Is your practice currently enjoying double-digit annual revenue increases?
Are you profitably expanding your client base?
Have you reduced the time required to convert prospects to clients?
If you answered “no” to any of these questions, your firm could benefit from social media marketing. Why? Traditional modes of marketing for independent advisors are quickly becoming outdated as clients and prospects expand their use of digital media in general and social networking in particular. U.S. adults spend significant time on social networking sites. In fact usage in 2010 was up 82% from the prior year and one-third of U.S. adult social network users post at least once per week and consumer activity on social media and blogging sites comprises 17%+ of all time on the internet and is growing year over year according to Nielsen.
Social media has the potential to dramatically impact your business development efforts, with a minimal investment of time and money. Unfortunately, the financial services industry has been slow to adapt social networking as part of its marketing mix. Many institutions and compliance firms have been slow to provide counsel and or support to their advisor firms with regard to fielding compliant social media marketing programs.
However, not everyone is waiting. Investors are using social networking and actively seeking referrals from their connections when considering advisors and a host of other financial matters. According to the Financial Planning Association, 43% of advisors surveyed are now using networking or social media sites. Further, 60% of those advisers indicate that they have generated at least 16 leads per year from their activity on these sites. Importantly, leads generated from in-bound marketing efforts such as social media cost 60% less than leads generated via traditional marketing efforts according to Hubspot’s 2009 ROI survey.
Evolutionize can assist you in developing a compliant social networking program, developing a policy, implementing a monitoring and archiving solution, developing firm and advisor profiles and training your advisors on the compliant use of social networking, while building their competency in this important area.
Want to learn more about how your firm can leverage this business building tool?
