You're listening to “Financial Advisor Marketing”—the best show on the planet for financial advisors 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 advisors grow their businesses more rapidly than ever before. Now, here is your host, James Pollard.
James: This is Episode 199 of the “Financial Advisor Marketing” Podcast. It feels surreal thinking that I am one episode away from the big 200. The first episode aired on January 14, 2019, and the show has been going strong ever since. I haven't missed a single episode. Every single Monday, a new episode has dropped without fail since January 14, 2019. So far, the show has hundreds of thousands of downloads. It's just … oh my goodness, it's so incredible. It won't be long before this show is in the millions. I want to say thank you to everyone who listens. I really do appreciate you. I love what I do and I'm glad to do it. [01:13.7]
This episode is titled “7 Ways to Get More Clients from Existing Web Traffic.” I had to get away from the Number 5 in my show titles. The past three episodes had the Number 5 in them. I figured I would step it up a notch and use the Number 7 this week.
Lots of people make the mistake of trying to get more web traffic from Day 1. This is a bad idea because it's like trying to increase your income before you build strong savings and investing habits. Imagine increasing your income from $50,000 per year to $500,000 per year and still saving 0%. It wouldn't make a difference. The same is true with your website. You should focus on making it as strong as possible before increasing the number of visitors you have. That way, you can make the most of every person who comes your way, and I want to help you with that. [02:03.7]
Here's the first tip. The first tip I want to give you is that you should think of your website as a journey. I created a video training called the “Client-Getting Website” that talks about this in detail, and you can get this over at TheAdvisorCoach.com/website. It will show you exactly how to set this up and how to make the most of it on your website.
Essentially, the three most important pages on your site are your homepage, your “About Us” page, and your contact page. The mistake financial advisors make is they treat these pages as separate pages. They don't realize that the web visitors are going to bounce around between these three pages. If you don't believe me, check your analytics for yourself. Look at your most visited pages. Run a heat map and tell me what you see. I'm probably going to be right here.
Even if you get a lot of traffic through blog articles, for example, what you will see is that a good chunk of those people are clicking either your homepage, you're “About Us” page, or your contact page, and any web development company that doesn't prioritize these three pages is wasting your time because this is what the data tells us. [03:09.7]
These three pages serve as the foundation of your prospective client’s journey. The homepage should provide a way for them to get involved in your world, maybe a webinar, an email opt-in form, or something for them to do, and if you study my homepage at TheAdvisorCoach.com, you will see I do exactly that. I give people multiple ways to get involved in my world.
The “About Us” page should do a little bit more than tell people about you. I'm not going to reveal the information here for free because people only value what they pay for, but I will tell you that if your “About Us” page is merely a biography, you're leaving money on the table. Also, if you think your contact page is simply a place for people to reach out to you or to request more information, I guarantee you're losing money.
In fact, the Client-Getting Website program comes with a money back guaranteed by itself. If you don't think it's worth at least 10 times the cost, I’ll give you every penny back. I don't need your money. I'm going to sleep fine whether I have your $195 or not. I'm going to be okay, trust me. [04:08.8]
The truth is I’ve done multiple website reviews. I’ve seen behind the scenes of Inner Circle members' websites, and I’ve done this for so long that I know what works and what doesn't, and I'm telling you right now that your website needs to be a fluid, cohesive journey built on the back of those three pages. If you get nothing else from this episode, please, please, please get that.
The second tip is that you really should not do website refreshes or overhauls. I cringe whenever I hear people say that you should redo your website every year or that you should refresh it every couple months. This is bad, bad, bad advice, and here's why. You should be testing your website. And how do you test things? One variable at a time. If you change a whole bunch of stuff all at once, you're screwing things up. You're making it impossible to know what works and what doesn't. [05:02.2]
Let me give you a real example. Did you know that you could get three times more conversions by changing the photo on your “About Us” page? It's true. I've seen it happen many, many times. But if you take your “About Us” page and revamp the entire thing, you'll never know if your photo made the difference or not. It might be the new body copy. It might be the new colors. It might be the new layout. You just don't know. You're flying blind. You want to know, for sure, what works and what doesn't.
Two episodes ago I talked about five mistakes financial Advisors make with Facebook ads, and one of the tips I gave in there was to use the Dynamic Creative, because it will test different headlines, images, and texts for you to let you know which one worked the best. Guess what? You can go right to your Ads Manager and know, for sure, which image worked the best. You can go to your Ads Manager and know, for sure, which headline worked the best. If you do a bunch of website changes all at once, you're shooting yourself in the foot, because you don't know or you won't know what made the difference. [06:03.4]
Compare that to being more methodical. Let's say you have a landing page converting it 25% right now. You test a headline and you find a headline that bumps your conversion up to 28%, so you keep that headline. Then you test some images and you find a new image, and that bumps your conversion up to 33%. Then you test the body copy. You find some body copy that skyrockets your conversion rate all the way up to 40%.
