Listen to Advisers

Financial Advisers Should Be Driving Your Campaigns

The simple truth of adviser marketing is this – if you don’t use financial planners in your content, there is a low chance it will resonate. Marketing experts are fantastic at B2C communication, but adviser messaging needs to be different. Compelling language appeals to retail clients. Actionable outcomes appeal to professionals.

At XY, our business model is to ensure adviser problems are solved. As facilitators of the adviser knowledge economy, we ensure the issues advisers face are being addressed, researched, and solved. The pieces of education XY generates with our clients represent solutions to genuine adviser concerns. Each word represents a journey to drive the positive evolution of financial advice. We don’t create content for the sake of it. It is purposeful. It is valuable. Most importantly, it is in demand.

It’s no secret we are an adviser-first company, putting the needs of advisers forward. Most of our team have either owned financial planning businesses, or at the very least worked in advice. As a result, we deeply understand the advice ecosystem, and we include advisers in everything we do. But we’re also aware this isn’t the case for all financial services companies. Sometimes the resources aren’t there to have dedicated adviser-centric talent. To that end, we’ve put together a couple of points on how to make the most of your content and your adviser relationships.

Ask Your Biggest Fans to Pitch Your Product Back to You

An adviser came to our office last week and casually mentioned a new product he was using. He explained why it was good, and why he thought all advisers should use it. His rationale was undeniably correct. Having done the research he showed using this particular product at a particular time, the result was always beneficial. Considering the product in question was provided by an existing client, this was a revelation. This adviser could articulate a value proposition better than anyone from the company itself. Why? Well, this adviser had been through the process. The adviser knew from personal experience. He calculated the result and provided the advice. He experienced the positive emotions of the client looking up from a document, and smiling back at him in gratitude. In short, he achieved what all advisers aspire to do: provide great outcomes for his client.

When it comes to communicating the usefulness of a particular product, there needs to be a complimenting strategy. A reason as to ‘why’ a particular product is so good, and under what circumstances your product shines. This is where advisers are your greatest asset. A sales team can communicate benefits. A marketing team can list features. A product team can identify the technical details. But only an adviser can articulate actionable outcomes. By listening to an adviser speak about your product, you’ll simplify an hour-long webinar into a sentence.

Attract the Decision Makers

Within an advice practice, who do you need on board? Not all clicks, views, and downloads are equal. The ability for an adviser to decide to use your product or not will depend on several factors. Are they employed or self-employed? Is the adviser within an aligned dealer group, or do they work under a private license? Small practice or large? If a large practice, do you have the attention of the practice manager or the compliance officer? To make the matter more opaque, the decision makers in large practices typically aren’t the licensed advisers. Considering most product providers build their CRMs from purchased lists of registered financial advisers, the majority of companies don’t even know where to start.

Decision makers value their time extraordinarily high and are notoriously difficult to engage with. But when a single General Manager of a large advice practice could be worth 100 employed advisers, you need to make sure your content is speaking to the right audience. How do you do this? Make sure you are listening to relevant advice problems. Decision makers are more on the pulse of relevant problems than anyone. Rather than trying to find a reason to be relevant to this audience, start with the known problems first.

At XY Adviser we specialise in attracting action orientated decision makers, and work with these individuals to create engaging education experiences. Reach out here to discuss corporate membership options to begin aligning your product with the positive evolution of financial advice.