thought ahead, and I thought people might say that.

There’s the QR code. And if you put your phone over it, it will come up. It is free. If you have FMG, you get the mobile app. And so just like you see here, what’s so cool is in the app, there’s a ton of content that you can post directly to social media.

There are emails you can send out. You can see all your scheduled content in one view. So definitely download the mobile app, and then you can also enable push notifications. So when we drop breaking news content, it’ll notify you. So Oh, any of this? Oh, yeah.

So You’ve learned something. You’ve learned something by joining. I knew it.

So if you haven’t done this already, please, please, please check it out. You’ll be you’ll love it. And, yes, the AI feature is in the mobile app right now, and we’re working on integrating it into the desktop.

So I’m downloading it right now. That’s what I’m looking down on is I’m I’m downloading this right now because I did not know about this.

Yeah. Awesome. Saying the mobile app is great. Thank you, Jewel. I love it.

Okay. Well, let’s move on to trend number three, which is short form video. And we have a really fun new feature if you are using FMG to show you what you can do with video in email, which I love. So, but let’s just talk about it a little bit.

I am sure like, let’s tell me in the chat. How many of you watch at least five short form videos of some sort? An Instagram reel, a TikTok video, a video on Facebook, a a YouTube short per day, at least five. Because I bet you it’s more than that, but, Tyler, feel guilty.

That’s before breakfast. That’s right. That’s that’s how we learn nowadays. Everybody’s short form videos.

So Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Five hundred. Michael said five hundred. It is the popularity of short form video is just exploding, and it doesn’t honestly matter what platform you’re on, how you’re using it. That’s not really the point so much as thinking about getting it made, and then you can repurpose it in all the different ways. Right?

So we put in here some places you could use it, and I’ll just go through these quickly. But, you know, having a quick bio on your website that introduces you, a video is great for that. But then one I wanted to talk about today is email because we still know that more than any other medium, once you’ve captured somebody and you’re dripping on them, email is the thing that really moves the needle for people. So, you know, you can engage with people, on social. It’s great to hear, Shavon, how you’re doing that.

People will have events, and they’ll collect email addresses. But then afterwards, you know, you need to follow-up. So we just built this new amazing feature. If you have, short videos or videos you wanna share in an email, and it’s in this widget. And I’m gonna actually go into the app and show you how it works. So give me one second.

And, also, I will plug because I’m guessing there’s also, like, the, you know, help me and how to create all the short videos. We are doing I think the webinar is in July, so it’s it’s two months away, I think, but we’re doing a webinar on video.

Okay. Well, I definitely want it because I have been wanting to do this. So I’m so super excited about it. My FMG rep, I’ve always called them the fancy videos that you see on TikTok, and I wanna do fancy videos. And so I’m so excited that you guys are gonna help us do this.

Yay. Awesome.

So yeah. So for right now, if you did have a video that you wanted to send via email, let me just show you. So you go into email. You go to send email.

Obviously, I didn’t style it all up yet, but it you know, hi, first name. It’ll drop the contact’s name in here. You could put whatever content you want, but you’re just gonna hit this little plus sign. And then over here under widgets, you’ll see all those widgets, and we have this video widget. So you’re gonna add the section in, and then you’re going to come right here, and you’re going to upload your video. It does take just a second to upload here.

But as it’s uploading, one of my favorite features is for so many people, you make the video, and then we well, maybe not everybody knows, but the thumbnail. Right? What does somebody see?

Shavon shaking your head yes. It’s crucially important. You want a good thumbnail. And And go into my Yeah. That it’s time consuming. And then, like, okay. Do I have to go into Canva and make a whole new thumbnail so that it’s clickable when I’m sharing it?

And it, you know, can just be time consuming to do that. So our team was genius, and they came up with this little thumbnail slider button so that you don’t need to go and actually create a whole another thumbnail for these emails. It’s going to look like it’s a video. And you can see here, you can just slide and it will change where in the video it pauses, and that will be your thumbnail. So then this. Isn’t that so cool? Yeah.

Genius.

Genius.

So I am pumped about this. I am so excited about this. And I and so on the webinar so so now we’re going down a rabbit hole. On this web webinar, Susan, will you teach us how to do all that nice text that she has too? Okay.

Alright. Tell you that too.

Yes. We got all kinds of tips for you. And that’s just a simple tool if you wanna look it up now called Veed, v e e d. It’s an editing tool. And it’s like if you can write an email, you can use Veed. It’s just like, put your text here. I mean, it’s very simple.