While you are doing this, you're taking notes. You're paying attention. You're figuring out what works for you and you're making sure you don't make the same mistakes again. With website refreshes and branding and all this other stuff, you could keep making foolish mistakes and not even know it.
Number 3: have multiple ways for people to contact you. Back in August, I did 60 website reviews for financial advisors and I had a lot of fun doing it. I really did. I love this. One of the most common mistakes I saw financial advisors making was not having multiple ways for people to reach out to them. [07:01.8]
Imagine going shopping and picking out something you want, and then struggling to find a way to pay for it or find the checkout, the cash registers. That's what happens on websites. People get sold on the idea of working with you and they're ready to contact you, and they either can't find you contact information or they find contact methods they don't like. In my case, I'm not calling a customer support line. I'm just not. Either they have chat, they have email, they have Wikis, or I'm not doing business with them.
I've got too much stuff going on to sit on the phone for an hour with customer support and I'm not paying someone else to do it. I vote with my dollars. If all they have is phone support, I'm literally not doing business with a company, period. That is how I do things. I am going to vote with my dollars.
The example I like to give is that someone is browsing your website at 11:00 PM on a Saturday. Is that person going to call you? Probably not. Is that person going to fill out a contact form? Maybe. I’ll tell you that the chances of that person filling out a contact form are lower than that person scheduling an appointment. [08:03.0]
Why? Because people have been conditioned to schedule appointments and add them to their calendars. It gives them a sense of completion. When they submit a contact form, they're sending something out into the void. They're just throwing something into the internet black hole. They don't know if you'll get back in five minutes, five business days or ever. An appointment feels more legitimate and it's realer to them.
Does that mean you shouldn't have a phone number and you shouldn't have a contact form? No. You should still have all of these things. You should have multiple ways for people to get in touch with you, email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, social media profiles. All of these things should be present on your website.
But my fourth tip for you is to use an online scheduler. It's 2022. I can't believe more financial advisors aren't using online schedulers. They make things way easier. They boost conversion rates. There's virtually no downside, except for paying them whatever they charge per month. If you're already using an online scheduler, the tip I’ll give you is to make it more present throughout your website. [09:00.5]
I saw this a lot when I did the website reviews, too, because, I would say, at least 80% of financial advisors who paid for the website reviews from me had schedulers on the website, but it was only on one, two, maybe three pages, and I told them to put it elsewhere, as long as it makes sense. Put it on your homepage. Put links to it in your articles. Make it available for people to use. There's not much else I can say other than make sure you're using an online scheduler.
Hey, financial advisors. If you'd like even more help building your business, I invite you to subscribe to James' monthly paper-and-ink newsletter, “The James Pollard Inner Circle”. When you join today, you'll get more than $1,000 worth of bonuses, including exclusive interviews that aren't available anywhere else. Head on over to TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching to learn more.
The fifth tip is to include a “Frequently Asked Questions” section on your website. This is solid gold because having an FAQ is a way to handle objections either before they come up or as their voice to you. Plus, they're easy to make. These little “Frequently Asked Questions” sections are easy to make. All you have to do is think of questions prospective clients ask you and answer them. [10:16.8]
Here, I’ll help you. People are probably wondering, What is it like working with you? What will we do in the first meeting? How do you get paid? What benefits do financial advisors provide? Are you a fiduciary? Do I need to bring anything to the first meeting? What are the next steps, if I want to work with you? What are the next steps, if I don't want to work with you? Do you have a specialty? These sorts of questions can be answered in your FAQ and it will help you boost conversions.
I actually have an FAQ on my Inner Circle signup page over at TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching. Here's some examples of questions and answers from that page.
“I’ve heard you blacklist people from re-subscribing once they've canceled. Is this true?” and my answer is, yes, it's true. I only want serious people subscribed. Besides, information compounds anyway. Anyone who doesn't understand the power of compound growth isn't cut out for the newsletter. You having 12 issues isn't just 12 times better than you having one issue. It's significantly better because all of that information combines. In that sense, two plus two doesn't equal four. It really equals six, seven, eight, 10, 15, okay? [11:17.2]
Another question is “I'm a financial advisor from X company.” “I'm an IRA. I'm at Edward Jones. I'm with Joe Blow, XYZ, whatever.” “Does this apply to me?” Yes, because even though tactics change and you may or may not be able to use specific tactics, the strategy still applies. Besides, human nature doesn't change. Human psychology doesn't change, and if you understand human psychology, you will become a better marketer.
Another question. I don't want to keep going on with these. I just want to give you examples. “I'm a financial advisor with X years of experience. What about me?” I say Inner Circle members have a wide range of backgrounds and they have a wide range of experience levels. Some are in the first year of business. Others have been financial advisors for more than 30 years. [11:56.5]
My point with all this is that I'm addressing objections that people have. I'm answering questions people already have in their minds. If I answer them on the page, there is a one hundred percent chance that they get answered, assuming the person reads them. If I don't answer them on the page and the person reads the entire page, there's less than a one hundred percent chance that they get answered. So, I chose the sure thing instead of crossing my fingers and hoping that, eventually, I'd be able to answer the questions later in the process. I hope you're getting this, because that is solid gold.
