You're listening to Financial Advisor Marketing, the best show on the planet for financial advisers who want to get more clients without all the stress. You're about to get the real scoop on everything from lead generation to closing the deal. James is the founder of TheAdvisorCoach.com, where you can find an entire suite of products designed to help financial advisers grow their businesses more rapidly than ever before. Now, here is your host, James Pollard. [00:31.7]
James: Financial advisors, welcome to another week, another Monday morning, another episode of the Financial Advisor Marketing podcast. I like getting guests that I personally, where I personally admire the work, I like what they're doing. I try to reach out to them; I try to make a connection, that's like my process. That's the secret sauce. And one of the people that I've noticed is a guy named Thomas Kopelman. And if you're reading the show title, like you can see that he's on the show this week. There doesn't need to be a big fancy intro or whatever, but I will give you some interesting facts and things I've noticed about this guy. So, he specializes in working with millennials, which is an interesting niche in and of itself. And it's definitely an underserved niche. And I'm sure we'll talk about that. It's an issue that needs a lot of help because the statistics say that they're not very financially literate and he's doing a great service in the world. He does some email marketing, which is really cool figuring that's my specialty and I'm sure we'll talk about that as well. And other than that, just an all-around good person, so, Thomas, thank you for doing this. [01:31.7]
Thomas: Yeah, thanks for having me. I mean, I was just telling you this before, but I remember when I first got, like, I decided that financial advising was what I really wanted to do. You know, I took my first job out of college and thought, you know, I'll give this a try not sure. But after a little bit of time, I realized like, no, this is what I wanna do. I'm gonna put my head down, I'm going to learn about it. And you were the first podcast I stumbled upon. And I think I probably found it from Google and so it's just really cool to now, beyond this, you know, a couple of years later after I was sitting here listening and learning from you for, you know, at least a year straight of every single podcast I could possibly listen to. So, I just wanna thank you for putting out the content thing. Thanks for letting me come on. I'm excited. [02:10.2]
James: Thank you. And it's almost as if we named the show Financial Advisor Marketing. So, when people type financial advisor marketing into Google, they find it. It's almost as if we did that on purpose.
Thomas: That’s smart.
James: So, thank you for that. That's, that's a huge compliment. But let's talk about you because we're going to talk more about you and your business. We'll start off with your niche that I brought up in the intro.
Thomas: Hmm.
James: It's millennials. So why did you choose millennials as your niche? [02:35.4]
Thomas: So, to kind of like take this back to how I got there. So, when I first started working, I worked at a broker dealer, so life was very different. It was all about call everybody, you know, and take any client, regardless if they're 22 to 75 and you can sell them an annuity. And as I started to learn more about this space, I realized that that model didn't work. All these were just taking on random clients, trying to make a sale. And then from there just not really service them. And it's just really hard as a financial advisor to service anybody and everybody, regardless of where they're at in life. And so, you know, I, I met RLS with Justin and Justin has some, you know, younger clients, but a lot of who he works with are retirees, business owners and their journey and what they go through is so different than with millennials. And what I found is I would sit down with some of those people that are, you know, 50 years old and I just it's, it's not that I couldn't talk to them. It's just like, I don't know what they're going through. Like, I haven't been through anything that they're going through and unless I learned it all entirely from working with clients, you know, I couldn't really necessarily relate in the way that I wanted to. [03:41.3]
And I knew that I didn't want to build this client base of a thousand people like, you know, you end up with at Northwest mutual or some of those big places. I wanted to have, you know, a hundred clients that are good friends of mine, you know, that I would like to hang out with. I'd like to talk to you, but I also want to help impact them on their financial lives. And so, you know, I kind of just realized that if I want to go all in on some niche, because I heard that's what works, it had to be the people that I understood. And so, it's so much easier for me to market and write to millennials when I know what they're going through. I know the life changes. I know job changes, then, you know, you're getting married and have kids. And every life change you have also comes with, you know, job changes, salary changes, bonuses. And I realized that there's so much planning opportunities there for millennials and they want it. They just don't know who to find, that's going to help them because their parents, financial advisors won't. And most people they know only manage assets and they don't have assets to manage. And so, they're just trying to figure out how do I get financial advice? And a lot of times they turn to people in their network that they know that are, you know, their parents or aunts and uncles, or, you know, friends, parents, and they give them this advice that is meant to be good, but the problem is it was good for those people. [04:55.0]
James: Hmm…hmmm.
Thomas: Back when they were you know, in their twenties. But what we face as millennials now is so different than what our parents faced. And so, there's really, nobody turned to turn to for these millennials that really understand what's going on. And I realized that there's not many advisors that do it either. So, it's a pretty open space and, you know, as COVID and all this has happened, I've wanted to be able to change and market entirely through digital strategies and millennials live on, on social. Like it's an easy way to get your name out and learn. And so, I've just kind of put my head down and I've just been getting after that for, you know, over a year straight now. [05:31.9]
James: Yeah. There's a lot to unpack there. I don't know if this podcast episode is out yet or not because we've recorded these in advance.
Thomas: Yeah.
