At HeyAdvisor, we help financial advisors connect with their clients by providing high-quality visually appealing digital content. Whether you are sending content by email or posting to social media platforms, it’s key that your content is engaging. Not only will this help you attract the right type of clients, it will also help you add value to your current client relationships. Here are the top 10 elements you need to keep in mind for content engagement.
1. Relevance to Your Audience
The easiest way to get your audience to engage with your content is to provide relevant content they are actually interested in. In order to do this, you first need to know who your audience is.
Ask yourself, “what age or stage in life is the majority of your audience?” For example, if your audience is in their 30s, they are most likely starting families or purchasing their first home. Posting content relevant to these topics will help drive engagement. If you are using email marketing software like Mailchimp, you can target relevant content to different audiences by segmenting your clients by age. A more personal approach would be to take note of the life events happening in your clients’ lives. By doing so, you will be able to reach out to clients individually with content to help them navigate their wealth planning needs during these major life events.
2. Quality and Accuracy of Your Content
The quality of the content you use can have a big impact on engagement. As a financial advisor, it is vitally important to build a platform your clients and prospects can trust. No one expects you to create all your content but it should feel like you curated it. After all, creating quality content is heavily time-consuming and that’s not where advisors need to be spending their time.
You need to ensure the information you are putting out there is accurate. Posting or sending false or inaccurate information can have an irreversible impact on your credibility. Make sure that your content is free of spelling and grammatical errors and that it uses the correct region-specific language. A common mistake Canadian advisors make is posting financial advice with American terms which can come across as confusing or worse, lazy. One way to save time is to only use reputable and trusted sources for your content.
Visual content such as infographics or videos needs to be professionally created. In a world where people are constantly seeing new content, the expectations are high. You have a small window to catch their eye and get them to engage with your content. Having visually appealing content will help.
3. Aligning With the Financial Calendar
Your audience will engage with content that is relevant to them depending on the financial calendar. Certain wealth planning opportunities align with certain times of the year. For example, a good time to post about planning for tax filing is February/March. At this time of the year, filing taxes is front of mind for your audience meaning they are more likely to engage. The same can be said for investing in RRSPs in January/February, as your audience will be thinking of contributing before the March deadline. Take the time to look at your calendar, decide on the key times in the year that wealth planning needs to be addressed, and plan out your content accordingly to help boost your engagement.
4. Length
People have short attention spans. If you are using video content, it should be no longer than 5 minutes in order to keep your audience’s attention. Infographics are a great way to explain more detailed concepts visually. Short and simple is key. Long blogs or articles just don’t get the same level of content engagement as compared to the time investment required.
5. Visual Appeal
Studies have shown that visuals increase content engagement by as much as 94%! It’s no surprise that visual content gets the most attention. For advisors, using visual content such as videos or infographics will lead to more engagement. Again, no one expects you to be a graphic designer on top of being a financial advisor. Rather, aim to be a great curator of content.
6. Authenticity and On Brand
Choose content that aligns with your value offering and brand. Consistency and brand awareness will help you build an audience. If you consistently curate content that orients with your value offering and brand, clients and prospective clients who align will you know that your content is relevant to them, and are thus more likely to engage.
Another tip is to be relatable and approachable. People want to engage with people, not just a business. Including team updates and sharing company culture in your posts can also make you more personable to your audience.
7. Educational Factor
One of the best ways to reach your audience and make an impact is to educate. Education has always been a big part of being a financial advisor. In recent years, this has become an online process. Whenever you send or post anything you need to ask yourself, “what is the audience learning?” Adding value at this angle will lead to increased revenue either through existing clients or new client relationships but with a more authentic approach.
8. Consistency and Timing
There is a fine line between consistent content and spam. You want to be posting or sending content regularly to keep everyone engaged, but not so much that they stop looking. Social media websites use an ‘algorithm’ to determine whether your post goes to the top or falls to the bottom. Consistency increases the chances that your posts are seen. It can also feel like a full-time job to remember to post these each day, so using a scheduler like Buffer, Later, or Hootsuite allows you to block time and schedule all the posts at once.
9. Catchy Title, Caption and Image
Content engagement starts with your audience clicking on what you have posted or sent, and you only have one opportunity to get this reaction. You need to make sure you have a catchy social media caption or email subject that gets them interested. Email subjects should be short and to the point. Captions can be a bit longer and should try to start a discussion with your audience. Asking rhetorical questions such as “Are you aware of all the different types of insurance available to you?” can do this. This allows your audience to think about their situation, and when it’s relatable, there’s a higher chance of engagement.
10. Making Sure Your Content Looks Good on All Platforms or Email Marketing Systems.
When you send an email, it’s essential that you think of your audience’s experience and how it will look on all devices. Will they be viewing it on their phone, computer, or tablet? You need to assume it could be all of the above. Most email marketing systems will adjust for different types of viewing and you can preview them before you send the email.
If you are posting content to social media, you need to be aware that there are different photo size requirements for each platform. Instagram has a square photo box while LinkedIn is a larger rectangle. Remember that your social media presence is a reflection of your brand and professionalism.
It can be a challenge to make sure you include all these elements when picking and posting content. That’s why it’s even more important to find and curate quality content that touches on all of these.
HeyAdvisor provides consistently high-quality visual content covering the various life events of a client. They are white-labeled to include your company logo and are created especially for Canadian advisors. Interested in learning more? Sign up for a free trial at www.heyadvisor.ca and use the unique code ADVISORSAVVY to get 20% off any membership.
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