Consumers seek out reviews. Would you ever stay at a hotel and drop a lot of money on it without reading the reviews of that hotel first? No, absolutely not. In this week’s video Samantha Russell, Chief Evangelist for Twenty Over Ten and FMG Suite shares an easier way for financial advisors to get referrals through Google reviews and testimonials.
Easier Way For Financial Advisors To Get Referrals
For years, the way most financial advisory businesses have grown is through referrals. And yes, those referrals are still happening today. But the way they happen has drastically changed. And we call this the digital referral shift. I’m Samantha Russell, the chief evangelist at FMG Suite and Twenty Over Ten. And today I want to talk with you about a really easy strategy that you can use to get more referrals from your clients using Google Reviews.
Social Proof
Okay. So I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this thing before, but I love it when you say it, it’s marketing. When your client says it, it’s social proof. Social proof is just a phenomenon that basically tells us that as human beings, when we don’t really know how to make a decision or how to go about making the decision, we look to others, especially those in our peer group, to see what they have done, and then we follow their lead. And so this really, really a huge part of it is how the consumer journey happens. Today we go online and we read reviews from other people who have bought a similar product or tried a similar service. Up until now, this has really not been a part of the choice selection process at all for people consumers looking to hire an advisor because advisers couldn’t use reviews. But now with the new updated SEC ad rule, this is all changing. And so of course, first thing, Disclaimer check with your own Home Office compliance team to see if you’re able to start utilizing reviews and testimonials. It’s going to come down the pipeline for everyone at some point.
Client Reviews
So let’s just talk a little bit about why this is so important. So in any industry, if you are going to go and book a seven night stay at a hotel in Italy for your anniversary, or you have a big business trip coming up and you’re going to stay in a hotel you’ve never stayed at before. Would you ever stay at a hotel and drop a lot of money on it without reading the reviews of that hotel first? No, absolutely not. Most people wouldn’t hire a contractor to come and change up their kitchen or hire a new plumber to come and fix their toilet without reading reviews online first. And so this is a game changer for our industry.
Consumers Seek Reviews
Consumers seek out reviews. I love this chart. Here.
91% of customers regularly or occasionally read online reviews, and 84% of people trust online reviews just as much as a personal recommendation. Right? This is huge. The other thing that people don’t realize is that Google as a search engine, they want to give the best possible search results to their users, which is all of us. So when you search something like Financial Advisor near Me or Financial Advisor, Annapolis, Maryland look at the results that come up the top organic listings here in this local three pack are going to be those firms that have reviews because Google wants to show you results that are vetted businesses that other people have done business with, they know that it’s more legitimate.
Google SEO
So, Google reviews have a huge, huge impact on what we call local SEO search engine optimization. So getting reviews is hugely important for ranking higher in your local area. And just another reason. The last thing I just want to say is that if you think about the whole process of getting reviews from clients, it’s sort of a lot to constantly be asking people. Is there anyone that you can recommend? Is there anyone you can think of could be a good fit for our business? You’re putting the impetus on them, right? You have to be sort of reactive. But if somebody who is a client of yours can leave a review once and you can repurpose that review into a testimonial on your website, into a social media post highlighting the review, you’re going to get so much bang for your buck out of that one written review versus them just telling one friend, right? And then when somebody goes to Google your business, they’re going to see this client of yours review.
So getting your clients to leave a review is going to be a lot easier and you’re going to get to repurpose it multiple times to get so much more impact out of that one review we’ll link below to even more strategies of how to set up your Google My Business page to start getting these reviews and what you need to know from a compliance standpoint. We also have a great eBook that we will link that you can download. That gives you everything you need to know about this new SEC ad role. I’m Samantha Russell again and hope you found this helpful. If you have any questions, please reach out. I’m let us know.