James: But there's actually a study by Oxley, which found that the number one-way people under age 45 begin searching for a financial advisor is online.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: And that's not like a huge revelation to you, but it is to people who are trying to get to millennials. And another like marketing strategy that you brought up is with financial advisors who work with the millennial’s parents. And I think there's this myth out there that the kids just somehow keep it going and continue working with the advisor. And sure, that may happen once or twice for people, but I've found anecdotally, like I haven't found any research studies or like compiled this or whatever, but just anecdotally, I found that to not be the case.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: That at a certain point, millennials, they do not stick with their parents' financial advisor. Have you found that as well? [06:26.2]
Thomas: Yeah, I think it really depends on the type of kid. I think there are people who are really dependent on their parents and like always seeking their parents' approval. And so, their parents are like, Hey, you know what? I want to work you to work with them, they're good. But what I found is most people most, you know, I don't know, I don't really want to call them kids, but millennials, you know, you graduate college, you start to live your life. You realize you need a financial advisor. You're starting to take ownership of your life. Like you want to make the decisions. And so, a lot of it is like, I don't really want to work with who my parents work with because I want to be my own person. And I want to find somebody who can relate to me because I mean, to be honest, like I didn't want to work with my parents' financial advisor. Like when I, after college, like I had my assets there, but I would sit there and I was like, man, this is not at all helpful. Like we meet once a year, you tell me how my portfolio is doing. And you're managing my investments, which is like, great. But I want to learn everything else. I want to learn how to manage cashflow. I want to learn where my cash should sit out. I want to learn how to invest in what type of accounts and the benefits of each. And I just want to make sure that I'm making good decisions. And that's just not how the advisors that work with people who just need to manage assets, do it. They don't break it down. They don't go month by month, how you should do things. And then three months from now, savings are built. Now this is what you do. And I wanted that direction. And I also know that that's what most millennials want is they want direction. They want automation and they want to just feel like they are doing the right things. [07:49.2]
James: Well, a lot of times there's like a, this concept of the perverse incentive. So, you have to look at how people are incentivized. And I understand that it's really hard for financial advisors if you have a set of parents who may have 1 million, 2 million, $3 million combined.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: And they're lucky, fortunate, and hardworking enough, whatever you want to call it to have that, then you have the kid who's just starting out and they're just contributing to a Roth. I mean, 10 years of $6,000 or so like, Congrats!
Thomas: Yeah.
James: You got $60,000, maybe a little bit extra incentive, just isn't there.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: So with someone like you, if you have your entire business built around millennials, you now have systems. You have processes that you can operate much more efficiently than the financial advisor who specializes in retirees. And like, Oh, by the way, I've got to help the kids too.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: So that, that is going to make a big difference in the long run for you. [08:40.4]
Thomas: Yeah. And a lot of what they need help with like the, the older generation, they don't really need help with accountability. They just are like; you know how you're managing your assets, you know, everything out, we spend our money, everything's good. But when millennials, there's a lot of moving pieces and now we're like starting multiple accounts and paying off multiple debts. One goes away, where do we go next? And they need the accountability and they need somebody that's going to make sure everything gets done. And that's just not the way that an advisor that's older and works with a different generation is equipped to do and or do they really want to do that?
James: So that's an interesting point. And aside from accountability, are there any like big, unique Goals or challenges that you see millennials facing? Financially of course. [09:20.8]
Thomas: I would say that's one of them. Another one, to be honest, I kind of did an audit of like what was happening with my clients that wasn't something that was leading to the best outcomes. One of them was not having an accountability meeting after an implementation meeting. You know, I think older advisors assume that, Hey, you meet with them. They're just going to go get this stuff done. They're going to change their 401k. They're going to set up their online bank accounts. They're going to do all the things they need to do. But most of the time, the best case would get 60 to 75% done. So, I said, Hey, a month after that meeting, we're going to add an accountability meeting and anything we don't have done by then, we're going to do in that meeting. So, a hundred percent of everything gets implemented every year as the goal. The other thing besides accountability is lifestyle creep is a hard thing for millennials to combat is, you know, Hey, I am at 60 1st year, you know, I got a $10,000 bonus and next year I'm going to make 80. Okay. Well, I'm probably just going to start to spend that more because I already have a plan around my savings. And I, you know, now you got this extra bonus, I'm going to use it. And so, I said, you know what, that's not really what we want to happen. So, I'm going to set my annual reviews right after all my clients get bonuses and salary increases. [10:27.6]
James: Umm.
Thomas: So that way that's a great planning opportunity.
James: Yeah.
Thomas: Instead of just doing it in the beginning of the year. So, if they tell me, Hey, June, all right, at the end of June, we're going to meet, we're going to find the new found money you have. And we're going to try to figure out how do we plan with 50 and inflate with 50. Because I've what I've found and what I think is that if you inflate your lifestyle just with half and with half of your bonus, but you save the half every single time throughout your life, there's no way you're not going to hit your financial goals unless they're like absurdly ridiculous. And so, I mean, I would say those are two of the biggest things that millennials face. And then the other part is that I tell my clients that, Hey, you know, we're going to meet after the initial planning process and your client after annual reviews, you know, we're going to get one new plan every year, but then any time any big financial decision comes up, you call me. I'm gonna buy a car, call me. We're thinking about buying a house, call me. Anything happened with work, call me. And so, I have clients who will reach out monthly, we'll talk for five minutes about small financial decisions, but I'm helping them make every single small decision good. Instead of like, we make mistakes and, you know, ah, you know, I should have done differently with this car or I, we spent a hundred thousand too much on this house that we can’t afford. I help make sure that that doesn't happen by talking through all of these small parts. And so, I think that's an easier way for me to add value and clients are paying me a monthly subscription that they know that anytime they want access to me, we're, we're going to set up a meeting and we're going to talk through that thing. And it might only be five or 10 minutes to go through one thing, but that is still a use of both of our times to make sure that you feel good about your decision. And we know it's the right decision for you. It doesn't mean it's the best money decision, but it's the best decision for you. And that we've explored both the good and the bad of that decision. [12:05.0]
James: So, I can speak to that in my own life. And a note like PS: to all the financial advisors who are listening to this right now, if you offer a similar service or even if you're just okay with your clients, reaching out and asking about a big purchase and you should be because it's another way for them to get in front of you and you to get in front of them and to build the relationship. But I digress. So, I actually did that with my accountant for like a year where he was like, cause I have him on retainer. And I'm like, if I, if he had said, if you ever have like big purchases or anything like that, he just exactly, like you said, call him.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: What are the tax implications? If it's a big, big business purchase, what is the depreciation schedule look like? We will go through all those things. And he would help me with personal purchases too, like vehicles and like personal loans and business loans that I make.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: But then my financial advisor was like, you know, I do that too, right? You can just call me, but he had never put that in any of his marketing materials.
