Do You Have an Ideal Client Avatar for Your Financial Services Firm? Here’s Why You Should
Crafting a marketing plan for your financial services firm can feel like a daunting undertaking. It’s hard to know how to get started and where to put your focus.
But it’s also completely necessary if you want your firm to grow sustainably and attract the right kinds of clients.
If you nail the first critical step of any good marketing plan (hint: it’s knowing who your audience is), you craft a focal point that will inform and streamline the rest of your marketing efforts moving forward.
Your first step should be to build an ideal client avatar—also known as a client persona—that will represent your target audience.
What Is a Client Avatar?
A client avatar is a detailed profile that describes your ideal client. To start, think of your favorite current client (or imagine someone you would absolutely love to work with). If you could replicate this client and fill your pipeline with leads just like them, you'd be a happy business owner.
Once you have that person in mind, answer the following questions:
What is their age range?
What is their education level?
What is their profession?
What is their income level?
Do they have kids or will they have kids one day?
What challenges do they need to overcome?
What are the top 3 problems they come to you with?
How do you help them solve their problems or improve their lives?
What are their values and goals?
What scares them the most and what brings them the most joy?
For the purpose of building an ideal client avatar, it’s helpful to give this character a name, age, marital status, and other unique details. Not every client you serve will match up to every single characteristic on your client avatar profile—but that’s not the point.
The point is that when you’re crystal clear on who they are, you can speak directly to them in every single piece of your marketing.
Your website copy, blogs, email newsletters, and lead magnets will all be written with your avatar in mind.
This character is the centerpiece of your marketing strategy.
The Importance of a Niche
You may be wondering, “Won’t I be limiting myself and my business by focusing on a narrow segment of the population?”
This is a good question and one that most business owners ask. The fear of alienating Demographics B and C by focusing all of your attention on Demographic A can seem like an unnecessary limitation of your growth potential.
However, the reality is that if you try to position your messaging to resonate with A, B, and C, your copy will fall flat. Your messaging will be so general that not one of the demographics will connect with it. It will feel impersonal to everyone, because it is.
As the marketing adage goes, “when you’re speaking to everyone, you’re speaking to no one.”
A more narrowed focus on Demographic A alone may feel counterintuitive at first, but the result will be that your target audience feels seen. They’ll feel like they’re in the right place when they land on your content or website. They’ll know right away that you are someone who can help them with their unique problems.
And they’ll be eager to hear more from you.
Capture Your Prospects Attention and Keep It
All day long we’re bombarded with information. Our attention spans have adapted to scan for relevance and move on quickly if it isn’t there. Your prospect will decide within seconds upon reading your content if you are relevant to them based on whether or not they can identify with your message.
Imagine a 30-year-old entrepreneur types in a question to Google such as: “how to determine the right asset allocation for my portfolio.” A list of results pops up and, voila! Your new blog post titled “How To Determine the Right Asset Allocation for Your Portfolio” appears in the list of search results.
But right below your blog post is another blog post titled “How Young Professionals Can Determine the Asset Allocation Strategy for Their Stage of Life.”
Which result do you think that young entrepreneur is going to click on?
The second one, of course!
People want to know that you understand who they are, care about what they want, and have the ability to help them get it. They are trying to figure out one thing...is this for me?
Your content should make it really clear to ideal clients that it is for them.
Maximize Your Marketing Dollars
There’s no way around it: Marketing is an investment.
Either you’re investing a lot of your own time doing it yourself or you’re spending money hiring a professional to do it for you. Either way, you should be maximizing your ROI.
While there are many factors involved in creating valuable marketing content, the foundation of it all is a clear and concise connection to the exact people you are trying to serve.
Think of your marketing like a real estate investment portfolio. Every page of your website, each blog post, and every email or newsletter represents a property that cost you something to buy or build. Just like your real property brings an ROI when your tenants pay rent, each of those marketing assets brings an ROI when they accurately target, engage, and convert your ideal client.
Keep in mind though that targeted marketing doesn’t mean that you can only offer one thing or serve one type of client.
You can still offer comprehensive financial planning or coaching services while focusing your marketing on a specialization in one or two areas that best serve your ideal client.
Specificity in your copy is how you can maximize your return on the time and money you put into your marketing. Being specific will also position you as a leader in your areas of expertise.
Customize Your Clientele
Imagine opening your calendar at the start of the day and seeing that you’re fully booked out with the type of clients that you’re best able to serve.
Maybe you’re tired of working with older clients that are in retirement. The younger demographic that is in a more creative stage of the financial planning journey has felt more fulfilling for you and your time feels best spent helping these types of clients set out on a successful path.
Or, perhaps your website is attracting too many young families while, in reality, you’re better suited to serve clients who are entering retirement. Customizing your website and other marketing content to that older generation will naturally prevent young families (who won’t benefit as much from your expertise) from reaching out to you.
Not only will customizing your clientele be more enjoyable, it will also streamline your offerings and maximize your revenue.
If you still aren’t quite sure if it’s in your best interest to narrow down your client base, look to research. The 2020 RIA Benchmarking Study conducted by Charles Schwab states that “firms with a documented ideal client persona and client value proposition attracted more clients by 28% and an additional 45% in new client assets over the prior year.”
One of the most common mistakes new financial services firms make is building a one-size-fits-all business and then trying to find clients—any clients. This approach doesn’t work well if you want to grow quickly and reliably.
Instead, you’ll be more successful if you identify your ideal clients and build your services, pricing, and tech infrastructure around them.
Need Help Writing the Right Copy for Your Ideal Client Avatar? Hire A Personal Finance Copywriter To Help
If you’ve realized that your marketing is lacking focus and are ready to get some help clarifying your messaging, it might be time to hire a professional. An experienced personal finance copywriter can help you identify your target audience, craft compelling website copy for that audience, create blog posts that engage that audience, and increase SEO so the right people can find you in the first place.
To find out more about how Gale Creative Agency can help you create cohesive and effective content marketing to drive more leads to your inbox and fill your pipeline faster, schedule a free consultation call by emailing hillary@galecreativeagency.com or scheduling a free consultation here.