Oh, and it’s just a button that says add captions, and then there’s font different like, you can play with the font, but we’ll get to show it all in the video.

Yeah.

So look at this, though. Like, it’s so beautiful. And the best part is, though, what a lot of people don’t realize, you don’t actually wanna upload your video to your email, the real video, and have it be hosted in the email because it slows down the email. So what our team did is when your client or your prospect gets this and they go to click play, it’s gonna open up on a separate page that has your company logo on it. And it looks like it’s on your website, but it’s just to play the video.

So And the other videos I’ve done linked directly to my own website already, and I have a page FMG made me a page that those things dump to already.

So Right. I just they’re just not as pretty and fancy.

They’re just And I think that’s the thing.

If you have an FMG website, Sam, right, it can link right to that. Or if you don’t have an FMG website, it creates the landing page for you.

Exactly. Exactly. So the the big thing here is if you’ve ever tried to send a video in an email before, like, typically, you’d create the video, You’d upload it to YouTube or Vimeo, then you get the link, and then you put it in the video. We’re saving you all those steps.

You’re just uploading, selecting the thumbnail. You don’t have to go create a thumbnail, and then boom, you can send. So this is super easy. So if you’re already creating short form video, which is a number one trend we’d suggest you adopt, it’s so easy to repurpose it.

Because the thing about social media is while social media is great, remember, not everyone is going to see everything you post on social. So if you have a great video, I think somebody just said in the comments, we’ve been using it to send out our monthly market updates from our chief investment officer. Great great idea. Right?

You can post that to social, but not everyone’s gonna see it. Being able to do it this way in email, you’re guaranteed to show up in people’s inboxes. So it’s a great way to repurpose the videos that you have.

And I see a good question, and I I think I know the answer, but I’m gonna put an asterisk by it. But because it’s in the email and because our email routes through compliance, this saves the step of having to submit the video first before you send it out because this email routes through compliance before it goes out, and they are reviewing it. Do you know, Sam? That’s that’s right.

Yep. That’s exactly right.

We got you covered.

Okay.

So let me go back to the slideshow. So if you got more questions about email, let us know. But the main thing is short form video exploding.

Can’t wait to teach you more about how to use it, and we can’t wait to keep building more features to make it easier for you to integrate it into how you’re managing your marketing in FMG, but this video one is awesome. Oh, there’s just another example of me.

Okay. So let’s move on to the next trend, which is COI marketing. Shavonne, before we get into it, is this something you’re already doing at all?

I do have a COI group already premade in my FMG contacts groups if people aren’t using, the FMG groups.

The it is wonderful because I go in and I select which emails or videos or whatever I’m gonna send, who I’m sending things to. And, I’m part of, the do it for me group, and so Defham has marketing that’s targeted specifically this for COI. So I’m able to go in there and go, okay. This is for COIs for the CPAs or divorce attorneys or whatever and and select it. So I’m not sending just generic emails to everybody. Everything in in theory is targeted based off of who who they are and and what what information I’m trying to relay to them.

Right.

So I put this up here because this was Susan’s idea, and it was such a brilliant one. But she came up with the idea that we should have an email campaign that advisers could send to all these different COIs so that you can reach out to them proactively and say, hey. This is who I am. This is what I’m doing. You know, make that warm intro. Do you wanna say a little bit more about the idea behind it, Susan?

Yes. I was answering a question on the premium subscription. I’ll just answer it. So do it for me is our top, top package.

So it is an upsell from premium. And you asked me what my like, how we came up with the COI campaign? Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, when we’re for do it for me and then, you know, our overall content calendars, we’re creating a ton of content. And as you think about best practices in marketing, having segments so that you’re emailing specific content that’s designed for that person is going to improve your performance. And we realized that, you know, most of you are growing through referrals. You’re getting customer referrals, but we know that COI referrals are a fantastic source of business.

And just like your prospects, you need to just drip on them to build that relationship. I mean, they are, you know, they’re in demand, and I’m sure many of you have knocked on doors and maybe it hasn’t worked. But dripping on them and showing that you have just, you know, no ulterior motive. You’re just sharing valuable content that their clients might be interested in with no ask other than, you know, let me know if you ever wanna grab coffee.

That will break down that barrier, and, also, they’ll see you on social, most likely. Like, I would send LinkedIn connections to them.

It really makes a difference. So we wanted to go even deeper in the COI and and break it into the specific types of COIs you might want so that the messaging is even more refined.