Thomas: Yeah.
James: He never mentioned it. He never brought it up. He never sent anything and he's a brilliant financial advisor, and one of the best, in my opinion. I've talked about him before. I've never mentioned him publicly, cause he doesn't want me to, but.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm. [13:09.0]
James: But there was a point there that here I am me going through the process for a year and I had no idea that I could call him up and just discuss big purchases.
Thomas: Yeah.
James: I've taken advantage of that since then.
Thomas: Yeah, no, I, in my first meeting prospect meeting, before they even convert to a client, I let them know that I want that to be part of it. Like I, I want my client, like I have a ton of clients in sales that they reach out at the end of the month every month and say, Hey, I made a thousand over my commission. What do I do with it? And we say, Hey, great. Here's the place we're going to put it. We'll get that done, BOOM, passed it. And now they didn't have to sit there and think like, Oh, a thousand dollars, what should I do, blah, blah, blah. And then they spend $500 on something that they don't need. I just help take that. I mean, not that they can't go spend money, that's not what I'm trying to say, but I try to help them just think through the decisions that they have and have the balance between spending, saving, paying down debt, investing, and also just, I want them to feel confident in the decisions that they're making too. [14:06.4]
James: Yeah. That's so important, just giving them the sense of confidence. Confidence in themselves, leads to confidence in you really.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: But since this is the Financial Advisor Marketing podcast, we're going to switch gears and we're gonna talk about marketing.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: I know this may be a bold question. I've actually got two bold questions, one about success and one about failure. I will start with the success one. What have been some of your biggest marketing successes to date? [14:31.3]
Thomas: Yeah, so I think one which has really surprised me is my blog and my writing. If you'd have asked me 18 months ago, you know, do you think you'd have a good blog? I would be like, no, I'm the worst writer you've ever heard I've ever taught. I've always said I had bad English teachers. I was a bad writer, but you know, that's, I've come to realize that was mostly on me, the effort that I was giving, because I was always just like a math guy. It was never, never English, never writing, but I did fine. And so, I've been really surprised at the success, the blogs had. Like one of my blog posts, Michael Kitces tweeted out and just summarized, you know, and you know, four months in last year and then this last week, it was on Kitces’s weekend reading. And a lot of my articles are starting to get circled across the web. I've been an abnormal returns a couple of times. And so that's been a really good feeling for me that my writing is helping people because the biggest thing that I wanted to do out of this was help people. And I know that I can only help a small segment, you know, of a hundred people as my clients. But if I continue to write and, you know, share content, I can help a lot more people than that. And who knows maybe in the future, there'll be some courses or other things that help a mass audience. Haven't really thought about that, but I would say the blog is one of them. And for me, I just, I don't know, like a strength of mine is that if I tell myself I'm going to do it, I'm going to stick to it. It's always been my thing. I was an athlete, played college basketball. And so, I just said, Hey, I'm going to write every single week. I'm not going to skip one. [15:56.2]
And so, I've, I mean, if you look, I mean, my blog has been up since last June and I think there's 12 pages of writing of blog posts, because I just told myself I was never going to stop. So, I would say the blog is one of them and then the other one for me has been the newsletter. So, the way that Justin and I thought about my marketing and building is that let's take it one thing at a time because I think what too many people do is they launch their RIA and they say, Hey, I'm going to start my podcast, my newsletter, my blog and I'm gonna start video. And it's like, Whoa, like that is a lot that is super overwhelming. Like how about you get good at one of them? Okay. So, so that's what we did is said, I'm gonna work on my blog for the first four months. And then every once in a while, Justin and I would create some video and he would edit them and do that. But that's where we started. I got comfortable there and then I started the podcast. And started doing the podcast for a bit, getting some episodes out, got comfortable there. And then we moved onto to the newsletter. And so, the, the audience is starting to be built. But when I first launched my newsletter, I think I got like 40 subscribers from people I know. And I was like, Oh, you know, that's honestly not really too bad, but I always had that fear and hesitation that like the people closest to you are always the ones that doubt you, which it probably is to be honest. But I started at 40, put one out, started to grow a little bit, month by month. But the last couple months I've went from like 86 to just under 200 in the last, you know, maybe six weeks to be honest. [17:20.4]
And I was just trying to think of like, how do I grow this newsletter? Like I wasn't paying for ads. I just didn't know, like, how do I actually get people to the landing page? Because every social media algorithm demotes when you put those links. And so, I'm always wrestling with this. Like, do I put the link in here? Do I just say, like go to my profile and my link tree and I'm trying to do kind of a million things. But recently I started to focusing on Instagram, like, can I post more on my stories? Can I post, you know, repost some posts on my profile? And I realized that, you know, if I take the step away from people of having to leave social media to then go to my landing page to then enter their email, if I could get rid of that and just show people that there's value through what other people say and through my stories and previews of the newsletters, then if I just say, Hey, if you want to sign up, just drop your email right here on my, my story from Instagram, people are going to do it. And that's honestly where I've seen the most success. But now my biggest thing is, okay, how do I grow my Instagram following? Because Twitter and LinkedIn, I have, I have bigger followings and there's more reach outside of my network by retweets and comments and likes and stuff on the other platforms. So now I'm trying to figure out, okay, am I getting close to saturating my, the existing market at Instagram? And, and how do I grow it? [18:41.6]
So now my focus is how do I grow the following? Because you know, I have maybe 700 followers at this point, cause I've never posted on Instagram before. It's starting to work but, honestly, I would say that those are the, the biggest successes that I've had, which has all led to new clients. And for me, I was always worried, like, are we going to be able to grow enough? You know, you know, what's this first year going to look like, and for me, it was just sticking out the first six months because the first six months is just really building the audience, getting people to know what you do. And then that trust starts to build. And honestly, like, you know, maybe I got my first inbound client, you know, five months in or four months in, but then like January, I had eight. February, I had like six. March, I had like 12. [19:24.4]
James: Hmm…hmm.
