Disruptive marketing to advisors has gone the way of the dinosaur

Disruptive marketing to advisors has gone the way of the dinosaur 

There’s an old stereotype that to succeed in a career like marketing you need to be an extrovert. 

Having personally been at it for a couple of decades I now know that not to be true. Some of the most brilliant, inspired marketers and leaders I have worked with came from careers including engineering, chemistry, and accounting, and definitely tended towards the ‘I’ part of the Myers Briggs continuum. 

Perhaps the stereotype had its genesis in the nature of marketing itself, which not so long ago revolved around ways to interrupt consumers lives – like some uninvited guest – shouting ‘look at me, look at me’.  

Yep, marketing was the ultimate disruptor, but not in a good way. 

Happily, that’s all changed, partly because we now have more data than we can poke a stick at. Indeed, not so long ago, Forbes reported that 90% of all the world’s data had been created in the previous 2 years. Without getting all creepy – and putting aside the fact that privacy legislation is getting tighter every day – marketers now can understand the lives of their clients intimately. 

Permission marketing v disruptive marketing 

But the other reason marketing has changed is because consumers have demanded it. They won’t put up with our disruptive tendencies anymore. Want to serve them a banner ad? Research suggests there’s more chance that someone will get accepted into Harvard, or scale Everest, than clicking on your ad. 

And forget about cookies as a stealthy way of getting in front of them. They’ve largely gone the way of the dinosaur too. 

These days you need a consumer’s permission to speak to them. And hooray for that.  

B2B marketing can be especially tough, especially if your target audience is one as fragmented and time poor as financial advisors.

When your audience’s time is precious, the time they spend interacting with your brand communications needs to be seen as an investment, not a cost.  

 Which is where Thought Leadership comes in. 

Thought Leadership  allows the audience to invest time rather than spending it 

Thought Leadership allows customers to engage with your brand in a way that is an investment of their time. The stats below, based on a study of B2B decision makers, explain why:

• 71% said it allows them to keep up to date with the latest thinking in their sector 
• 68% said it gives them insights into trends likely to impact their business 
• 47% said it allowed them to discover new products that could help their business 

We aren’t just talking ‘soft’ metrics here, we are very much at the pointy end of leads and sales. Another study of business decision makers found the following responses after engaging with thought leadership from an organisation:

• 42% – more likely to invite that organisation to bid on a project 
• 48% – more likely to award business to that organisation 
• 53% increase the business transacted with that organisation 
• 54% purchased a new product or service from that organisation which they had not previously considered buying.

Pretty unambiguous. 

But of course, the next question is how to connect these decision makers with your content? 

Sure, you can have your sales team hand deliver printed whitepapers, but that seems a bit expensive, and bit – well – disruptive. 

The power of community 

Today, the place where your decision makers are hanging out is likely to be an online community.  

For professionals in all fields, peer networks have long been a source of:
 

• Education 
• Wisdom 
• Business ideas 
• Feedback 
• Case studies 
• Motivation 
• Accountability, and 
• News.
   

Today of course, these networks are just as important, but happily more accessible as they increasingly move online, whether that be to public platforms such as LinkedIn, or more specialised or inhouse communities. 

Online communities are marketing gold. 

• Online communities can increase your engagement by 21% 
• 66% of community members say that communities have made an impact on brand loyalty 
• 68% of branded communities report that the community has helped them generate new leads 
• 55% of branded communities report that the community contributed to a boost in sales. 

In the words of Kevin Marasco, CMO of US platform Zenefits:

“Thought leadership has evolved from a one-way broadcast to conversion and community. It requires authenticity, having a point of view, and delivering something of value”. 

Marketing Nirvana 

Seemingly then, the place where community meets thought leadership is marketing nirvana: responsive, permission based, cost effective, reputation enhancing. 

 In financial advice, that place looks like the Ensombl platform. With over 8,200 users from more than 900 licensees, it is Australia’s largest and most engaged advice community. It’s where progressive, entrepreneurial, growth minded advisors go to learn and share. Whether they are seeking help with a technical question or looking for ideas on everything from business growth to client care, it’s a place where advisors are choosing to be. 

It’s where advisors are investing their time, rather than spending it. 

Reaching boutique practices at scale 

The fragmentation of the financial advice landscape has seen an ongoing trend towards self-licensed advisers and boutiques. From a marketing perspective this creates a complexity in that they become harder and more expensive to reach (it’s harder to target 100 individuals than one group of 100). 

With more than 1 in 3 advisors now users of the Ensombl platform, and a member base skewed towards the smaller practices, Ensombl can be one of the most efficient and effective ways to engage with this audience at scale. 

If connecting with boutiques is on your agenda in 2024, and you care deeply about marketing ROI, then Ensombl can probably help. 

Get in touch, we’d love to chat.