Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
Many solo practitioners find themselves in a difficult quandary – they need to market their businesses, but they don’t have budget to do so. Instead of finding ways to market on a dime, they throw up their hands and hope that business will magically appear.
What they don’t know is that an effective marketing plan doesn’t necessarily require deep pockets. Some of the most successful marketers spend very little money on marketing. I Instead, they spend significant time building relationships and educating their audience.
For advisors who don’t have money to spend on marketing, here are five suggestions on what you can do to market your business.
Network, network, network!
Some of you reading this may be saying, “networking is not free”, and you would be partially right. Many networking events do have a cost of admission. If you have even a minimal marketing budget, networking is probably where you should be spending it. However, if you are truly working with a $0 marketing budget, consider volunteering. Research which non-profit organizations in your town are having fundraisers this year and offer to assist in some way. An ideal situation would be to join the planning committee for an event so that you can network with board members and top supporters of the organization. This will be a much more effective relationship-building strategy than volunteering to help on the day of the event. In addition, consider getting involved in local community associations such as Business Improvement Districts to network with community leaders. The key is to identify where your ideal clients are spending their time and get involved with those organizations. You’ll build a strong network of people and develop meaningful relationships that will ideally lead to new clients or referrals. And all of this can be done without spending a penny.
Frequency: Network in some capacity weekly
Utilize LinkedIn
Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most effective and inexpensive forms of marketing. For financial advisors, word-of-mouth marketing comes in the form of referrals. LinkedIn can assist with referrals, since it allows you to connect with your clients, centers of influence (COIs), friends, family members and colleagues and enables you to see who your contacts know. By researching who your network knows, you are able to make educated requests for referrals from your contacts. Instead of merely asking a client if he or she knows of someone who may be in need of your services, you can say, “I see that you are linked in with John Doe, would you mind making an introduction?” You will need to adjust this strategy to fit your personal style, but however you use it, LinkedIn is an effective referral generation tool.