My sixth tip to help you get more clients from existing web traffic is to have some way for people to opt into your email list. I've never met any financial advisors who have told me they wished they waited to begin building an email list. Never. They always wish they started earlier. Your email list is an incredible business asset and it's something you can use to nurture prospective clients.
Email marketing is “the” best appointment-setting strategy in the world for financial advisors and there is no close second. It's simply unparalleled because only email allows you to say what you want to say to people who have already demonstrated interest by joining your email list, and build the relationship for as long as you want. [13:09.8]
Some people will set appointments with you in the first few emails. Others might wait until the 10th email and a small percentage will wait until the 50th or the 100th email. Of course, I help financial advisors get clients with email marketing by setting up an email autoresponder sequence of roughly five to 12 emails. I don't tell them, “Hey, go write a hundred emails.” It's just they're not going to do it.
So, we do five to 12 emails and then we let the financial advisors decide if they want to make it bigger, if they want to keep going, if they want to write broadcast emails. They don't have to. It's not a requirement. It's literally just setting up the email autoresponder sequence of five to 12 emails, because the majority of appointments will happen in the first 12 contacts. And guess what? Not all 12 contacts need to happen in email anyway. One contact could happen on social media. Another could happen through your website. Another could happen through direct mail. Another could happen with an online ad. Another could happen at a networking event. Before you know it, you're at three or four contacts and you haven't even gotten to email yet. [14:05.8]
But that's a good thing, because when you use multiple marketing strategies, your marketing becomes more effective. Email can come in and do the heavy lifting for you. Even better, most financial advisors have no clue how to email effectively, so you will stand above everyone else, because people are either sending out stock market commentary emails, little blog updates, pieces of content and things of that nature.
If you are sending that sort of stuff out to your email list, I literally guarantee you, one hundred percent guarantee that I can get you more clients, because that stuff, the commentary and little blog updates and sharing like, Here's some content I created, that's like a Volkswagen Golf and I can show you how to upgrade to a Lamborghini.
There's this mass delusion in email marketing because it works so well that people believe even the mediocre stuff is amazing. Even the crappy emails work better than some of the best marketing strategies that are in second, third, fourth, fifth. It is just incredible. But that's good news for me, because when I show financial advisors how to email effectively, they're on a whole new planet. They're practically untouchable and they open up a bunch more free time to do what they want. [15:18.6]
But enough about email. I might talk a little bit about email with this seventh tip because the seventh tip I have for you is to focus on qualification. You should qualify hard. Filter people. Get rid of people. This seems counterintuitive because you're pushing people away, even though your goal is to get more clients. But when you push the wrong people away, you draw the right people towards you.
Let's say you're getting in front of a hundred people right now and you're converting three of them. Relentless qualifying might take you from three to four. It might not seem like a lot, but you need to understand that's a 33% increase, which has a tremendous impact on your business, and when you work with the right people, your business can become more streamlined, which makes you more productive, which makes you more money, which turns into a virtuous cycle. It gets better and better and better over time. [16:08.0]
Since I have email on my mind, I want to share with you how email marketing can be a filter for you. You should apply this type of thinking to your website. Your business needs to have some sort of filtration process so you don't even talk to people who don't see the value you provide and/or won't work with you.
One of the best ways to do that is with email. Think about it. If someone reads an email from you and you have a calendar link at the bottom, do you think an uninterested person will schedule an appointment? Of course not. Which means that by definition, the only people who set appointments with you are going to be the ones who are interested in some way.
So, how can you qualify on your website? It's very simple. Be clear about who you want to work with. Also, be clear about who it is you do not want to work with. Don't be bashful about this. Don't hold back and don't worry about excluding people, because those people were going to exclude themselves anyway. What you're doing is compressing time and you're drawing the right people closer to you. [17:13.4]
I plan on talking about this in a future podcast episode because I am running out of time right now. I want to keep this episode a little shorter than usual because I want to build anticipation for the big 200. However, if you want to continue hanging out with me and you want to learn more about this whole qualification deal and how it works in email marketing, you should register for the webinar over at TheAdvisorCoach.com/webinar.
It's all about how financial advisors can get more clients with email marketing. In that webinar, I share why email marketing's 40 times more effective at acquiring clients than social media, with proof. I back this up. I show you where the data comes from. I back up my claims. How email generates more than a 4000% ROI for financial advisors and that comes with proof as well, one hundred percent verifiable information. A strange but effective way to build trust and rapport with prospective clients. Almost nobody is doing this and its incredible stuff, three fatal mistakes nearly all financial advisors make with their emails and much more. [18:12.5]
If you want to spend some more time with me, go to TheAdvisorCoach.com/webinar and sign up for the webinar. It might be the most profitable thing you do all month. If not, I’ll catch you next week or Episode 200 of the “Financial Advisor Marketing” Podcast.
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