Thomas: April, I have four. And so, the leads are just starting to really come in because of the dedication and just sticking to what I do. And I'm really thankful for Justin because when times get tough, Justin can help me be like, just, just see it out. Like you are so far ahead. But then I look at other people like you and Justin and you know, Tyrone and Doug and all these people have these great practices. And I'm like, man, they had like there in the media everywhere. Like they get so many likes, they have so many followers and I'm not there. They always like help remind me, like, man, you are you're in your mid-twenties. Like we were nowhere near that at that age, you just got to just stick with it. And so, what I'm trying to do, just not, not get too lost in numbers or analytics and just get lost and doing the right things. [20:07.6]
James: Yeah. There's like this cheesy online quote, but it really is true as like “Don't compare your day one with someone else's day 10,000” or something.
Thomas: Yeah.
James: That's it seems like it is, is what you're going through, I can tell you I've been behind the scenes on a lot of these.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: Not any names that you've mentioned. I want to make that clear.
Thomas: Hmm.
James: No one that you mentioned I've seen behind the scenes, but I have seen behind the scenes with some people who were very similar with tons of likes and tons of engagement, nothing, nothing is converting and they're not doing so well.
Thomas: Yeah.
James: So, but you, but you're doing stuff that you're so smart because it seems as if, I don't know if you have ever picked this up consciously or maybe just unconsciously by osmosis by being around great people. So, there's a concept in marketing, like reduce the friction and make it easier for people to sign up. And sometimes people will take that and they'll think, Oh, I shouldn't have an email list. And that's a mistake because I have done campaigns where I just say, there's no opt-in required. Just go here, watch the video, download the thing, whatever people go, watch the video, they download the thing. But then nothing happens.
Thomas: Yeah.
James: The follow up is really what's key. So, what you have done is you have a) successfully reduce the friction while b) maintaining your email list. And you've done that by asking people for their email address. Like if you're interested, just let me know your email address. That's the, that's a good way to do it because you're not sending them to a page that's confusing because believe it or not, if you run heat maps on opt-in pages, you think if they're super simple where it's just one box that says, enter your email here. But for some reason, people like, what do I do? Like they don't know.
Thomas: Hmm.
James: And that's why opt-in pages converted 25, 30, 50%. There's a big percentage of people who just don't opt in. But if you say your email below, I would do it for you like you're doing that tends to work well too. [22:02.7]
Thomas: Yeah. I'm trying to figure out where else I can do that, to be honest, because like Twitter stories, nobody goes on. Instagram stories, I mean not Instagram. LinkedIn stories, nobody goes on and there's no, like, I can't have like a question box on a lot of those where people can just submit things that nobody else can see. So, learning and trying to figure out, you know, where else can I remove that friction. Because I think what we're talking about is the same thing as how referrals work, is there's no friction, the trust is built and people are automatically are like, Oh my best friend referred me. I'm going to meet with you, I trust you. I I'm trying to figure out how do I replicate that same thing now through content. So, through my content, if people get to know me, my beliefs, that I care about people, they see my clients talk about how I've helped them, all these other good things then, then when they come to sit down, that trust is already built because they know I know what I'm talking about. And they know I know what they're going through and that I help so many people just like them. And that's really just been my goal through my marketing. [22:57.9]
James: Plus, you have social proof too, because other people see other people putting their email addresses there. I mean, if I run an ad to a landing page, I could get 100 email addresses today. But the person who is opting in five minutes from now has no idea that 100 people opted in before him or her. With something like what you're doing, and again, I will admit the negative to this is that it is limited.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: You do have to find fresh waters in a sense, but people see and they have that trust or they see that other people just like them are going to you and yeah that helps too.
