Financial Advisors seeking to improve client communications and improve their practice development efforts may want to take a hard look at integrating web-enabled marketing tools into their firm’s marketing mix. Why?

Investors, whether young or old, mass affluent or ultra high net worth continue to increase their internet usage and social media adoption rates.  Take for example the recent study released by Fidelity Investments which found that among millionaire investors, 85% are willing to use e-mail, social media sites and texting compared to only 43% of advisors and brokers.  The average age of these wealthy investors?  Fifty-six years old.  This information is consistent with Arbitron’s 2010 survey of Americans regarding their media usage patterns.  In that study respondents indicated that the internet was the most essential media channel in their lives, more important than television, radio or newspaper by a wide margin.  Further, Nielsen’s 2010 Internet & Technology report found that consumers viewed the internet as both the preferred and “most trusted” source of information along with being the preferred method for communication.  Web-enabled marketing solutions have another distinct advantage for independent FAs in their ability to target specific audience segments and geographies making them a highly efficient addition to a firm’s practice marketing mix.  Seldom do the stars align to the point where consumer media usage, communication preferences, marketing utilization costs and effectiveness so heavily favor a particular advertising sector.  When they do, the opportunities created for firms seeking to optimize their marketing efforts can be significant.  Whether it is the deployment of a website, the use of e-mail marketing, social networking, blogging, video conferencing or search engine marketing (95% of non-branded natural clicks come from page one of search results) the time is right to leverage these tools to enhance your client retention and acquisition efforts.  If you’re interested in additional research facts and insights to support these conclusions, check out the blog post from Tom Pick on Social Media Today, which contains an interesting array of social media statistics from 2010.