Another month has gone by already! Before getting caught up in to back-to-school and a new routine, check out some new takes on digital marketing, website tips and blogging from some of our favorite publications.
1. Chrome starts telling users HTTP sites are not secure via Search Engine Land
As you expected, Chrome, Google’s popular browser, will start marking HTTP sites as not secure beginning tomorrow. On July 24, 2018, Chrome will mark all plain HTTP sites as “not secure.” Google has given webmasters and publishers six months’ notice of this upcoming change, and it is now going live tomorrow.
Instead of the small “i” icon for HTTP URLs, Chrome will add a “Not secure” label of text to that. Here is what it looks like today before users upgrade to Chrome 68. Note, most of those who download Chrome are set for automatic browser updates and thus will be upgraded to Chrome 68 automatically in the future.
2. What Financial Planners Should Blog About to Get Leads via FPA
In the financial management space, almost every CFP® professional has sectioned off an area of their website for a financial planning blog. But are they making the most of it? For most financial managers with a dedicated blog, the answer is no.
Blogs have come a long way from their early days as online diaries. Unfortunately, they are often misused and underutilized, with business owners not employing best practices to see the highest return on them. By pumping your firm’s blog with valuable information to answer the burning questions of your target audience, you could turn your blog into a finance lead generation magnet. FPA shared a list of SEO-optimized, industry-relevant topics in the financial planning field that they believe can bring you attention, traffic and business.
Creating blogs for financial planners usually has two central hurdles. The first hurdle is coming up with what financial topics to blog about. What will bring high- quality leads to your site? The second hurdle is how exactly to optimize your blogs for search engines. SEO is a nebulous and confusing territory for many business owners, but it is easier to master than you think. The topics they’ve brainstormed for you are already search engine friendly.
3. Connecting with Affluent Clients and Prospects via ETF Database
Good news for advisors seeking to connect with new affluent investors. With the continued growth of the economy, it should be no surprise that the number of millionaires is also on the rise.
In 2017, there were 31 million Americans with mass affluent status. The number increased by half a million in a year, according to Spectrum Group’s Market Insights 2018 Report. It has grown by nearly seven million since 2008.
So where do financial advisors find affluent investors? A whopping 90.8% of today’s affluent investors initially found their financial advisor through some form of word-of-mouth, according to The Oechsli Institute.
In other words, referrals are of utmost importance when it comes to working with this highly coveted group. Matter of fact, Oechsli’s research showed the top two ways affluent investors found their financial advisor were “introduced by a friend, family member or a colleague” and “referred by another professional.”
4. Marketing Helped Top RIAs Grow New Assets Twice as Fast in 2017: Schwab Study via Wealth Management
It wasn’t about how much money firms spent, it was how they spent it.
Effective marketing helped top registered investment advisors grow at twice the rate other firms did in 2017, according to an annual survey by Charles Schwab.
The fast-growing firms in the 2018 RIA Benchmarking Study by Charles Schwab, defined as the top 20 percent of firms with at least $250 million in assets under management, had a 5-year net organic compound annual growth rate of 15.4 percent—nearly four times the rate of all other firms.
In 2017, those same firms continued to grow, adding an average of $48 million in net new assets stemming from nearly double the average number of clients. Large RIAs managing billions of dollars aren’t skewing the numbers. New client assets accounted for more than double the growth of existing client assets across firm sizes.
5. Webinar Replay: How One Advisor Used Digital Marketing to Get 90% of His Clients via Twenty Over Ten
Digital marketing has become increasingly important for all industries and financial services is certainly no exception. With so much information out there about email marketing, social media, blogging and search engines, it can be difficult and overwhelming to try to navigate through it all. However, there’s plenty of real advisors out there who have figured out the best tricks and are having a lot of success. We wanted to give you a first hand look at exactly what one of your fellow advisors is doing to implement digital marketing practices that have taken his client base to the next level.
In this webinar, Twenty Over Ten‘s Samantha Russell and Dan Johnson from Forward Thinking Wealth Management talk about tools and tricks to obtaining more clients for your firm through digital marketing efforts. They’ll introduce you to their top five digital marketing best practices including email marketing, blogging, social media, calls to action and SEO. Click below to watch the replay or download the slides here.
Struggling With What Content To Share on Social Media or via Email?
We are offering access to our content for advisors to use via Lead Pilot for 7-days completely free (even on our month to month plans).