And so so one of the things that I also put in here is oh, we’ll come I’ll come right back to that. I left this blank. But one of the things that’s another great way of, like, you’re not getting a ton of people responding back to you even with an email drip stairs like that. Invite that person to come join you on a webinar.

Say, I’m gonna host this webinar. It’s gonna be on estate planning. Hey. I’d love for you to come and share these five things.

So I left it blank with the idea being it could be any, you know, subject matter expert or COI, but asking them to join you for a webinar is such a great way because in their mind, they’re like, oh, I’m gonna be exposed to a whole new audience. This is gonna help my brand, but you’re gonna form a relationship with them, And that is a great way to really kick it off, and get it going. But you can even use those emails that we have in there as such a nice warm lead and, intro. And then I was just gonna say if you did have them join you, when you then share it on social media and things like that, tagging them is really important and vice versa so that you’re both getting exposed to each other’s audiences.

Yeah. Shabbat, is this kind of what you’re doing?

About tagging other people?

Or just with COIs in general?

Yes. Yes. Mhmm. Absolutely.

And do it for me. What what Shavaughn’s able to do is in addition to that series of center of influence, those are really door openers by all the different types of COIs. But every month for our do it for me customers, we write two blogs, and then we version those blogs into emails, And we do them for clients, prospects, and center of influence. So every month, there are two emails that are designed specifically for centers of influence that our advisers and do it for me can drip on those centers of influence.

So just tie it been a a huge time saver for for me because, there the items are already kind of written.

You know, I just go in. I I look at them. I make certain again that they sound like me. It’s conveying the message that I want. Look at all that great content. And I will say too, you know your book of business the best.

There are things that for whatever reason I mean, I may not I don’t know.

I can try to look at something.

I don’t know. There may be something I don’t I’m not gonna use. I’m using all those things, so I can’t find one that I’m not gonna use.

But I I like, I don’t think I use for in April.

I didn’t use the shredding day for, because it was too close to some tax things.

And so I I always look at the calendar that DIFM puts out and go and figure out what works best for my clients and and pick and choose. You don’t you can use all the stuff or you can do things and customize it.

I just gotta pull this up so people know what you’re talking about. This you get a calendar that looks like this every month, everybody. That’s what she’s saying.

Absolutely. And so there may be something, you know, I I don’t know. That we may I may I can’t think of anything off the top of my head because that that calendar looks great. But there may be something let’s say it’s Christmas time or something. I don’t know.

We also call it optional, the optional social posts, which, you know, you’re opting into some of them, probably not all of them. You know? Like, not everybody wanted Cinco de Mayo, but some did.

Exactly. Like, there have been some calendars where there may be something on every day, which for my client base, it would be too much. So you can look at and go, okay. What’s an email?

What’s going out via email? What’s going out this method for social media? What’s a blog? And you can kinda pick and choose what you do when, but you’re you’re doing it and and you a diff kind of already written the crux of it.

And so all you have to do is just make it yours. Right.

Kinda that same AI I don’t like AI.

Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Okay.

So we I know we got a little bit off track, but, people were asking about, is this only available for, like, diff them for certain emails? One of the great things, if you scan this QR code, we have this great estate planning email trip series that we wrote, and we’re giving everybody who’s on today it for free as a thank you.

Did you you saw this. This went out, I think, last month. We got great feedback on this one.

Yes. Yes. And and in my financial planning, estate planning is one of those things I talk to all of my clients about. So this was perfect for, hey. This year, remember, we’re gonna be working on all of these things. Like, this was this this was great. Yeah.

And it was written in partnership with Wealth dot com, who they’re an estate planning tool. And so we worked with them. We created this drip campaign. So this is an amazing value add. I hope everybody on takes advantage of it. But just an example of the kind the way that you can be, you know, talking about these types of topics and working with COIs, but also, you know, really leaning into these certain, subject matters that not maybe every adviser has time to go and write these email campaigns on, but it’s really, really important to clients we know, and it’s something that they’re they have the appetite for.

Okay.

So let’s talk about the next trend, which is webinars, workshops, and in person events. And I already saw some questions as I think about events.

This was a study we did with Wealth Management IQ, in twenty twenty two, and we found that only twenty three percent of all advisers are doing webinars. And Michael Kitsis, Nitrogen, they all had some research, similar thing.

However, we look at the revenue per new client, and and it webinars are so high up there because the cost to put them on is so low, and yet, you know, the outcome can be so high. So we’re really bullish on webinars for twenty twenty four as an amazing tactic.

