Content is the engine that drives your firm’s entire marketing efforts but yet RIA owners, founders and managers can’t seem to find the time to focus on it. Firms that grow and expand their marketing departments have cracked the content marketing code.
Almost 20 years later, my grade in Psychology 101 is still a sore subject for me because it was my lowest grade in college and not because I didn’t love the subject of Psychology. Ironically it was because I knew too much for my professor to handle. The summer before my sophomore year I read as much as I could on the theory of self-actualization.
Are you spending too much mental energy on understanding how your communication technologies work?
With all the day-to-day operational issues and client management responsibilities, you have precious little time to spend on creating content. If you have an hour in your schedule to devote to marketing, you need to spend it on building messages and shaping your firm’s voice. It’s not a good use of resources to spend 30 minutes trying to understand how your email service provider will deliver your client newsletters or how Google Adwords works to serve targeted display ads to website visitors once they leave your RIA’s website.
Gaining Trust in your firm’s marketing platform will help to grow your content
And here’s where the psychology comes into play. According to Maslow, before an individual can ever attain true happiness, he must have his basic needs of food, water, shelter, safety, and community met. If he worries about his basic needs, he will continually struggle to find and achieve his purpose in life. Likewise, if you are to grow your firm’s marketing department, your ideas and unique insights into what your clients need in wealth management solutions are essential to your growth. If you are spending the limited time your have on technology configurations, communication planning, message formatting, and execution, then you are not spending it on shaping the unique voice that positions your firm with clients and prospects.
Pick a platform you can trust
Your platform is a combination of your technologies, your process, and your support resources to create and launch your marketing campaigns. Whether you are using an internal resource or relying on an external marketing partner, you need to trust them to set up your technologies, build your marketing calendar, format your messages, interface with your compliance officer and execute on your behalf. Ask them to prepare and submit a detailed outline for your review, so that you can feel comfortable to focus your time on shaping your firm’s voice.
To learn more about building your RIA’s marketing department, click here to download my white paper: Smart Communications for RIAs.