Thomas: I think, I think the other thing too, to remember is that like I always remind myself that my goal out of this is to build a client base. That's my biggest goal is to build a great client base with tons of great people and I make a very good living doing, and I don't need 10,000 subscribers on my email newsletter to do that. And to be honest, like I probably will need, you know, if I get to 500 to a 1,000, I would be pretty surprised if my client base wasn't full at that time. And so like, I am trying to grow, but I'm also not sitting here to be like, man, I'm trying to be Joe Rogan's podcast. Or my newsletter is trying to be David Burrell's newsletter or like all these other people, maybe in the future, if I wanted to turn it into a new business or new activities or whatever it may be, then, then sure. But at this point, like my goal is quality, not quantity because I don't like if my pod, if my newsletter got to a thousand, but half of them are financial advisors that probably doesn't necessarily really helped me in the way that if I had 6, 700 good consumers that are looking for financial advisors, and they're just trying to find the right one, you know, that that at the end of the day might be better even though the numbers are lower. [24:37.1]
James: Yeah. That, that makes sense. [24:39.3]
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James: Let's get into the next question. The boogie man, and the closet here.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: What are some of your biggest marketing failures or maybe just one, if you only want to share one, what would you say that would be?
Thomas: Marketing failures? Well, I honestly, I feel like in everything, I kind of failed in the beginning until, and I just kept learning like, if we'd look at like the first thumbnail I'd put out to, for like my podcast of here's the person that's going to be on there, it's going to look terrible. Or like the first videos that I created are going to be very basic. I don't really feel like in any of my things that it's like, I failed enough where I had to give up, but in just ways that like, I constantly am looking to improve my things. Like I'll ask anybody, you know, Hey, what feedback do you have for me? Like, what do you think about my podcasts? What do you think about my newsletter? And I'll go take it in and change it because I'm not that set in my ways. Like all of this is ideas that I've been coming up with Justin and other people and looking at other people's newsletters and content and just trying to figure out how do I make it my own? And maybe at the start, it's not enough of my own. And in the beginning of my writing, maybe it wasn't, you know, as relatable, maybe it was more just like here's seven things to go do. And now I'm trying to add in how do I make myself more relatable? I think my, I don't even know what to say my biggest failure, but I'd say my biggest weakness is video. And I know video is important, and I talked to Samantha Russell all the time, and I know the benefits of video and making people see your face and be more welcome to you. And it's something I really want to work on. But the hard part for me is I really do have a lot going on. I have tons of content I'm doing like I'm always active on social. And then all the rest of the time I'm meeting with clients and I'm creating so many financial plans, that video is draining to me. Like it's draining to edit, it's draining to create. And so, I've kind of put it on the back burner. I'm not here to say that that's right. But what I ended up doing is saying, I don't want to do video this way. I don't want to edit. So now I started on Instagram of doing weekly questions. So, I let people submit questions to me. And then every Friday I answer over video, these questions that people have. [27:03.8]
And then I always say how many answered three to four questions? And so, I turn that weakness into, how do I just put out video that doesn't need to be edited? Doesn't need an intro. Doesn't need a conclusion. Doesn't need to put subtitles. So, it takes hours of work out of it while still putting out video. And now I'm trying to figure out, okay, can I repurpose that video? Because it does live on my Instagram page. Like those stories you can go to, there's a thing that says financial questions, click, and you can go view all of them. So, the video still lives, but is there a way for me, which, you know, I'm trying to think about adjusting of repurposing, that content that already exists to maybe on, on LinkedIn or on Twitter. I put highlight of last month's questions on Instagram and I create that to be one video already using something that I've already created. So, I'm trying to figure out how to use a lot of my content for multiple different things. And I tried to turn that like weakness or something that I really didn't like to do into something that's worked well. And to be honest, Justin and I sat down, I was like, maybe we should do videos on Instagram. And I've gotten one prospect a week so far from doing it. And it's just because I answered directly these questions from people of what they're looking at. And then I still tell people here's my services. Here's what it costs here. Here's all this stuff. Because most people think one of financial advisors too expensive. One that their life is too simple when they just realize that they're not doing all the right things.
James: Yes.
Thomas: Just because you just let all your money go to your savings, doesn't mean your life is too simple. It just means you haven't even thought about the options out there of what to do with your money and your surplus. So, I guess that's kind of a long-winded answer, but I don't think there's anything that's a massive failure. I think there's a lot of growing opportunities and I think there's definitely some weaknesses that I have, but I just try to combat my weaknesses with consistency and continuing to do the things like, right. [28:41.9]
James: Are there any other marketing strategies you'd like to add in the future? I know you said you talk about video, but is there anything else that you have on the back burner maybe for 2022, 2023 and beyond?
Thomas: Video definitely is like the number one I'm hoping in the future, that that's something that we start to outsource. It's hard because it is pretty expensive to outsource video. And it's like, okay, if I spend a hundred bucks on a video, but it doesn't really do much, like, is that worth it? So, trying to figure out, you know, maybe we have an intern or maybe we have somebody that can help combat that. But as I think, you know, past it, I think getting in the media would be something that I'm trying to focus in on, but I'm also trying not to be like, I don't really want to pay for it. And I don't mean that in like a cheap way, but like I get, you know, five DMS a week of like, Hey, I could get your name in this press, this press and this press, but my part is like, okay, Hey, being on this podcast is good media. You know, I'm going to be talking to Samantha Russell on a video in a couple of weeks, that's going to be good media. If you Google millennial financial planners, the first articles Business Insider that has me as one of the top 23 millennial financial planners. So, I'm starting to get good media, but I'm trying to figure out, you know, how do I move past it? Because we can't all be Doug. Like Doug is in the media, like, you know, five times a week, it seems like, and I would love to evolve and, and do that a little bit for credibility. But I think that's just going to come with time. And I think it's a little different to like hire somebody to pay, to then get it versus like, I kind of want to earn it. I kind of want us to be seen as a thought leader, not I had to pay my way into that. And then there's nothing wrong with people doing that. This is just the approach that I I've always wanted to take. [30:16.3]
James: And for the savvy people anyway, now granted clients probably won't do this, but people like me know when people pay for media because I can take the article title and I can see if it's been syndicated on other websites.