And I think, you know, obviously, there’s a a big return to in person events, and that’s great. But one of the things I love about webinars is so many advisers wanna get referrals. But, Shavon, I don’t know about you. To me, it’s a lot easier to say to someone instead of, hey.

Do you know anybody who I should work with? To say, hey. I’m gonna be doing this event to teach people about x. It’s next week.

Here’s the link. If you know anybody that would really benefit from it, you can invite up to I’m letting all my clients invite up to three people. Right? Like, that is so much more impactful and easy to share than just, hey.

Tell me who you know that I could work with.

So, Shavon, is that something you guys are doing any of?

So I have to be honest. I’ve not tipped my toes into the webinar space. Yep.

It is on my things I would like to do this year as a goal.

Natural. You gotta do it.

Yes. I I I just I don’t know what my hang I don’t know what my hang up with it has been. I just haven’t done it yet. Time.

But I do do the blogs because FMG and Defim take, you know, do take care of that for me. But I need to get in the webinar space. I really like what you were saying earlier about partnering with a COI in the webinar space.

You definitely got my wheels turning on some potential ideas there. I like the idea of it being teaching about something.

So I I need to do this. And and I’m glad that every y’all are holding me accountable to get this done.

Well, and you just said I’m gonna just fast forward here. You said, you know, about we already help you take care of some of the other things, so it’s easy to do it. And that’s the point Susan just said about time. Well, good news, everybody, and this is not just for do it for me, but we have webinar slides, landing pages, event kits for you. So if you wanna get started with webinars, we make it really, really easy because creating the slides, making the registration page, making the landing page, sending the invites, that all takes time. But we have an event tab in our dashboard, which I’ll pull up here, and it’s very, very easy to do it. Again, when most of the work’s done, you just have to go on and fine tune it.

Let me just pull that up.

So I’m gonna I’m I’m gonna say a fear. I can’t believe I’m gonna put this out here in public forever on a recorded webinar. Yeah. But what is, let’s say, that tax one that you had, and I haven’t obviously, I haven’t read through that yet, and I’m doing that on my own. I don’t have my COI, that’s a tax accountant, on there with me. What happens if somebody asks me a question and I’m trying to be a subject matter expert and I don’t know the answer and I don’t wanna say I don’t know?

Such a good question.

Yeah. I mean, I I as you can see, Sam and I love doing webinars together. It is exponentially easier to do a webinar with somebody else versus being the only person talking. Sam is an absolute expert, but I think she will even say, it’s just it’s so much more difficult to keep a one way conversation engaging.

So I really think, especially if you’re just getting started with webinars, to try to, you know, to try to find somebody that is a subject matter expert on you know, that adds to the topic that you’re talking about. And you can always say, you know what? That’s a great question.

I don’t know the specific answer, but I’ll get back to you.

I was just gonna say, I think it’s such a sign of a smart person and a trustworthy person when someone will say, you know, the tax code is really big, and it’s very complicated. And there are so many things that I need to double check before I give my answer. So I love that you’re helping me learn something new. Because people ask me marketing questions sometimes, and I’m like, I don’t know the answer to that, and that drives me crazy.

And I wanna know, so I’m gonna go look it up. But, you know, I don’t know. Everybody could tell us in the chat. If somebody tells you, I actually don’t know the answer to that, let me find out.

I feel like I trust them more than not. Right?

Well, I I like saying that, but I just didn’t know It sounds bad.

Yeah. I like that you asked the question because I know other people are thinking, Siobhan. This is why it’s so good to have you here because Totally.

It really is true. And I think another thing that’s, you know, I a misperception is that you’ve gotta have this crazy great slide deck.

So most of the webinar today has just been us talking, and we’ve done lots of webinars where we don’t even have slides. So we as you know, FMG does have a bunch of slides, and presentations that are all put together and beautiful.

But if you found a great COI and you had a topic and they were really conversational, you could have, you know, a half an hour. People also really like half an hour webinars. You don’t have to sign up for an hour. You can just have a conversation where you’re almost interviewing them. I think we call it, like, a show flow, but you come up with a list of questions and, you know, you ad hoc and ad lib, but you don’t have to burden yourself with a huge slide presentation that goes through compliance and has to get designed.

Yeah. And I just wanted to show you. So in terms of, like, making the event here, you put the name in. Right?

Financial scam scam senior should know about. You say, this is really important. What are the number one thing or top things people are gonna learn? It’s always nice to have a picture.

