How to Use Account-Based Marketing for Financial Advisors

Account-based marketing (ABM) requires investing quite a bit of time in setup but can result in significant ROI for those who dedicate the time to master it. Meaning that account-based marketing ideas are important to include. If you’re ready to dive into ABM to scale your growth and revenue, retain and expand your existing client relationships, and land your ideal accounts, this guide will give you the foundation you need to get started.

What is Account-Based Marketing for Financial Advisors?

Account-based marketing is a structured approach to implementing highly customized marketing campaigns for specific clients. This approach addresses the unique challenges these accounts face and tailors campaigns to propose solutions. More and more marketers are turning away from mass-produced blanket marketing, which advertises to everyone, and are taking the time to create more segmented lists and develop customized campaigns to find their true client base.

Common Misconceptions about Account-Based Marketing

Many business owners think account-based marketing can only be used for large companies with advanced marketing teams and large budgets. As an independent financial advisor or small firm, you likely do a lot of your marketing yourself. Luckily, putting an account-based marketing strategy in action and reaping the benefits can be done by small firms as a part of their overall marketing strategy.

How to Use ABM

Using automation like our social media campaign tool makes it easy to set up a marketing strategy based on account-based marketing tactics. ABM campaigns take a great deal of patience, dedication, and research, but the effort will be worth it because clients will respond to the personalized service with greater loyalty. The frequency of interactions will show that you are invested in the client by taking the time to address the concerns and challenges that are unique to them, positioning your services above the competition.

ABM Example for Financial Advisors

Let’s walk through an account-based marketing example for a financial advisor:

Imagine you’ve been working with a client, and they mention that their neighbor is interested in working with a retirement planning professional. You ask for their name, email, and phone number. You then start sending them a general market insight video about once a month.

If they engage with your emails, you ramp up the efforts and send them some retirement planning-specific content or a blog post you recently wrote about how it is beneficial working with an advisor.

By slowly sharing content that is relevant to the individual’s needs, you build a connection of trust. Hopefully, with patience and helpful content, the individual will reach out to your office to make an appointment.

These are some of the building blocks of an account-based marketing strategy. In the congested space that is digital marketing, there is so much noise and so many advisors vying for positions that prospects and clients need multiple touches to feel confident in choosing an advisor. ABM is an excellent way to reach out to your clients and prospects with ongoing communication to build strong relationships.

For the past few years, content marketing has been the big industry buzzword. While content marketing is still critical to growing your business, ABM is a marketing element worth a look at.

ABM Strategy Tips for Financial Advisors

Define Your Mt. Everest

Every business has a vision of reaching the top of the mountain and landing that one big account to take their firm to another level. For some advisors, this may be taking on a 401(k) plan for a large company or providing retirement planning to government employees. Just as you would create your personas with other marketing efforts, it all begins by identifying what your ideal prospects look like. For guidance, write down a profile of a few top clients and use the criteria to help define your ideal client. Depending on your focus and specialty, you may evaluate attributes such as:

  • Geographic location
  • Company size
  • Business Industry
  • Assets for investment
  • Financial goals/needs
  • Age

Define the Right Message

Not all content appeals equally to everyone. Based on your target audience, you can determine what kind of messaging will perform well. This could be videos, long-form articles, reports, webinars, or community events that are personalized for your niche audience. Speak to your target clients’ concerns, needs, and wants, and make it clear you understand these challenges and are in the best position to provide the solutions.

Implement this messaging into high-quality content you distribute to prospects and clients frequently and for free. Many professionals agree that you should give away 90% of what you know. These giveaways increase your exposure in your market, build trust in your authority, and position your brand where you need it most. Offer free whitepapers, eBooks, and events that include insightful tips on retirement planning, budgeting, or any other area of financial planning in which you specialize.

Determine the Optimal Account-Based Marketing Platforms

As amazing as your content may be, it won’t do you much good if your ideal clients can’t find it. This is where your marketing channels and platforms come into play. Where are your ideal clients searching for news and communicating with friends and family? For retirees, it may be Facebook. For millennials, it could be Instagram or Twitter. And for professionals, it’s more likely to be email and LinkedIn. Depending on your target audience, you may run multi-channel campaigns or focus on one vehicle to drive your marketing content.

Execute Your Campaigns

Once you’ve identified your ideal target, what you’ll offer them, and where you’ll reach them, it’s time to launch your ABM campaigns. The timing here is key. If you’re using social media advertising, you won’t have to focus as much on timing as the platform does the work for you. But for email, you may need to test times and days to see which works best for you and your audience. An automated system can make sending these emails quick and easy.

Measure, Review, and Revise

The best thing you can do to ensure ABM success is to proactively monitor your campaigns, measure the results, and make adjustments as needed. Creating and launching the campaigns are half of the work; the other half is fine-tuning with ongoing improvements. Whether you use a CRM or other tracking software such as Google Analytics or an email marketing platform, review how well your campaigns are performing and measure their ROI. Consider testing different platforms, times, and content pieces to see what works best.

While account-based marketing requires time, work, and resources, it can help you quantify your marketing contribution, target ideal clients, and land bigger accounts. Even if you don’t have time to continuously launch ABM campaigns, creating a few can help you better understand what works best in your marketing.

Find more account-based marketing ideas, tools, and solutions for your marketing strategy with FMG Suite. Get a demo and see how you can start growing your AUM like never before.


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