Thomas: Hmm.
James: So, if somebody, when some, I don't want to get too technical. But when somebody submits a press release, it goes to a bunch of different places. So, I mean, I've done press releases before. I mean.
Thomas: Yeah.
James: There's a time and place for them, but you can copy and paste your title and put it into Google and if you see this website, this website, this website, this website they paid for.
Thomas: With the same name? Umm? Are you saying like, if they're on multiple articles, same article, but the same person, are you saying that sometimes like if I paid and then Justin paid that somebody would post wait with Justin's name in one, and then mine in another?
James: No, it would be the same exact.
Thomas: Okay.
James: Article.
Thomas: That’s what I thought.
James: I don't even know if mine is live anymore, but when this podcast hit the 100th episode, we did a press release and.
Thomas: Yeah.
James: It’s essentially, it's the same one you can.
Thomas: Yeah. How many episodes you are at now?
James: Yeah. How many episodes?
Thomas: Yeah. [31:18.1]
James: You know what, because I practice what I preach and I outsource this whole deal. I don't know right now, but I'm going to bring up the Excel sheet as we're live here.
Thomas: Perfect. It’s funny, so my girlfriend.
James: I currently have, it looks like 124 episodes live. Hmm, no. Sorry. I'm looking in the future. So as of April 12th, so we're recording this in April in between the week of April 12th and April 19th there's 119 episodes. And we are currently recorded up to 127.
Thomas: Wow.
James: So that's how far we go in the future.
Thomas: Yeah.
James: So, this episode we're recording right now will come out, it looks like June 7th and everybody who's going to listen to this in June, they're gonna be like, wait, what? How far, how, what? Like, but it's just the truth.
Thomas: I'll be hitting my one year at RLS right around then. So, its good
James: So that would be a cool anniversary gift.
Thomas: Yeah. We'll say as part of the celebration.
James: So, while I am at my computer here and I've got the browser and everything in front of me, I think it would be really cool if I went back to your landing page and we talked about your landing page for the financial advisors who are listening and.
Thomas: Cool.
James: We can go through and I can say, well, I know off a year, I made one recommendation. If you want me to keep doing that, like we can, and we'll just include it in the show. [32:30.3]
Thomas: Yeah. I'm not, I'm not, I'm fine with critiques. I'm not going to stay here and be like, Oh man, like I'm getting stabbed in the heart every single time you say something, I’m always looking to find ways to improve it, so, let's do it.
James: Well, it just be testing things that you could do. So, I'm going to go to your website. So financial advisors, while you're listening to this, I want to tell you that the reason I'm doing this is because many of you have emailed me and ask about landing pages. And I get these types of questions all the time, because when I post videos on social media and I show my landing page, or I show my ads, a lot of you don't comment. And I imagine I get it, you want to remain private and everything, but you will send me messages and you would say, Oh my goodness, can you look at this? Can you look at this? Can you look at this? No, I don't have the time, unfortunately. Every so often I'll give people a quick suggestion, but landing pages are so I don't want to say common, but the good ones are so similar, it's scary.
Thomas: Hmm.
James: So, I am going to share my screen. For financial advisers, listening to the audio portion of this podcast, you will not be able to see this, but I'm going to do my best to describe what I'm seeing. [33:37.4]
Thomas: Yeah. The other thing real quick is there, you have plenty of reviews on your podcasts that say you aren't specific. So, we're getting specific for all the listeners that have been asking.
James: Totally.
Thomas: Perfect.
James: Well, marketing is very high level.
Thomas: 100%
James: And if I gave specifics for one financial advisor, there would be another financial advisor who complains, I can't do that.
Thomas: Exactly. No, I agree. I don't think the comments are right, but.
James: It's a double-edged sword there.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: So financial advisors, what I'm seeing here is it is a landing page with a, an orange border. It's got a lot of white space. I imagine that the oranges like your brand color, essentially.
Thomas: Yeah. So, it has our logo right under my name and these are our exact colors and writing.
James: So, the very first thing that you could test is inverting the brand colors. Financial advisors, if you have a landing page and your let's say your brand colors, like mine are black and yellow and no affiliation with the Steelers, it just comes off that way. It was like a gold and a black. If I wanted to, I could have like a yellow page in my buttons and everything could be black and it would be a stark contrast. Another thing that I could do is I could test that and have a black border with a yellow button and Thomas can do the same thing. It looks like his colors are orange and Navy blue.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: I have a tint on my screen, so it may not be Navy blue.
Thomas: Yeah.
James: Yeah, so you could do the Navy-blue border. The end, the orange button could be one of the first tests that you do.
Thomas: Hmm.
James: And that's like an easy win. You would be surprised if that makes a difference. Again, these are all tests. These are not set in stone. I can give you hunches as to what I think would work better, but I am wrong. It's not a large percentage of the time, but I'm wrong often enough with these tests. Cause I've, I've run stuff like ads with pictures of donkeys and then pictures of otters. And I'm like, it's just weird stuff like that. And I use my infinite marketing knowledge to be like, this donkey is to win, but it's the Otter. And it's silly. [35:39.9]
Thomas: That’s funny.