You can say it’s presented by. And then once you go, you can preview it, and it automatically is gonna have your branding. We’re gonna make it look all nice. So you can see I just added the info in.

I didn’t have to design anything, but look how much nicer that looks.

So it’s a nice landing page. And if it’s a, you know, a Zoom webinar, you can add in the link. It makes it really, really easy to design have the page be designed and match your brand without you needing to do it. And as Susan said, you know, maybe you invite somebody from your your local area who’s in cybersecurity, and they’re talking about this.

Or, you know, gosh. I have an advisor who they do some, like, really interesting things. Last month, they invited somebody who was one of the people who reviews antiques on antiques roadshow, and they did a webinar. And they had clients drop things off to the office ahead of time, and then they would, like, pull them up and and review them. It was so fun.

Right? What a great idea.

Yes.

So I think, you know, think outside of the box and what would be Identity tool is, like, always popular.

You will get friends of friends of friends to join, and you can get a a local law officer, you know, FBI. There are lots of different places, and they’re happy to do it.

Yeah. And somebody was asking, which type of, subscription with FMG has the events, and that’s premium marketing just for those of you listening if you’re looking for it.

But yeah. So that’s what it looks like. Again, in here, you can in the event section, you’re you’re able to invite people to set up the event, everything, and we have slide decks already made, and we’re always adding new ones. So, hopefully, this will make it a lot easier to get started.

Okay. The last trend, and we’re doing great on time, ladies. I’m very proud of us, is outsourcing.

So, you know, I think one of the things we’ve all seen with the rise of AI is the idea that, like, AI is making our lives where we’re able to outsource so many of these repetitive tasks that we know we have to do over and over and over again, but they need to be done well.

And that’s sort of a trend we’re seeing in a lot of areas. But for whatever reason, there are still so many people when I ask them, do you know what you’re gonna post on social media next week? Like, marketing’s important to them. They wanna grow through social media.

They wanna grow through digital marketing in general. Do you know what email you’re gonna send? Do you know what social post you’re gonna do? And they have no idea.

Right? And so if, you know, if we don’t have a plan, right, we’re planning to fail as the saying goes. So outsourcing is the last trend that I think it applies to every single business if you wanna be able to hone in. But, specifically, you know, in marketing, I cannot suggest enough to outsource what you can so it frees up time for you to do those things that drive those personal connections.

Like, you talked about, Siobhan, with having time to log in and leave comments.

That’s right. Absolutely. And, as I mentioned earlier, I am, an FMG client. I do use Stifem. I’ve been using it for about a year and a half. And this quarter one of this year, my production, I did in quarter one all of what my production was the year before. Oh, that’s fantastic.

I would say it is because of diff because of the way the of all the automations and the marketing and already having things that then it frees up my time that I can I’m doing two things at once. I could be dripping on a prospect that I haven’t talked to in a little bit through the automated system while also meeting with somebody new or doing trades or financial plan. Like, I’m I’m I’m in two places at once, which is absolutely wonderful. And there’s, I I love my website. FMG did my website for me. I love all the marketing pieces.

I am, full on the different bus because if you’re not using it, you are truly missing out on some great opportunities of, freeing up your time to be with clients, which is really what we’re supposed to be doing anyway.

The compliance piece, mine does have to go through compliance. I just whenever there’s something in my dashboard at FMG, I just send an email to my compliance officer and go, hey. Will you go in there and check it? He already knows FMG and the type of work they do, so he looks at it and it gets approved so much faster.

I I absolutely am on.

If anybody offline even want to reach out to me and and ask questions, I’m happy to to answer them, but it has made a huge difference in my book and in my production.

Oh, I love what you said about being in two places at once because that’s really the idea here, right, is that when you automate certain things and outsource them, and you’re not just automating them where Yeah.

It’s not set and forget.

Like Yeah.

It’s not set and forget. It’s ahead of time plan. So somebody’s handing you this. They’re saying, this is what we’re gonna do on your behalf this month.

You’re able to go through and say, yay, nay, edit this. But then to your point, like, now you’ll have time to make a video or have time to do the leave five comments a day thing. And that was one of the the tips here is, you know, so many people will tell me and, Susan, I’m not getting any ROI from social media. We’ll say, okay.

So you’re posting. What but do you ever engage with anyone? Well, no. Mhmm. For every one thing you post, you’re supposed to be commenting on at least five other people’s posts to prime the algorithm, to get more eyeballs on your content.

So outsource what you can so that you can do the task that only you can do.

That’s right.

And the and the personalization. You know? On top of the commenting, I also am always reminding our customers to send out connection requests too because if you don’t broaden your audience, the same people are seeing it. And a lot of people, you know, have their friends, family, employees are the ones that are constantly commenting or liking.

And so you might be like, great. I got, you know, x engagement and x impressions, but the goal is to broaden that and make sure it’s hitting your target audience. And then personalizing content. Just like we talked about with AI, it’s about finding efficiencies in your life everywhere.

I’d love to outsource just about everything in my life. But finding a way to make it in a marketing from a marketing perspective, getting something that’s eighty to ninety percent done and then personalizing it. That’s critical. Whether you’re using AI, whether you’re using FMG’s content, it really you can do this without FMG as well.

Find you know, outsource what you don’t do well or like to do, and then take a little bit of time. So if it was gonna take you four hours, you can probably, in fifteen minutes, take something and add your own picture to a social post that was written for you or edit the first paragraph of an email or change the conclusion of a blog.

And right there, there’s no such thing as canned content regardless of who’s writing it for you. You’ve personalized it, and that that makes all the difference.

Absolutely. And I one thing that, I’m not sure exactly we’ve mentioned, but we’re talking about some of the emails that that go out. One of the things that I really like is it tracks how many people are opening up my emails, which I never really had a way maybe the technology existed and I just didn’t know, but I never really had a way to do that before FMG.

And so every month, I’m going on and I’m seeing what my click what my open rate is of my emails, which on average are somewhere between sixty and seventy percent.

Which is awesome.

It’s it went down a little bit last month, and so but I was playing with the times a day that I was posting things. Nice.

Look at you.

So so you’ll you’ll find and and I have no idea what I was doing before, but I just know what people say is a national average, that emails like that are I think my rep said it’s, like, twenty percent or something like that, is the national average. So if if you use the emails and you use and you do the tips and tricks that Samantha and Susan are talking about, you should see your numbers start to rise on engagement with your clients and with the logarithms.

And, you know, I’m certain we’ve all probably bought something via Facebook or Yeah.

You know, TikTok or something like that. And we didn’t buy it just because it popped up on our feed once. Right? We kept getting fed the feed that we should get it. We want your advice and you as a financial adviser and you as a subject matter expert to be feeding into other people’s feeds in that same unconscious way to to make it so that people are looking at you that way. Oh, there’s yeah.

She pulled up the the I was trying to find it.

These are this is my dummy dummy demo account, so the zero percent everything pretty much. But, this is where you can come in and you can see how many peep what was your open rate? What was your click through rate? Did anybody unsubscribe from your list?

Did any of the emails bounce for a bad email? And it is a really good best practice to to look through this and see, you know, what are people liking. And this is where having those groups important because Yeah. Then you’re not mass emailing everybody about a particular piece of content that maybe only half of your list should be reading.

Yep. For sure.

Okay.

So those are the biggest trends. We got through all of them in fifty minutes, ladies. Great job. Siobhan, we can’t thank you enough for joining us today.

Susan, did you see any questions that people had either about FMG or about the trends that we did not answer yet?

I think we’re good. So I think let’s just summarize because we’ve definitely wandered and had lots of good tips and, you know, digression. So maybe just summarize the five the the key trends so everybody kinda walks away with those top of mind.

Oh, okay. You’re gonna make me go back and through the go back through the slide so I don’t miss any.

Well, one of them was the outsourcing. Let’s see if you remember them. So okay. So we had the no click through.

I don’t remember the order. So no click through.

What was I don’t remember what number two was.

AI. Video. Sarah remembered video.

Videos. Yeah. Videos. Webinars. Webinars.

UI. What was what was the fifth one? COI marketing.

COI marketing and then Outsourcing. Outsourcing. Yeah. Awesome.

So you will everybody will get the deck. And so in case you didn’t have time to direct to grab the QR code that had the estate planning drip emails in there too.

And then this is the QR code if you wanna talk with our team, whether you wanna upgrade your package to do to move into the do it for me program that Siobhan’s on, or if you just wanna learn more about FMG in general, we are happy to talk with anyone, answer any questions that you have. But thank you all so much for joining today, and hopefully you learned at least a thing or two, that will help you in the next year.

And thank you so much, Siobhan, for taking time out of your busy day to join us.

Absolutely. You guys have a great day.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you.

Bye bye.