James: So, for those of you who are listening, the headline that he had as on this page is my name is Thomas Kopelman and I'm a financial advisor. One of the suggestions that I would have is to just immediately call out the niche. So, say my name is Thomas Kopelman. I'm a financial buyer who works with, and he could say millennials.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: He could say people 20 and 30 somethings because in the subheading, he has in your twenties and thirties, you face numerous life changing financial decisions. They can be overwhelming. They can be intimidating. They can be emotional. That's why I am here. That is a great subheading, because it identifies exactly what they're thinking. In the marketing and copywriting world, there's a saying where you want to meet your people, where they are. You want to meet your readers, where they are.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: And that’s exactly what he's doing. But changing that headline or at least testing it to My name is Thomas Kopelman and I'm a financial advisor who helps, who serves. You just call them out right there.
Thomas: Perfect. I’m with you.
James: Especially if you're sending them to the landing page. I know that this doesn't apply as much when you just say drop your email address and I'll add you because they never see the landing page. But if people click on your name in a, a piece of media that you put out there and they eventually get to this landing page, it may not click with them that you work with millennials. [37:01.1]
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: If they're just skimming the page, because your piece of media might be about your one-year anniversary, it might be about some of the success that you had in that article piece of press may never mention millennials.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: So, you want to make sure that you cover your basis there.
Thomas: No, that makes sense. Easy change.
James: And then, so we're going to go through the rest of the landing page. There's a paragraph and then there are some bullet points. So, I'm going to read the paragraph under the subhead. The paragraph is trying to find the right answers. Isn't always as easy as a Google search. The reason that's a brilliant line is because there there's been a study put out by Oxley where they surveyed, I think it was 403 investors and they broke it apart by age so, 65 and older 45 to 65 and under 45. And they found that the number one way that people under age 45 search begin their search for a financial advisor is online.
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: And that is going to be a Google search. So, when someone does a Google search for best millennial financial advisors and they get down the rabbit hole to Thomas' landing page, one of the first sentences they see is literally the exact thing that they did. So, I would not change that after that you have the words that was full of information, that is hard to determine the right from the wrong and what applies to your life is still good. That's why I started my monthly newsletter. Let me help you cut through the noise and highlight relevant topics for your stage of life also, good. Personally, I think monthly is kind of low. I wouldn't do monthly. I know, but given your personal situation and just for you, and I'm talking only to you, I'm not applying this to the financial advisors who are listening.
Thomas: Hmm.
James: Because you have so much on your plate and because you're getting clients from other sources, it may not be a priority for you to email more frequently. [38:53.4]
Thomas: Yeah.
James: But the minute you have a slowdown in another area, I will pick it up here.
Thomas: No, that's super good advice. I think I honestly, I haven't even thought about it because I was adding so many things on my plate. I was like, what’s sustainable, because I didn't want to pick anything overwhelming because I know if you pick something really overwhelming, that's the first place you're going to drop and I didn't want it to be the newsletter. And when Justin and I went about creating this, it was, how can we make the best newsletter for millennials that is packed full of so much information that like this, if they only had one newsletter that would be this one. I'm not saying I'm there, but the newsletter is a lot. Like I write an original blog post. And then I go through and I highlight like six to 10 articles across the web from self-growth to personal finance, to investing to health and fitness. And then I put all the articles I've had from that month, all the content I created, plus the articles that Justin created that are relevant. And then I highlight a new business that I went to that month and tried. And then I have, you know, 15 jobs on there that I found at really cool companies that match the type of people that are reading my newsletter. And so, I love putting that much information, but it honestly takes me 15 to 20 hours a month to do that one newsletter. And so, my thought is, as we talk about this, maybe the evolution is that still once a month and everybody assumes that on the 15th, but maybe on the first or the 31st, I added another email. That's like shorter, and it's just, you know, maybe it's a little different, it doesn't have to follow that same format. [40:24.6]
James: Well, yes, that's an option. Another one would be sent, the email itself that you send out in the middle of the month is so long it has, I think you listed four different parts. I think that's the jobs and then articles, you've read your personal blog post, and then Justin's articles. So, four things.
Thomas: Hmm.
James: You could turn those into twice a month or weekly. And what you do is you have your call-to-action, calls to action in every email and you send them out and you go back and you look at the one that has the least engagement. So, if it is the one with the jobs and almost nobody is clicking on that particular email, you go through and you see that your click through rate is in the gutter for that. You now know what you can eliminate.
Thomas: Huh!
James: But when you're sending one long, super long email, your data isn't necessarily accurate in the sense that you don't know what people like and what they dislike. But if you break it up and you see that your personal blog post is just killing it, then eliminate and assuming everything else, isn't you eliminate the everything else. And then just either a) stick with your blog post once a month, or b) add another blog post, and you don't have any additional work. It doesn't cost you any additional time, but you have an immediate improvement in your marketing. [41:42.5]
Thomas: Hmm.
James: I hope that makes sense.
Thomas: Sense yeah. That makes a lot of sense.
James: So.
Thomas: I like that.
James: Yeah. That's something that you could at least consider. I'm not saying that's something you have to do, but.
Thomas: No, no. I mean, I totally get it. I think I need to start to eventually live more in the analytics. It's it's been easy to get caught, not in the analytics when things are getting posted all over the web and new clients are coming in. But it’s true, if I, if I kind of can test that, find the analytics, maybe I can save myself some time in the newsletter and cut out parts that really weren't adding that much value to people that I thought were. [42:14.9]
James: Absolutely. So financial advisors, I'm going through the rest of the landing page. The last part is a subheading that says here's what you can expect, which is a very good strategy to put on a landing page because you need, people need to know what they're going to get. It's very hard to get somebody to subscribe to something in which they don't know what they're going to get in my own business. I know this very well because I have a monthly paper and ink newsletter, that's one of the hardest sells in the world. And copywriters have told me this and legendary marketers told me this. It’s simply because if somebody subscribes in June, they don't know what they're going to get in August. They don't know what they're getting and get it in September and people are paying for this. So, when it comes to an even a free newsletter, like an email newsletter, you still have to be very clear on what people are getting. [43:00.9]
So, here's what Thomas says, original content for me, exactly what he has said to us here. But I'm going to read the text. Curated articles, blogs, podcasts, videos, and more motivation and inspiration to pursue your life's passions and a little potluck, depending on what I find that month. The biggest opportunity that I see here from those bullet points to test is underneath that is to give people an example of what it actually looked like, or it looks like, so you can take your email and you could create a, a GIF or a GIF depending on who you are.
Thomas: Yeah, yeah.
James: Scrolling through and showing people exactly what it looks like.
Thomas: Hmmm.
James: And then talking about it a little bit more. You can say, for example, last month I talked about this, this and this, or last the month before that I included an article titled this, this and this, and then under your GIF and your description, you have another area where people can enter their email address rather than just one. I know there are so many articles out there, if you Google, how to create a landing page or how to collect email opt-ins, they will tell you to keep it very, very simple. And that is true. But as a rule of thumb, if you have another call to action, another spot where people can enter their email addresses, it's going to work better. [44:18.8]
Thomas: Hmm.
James: I don't know how much you've been on TheAdvisorCoach.com/blog. But if you are on the articles through the advisor coach, you will see there's a call to action as soon as you get to the site, if you're a new visitor. There's a red button call to action on most of the articles, like somewhere in the top fourth, and then another call to action at the bottom. The same is true with certain landing pages. On the webinar landing page that I have, there's a register for webinar button, every couple of scrolls, there's like four of them. And I've had people contact me thinking they're doing me a favor and being very kind saying, Hey, you know that you can increase your conversion by making it simpler, right? No, sir or ma'am I don't because I've tested that. And again, this is something to test. This is not absolute, but just having a description where people see exactly what they're getting and if they like that they can sign up
Thomas: Hmm.
James: And then have another area where they.
Thomas: No, that makes sense. No, that's good advice.
James: So, I hope that helps you.
Thomas: Yeah.
James: And I hope financial advisors who are listening kind of internalize that. And I, I can't give them the URL because it's like a landing page URL. And I'm sure you guys use it for tracking
Thomas: Yeah, I tried to change it a bunch and it's just, it's a weird URL. [45:34.3]
James: I wish I could just say, Oh, Thomas kopelman.com/landing, but no, it's like exceptional hyphen producer, hyphen one, three, three, one, and so on and so forth. And it wouldn't even be worth it to try. People would be writing it down and there'd be car accidents and stuff like that.
Thomas: No, I agree.
James: So, yeah.
Thomas: That makes sense. That's helpful. I'll always take the free audit and consulting from a true marketer.
James: These are just tests. And I love the fact that you have your photo on your landing page, because I can tell you that if you took that off, that will probably hurt conversions especially because you're working with millennials and you mentioned like financial advisors want specifics and stuff. The reason that's tricky is because when I say something like Thomas has a photo on his landing page, and that probably helps him. There's going to be a financial advisor who's listening to this podcast and thinks photo equals higher conversions. No, not always. It's so hard to give absolute advice in marketing because if there was a financial advisor who, I mean, age discrimination is a real thing. And I really, I feel bad for people who have it, but if there's a 62-year-old financial advisor with gray hair and who looks older, who also tries to serve millennials and that advisor had his photo on the same landing page that Thomas has, it wouldn't convert as well. [46:58.81]
Thomas: Hmm…hmm.
James: So, him just thinking photo equals good would not be the right move. So, if you're someone who serves physicians, obviously you, if you were a physician, you can have a little lab coat on there that would help, but hopefully people who are listening to get the point. But I don't want to take up too much more of your time. One final question.
Thomas: Hmm.
James: If people want to get in touch with you, how can they do that?
Thomas: Yeah so, honestly, I'm on every platform. So, TK just T Kopelman on Twitter, I'm TK, Kopelman, Instagram, and then just Thomas Kopelman on LinkedIn. And anybody can reach out. I mean, I have a group of young advisors that I talk to all the time and, you know, I like to help. I like to take, you know, every week, maybe one or two meetings with other advisors and kind of share what I'm doing and hear what they're doing and give some advice, because I know I wouldn't be here without that. Like I remember talking to Tyrone and Justin and Russ Ford and some of these other guys when I needed help and I needed to learn. And so, I just want to help do that for other people, because it's really easy to put your head down at your job and only know what you're taught there, but there's just so much more to learn if you expand outside of your inner, your just close network and where you work. [48:06.7]
James: Well, it's cool because this is going to get out to tens of thousands financial advisors, and you're going to help quite a few people with this. So, I appreciate you being here. Once again, financial advisors that is a wrap for this week's episode of the Financial Advisor Marketing podcast, I will catch you next week. [48:24.2]
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