LinkedIn Marketing Tips For Financial Advisors

Why is LinkedIn such a powerful marketing tool for financial advisors?

Well, as you probably know, the majority of advisors rely on referrals for their new business. In fact, some of them get 100% of their clients via referrals.

Now, don’t get me wrong – referrals are great. But you can’t control them. If you’re just relying on asking for referrals, you’re putting yourself in a position without power. 

So if you’re a financial planner, I suggest it’s essential to invest in building up at least one or two additional channels to generate regular client opportunities for your business. That will give you much more control over the number of clients you serve, and it will also allow you to choose your target audience more precisely than by relying on referrals.

So, if you’re asking yourself, “is LinkedIn marketing effective?”, take a closer look at some of the stats below.

Why is LinkedIn the top social media marketing channel for financial advisors?

Most financial planners are aware that social media can generate new business for them. According to research conducted by Putnam Investments a few years ago, 30% of advisors who acquired new clients through social media gained more than 1 million USD in new assets that way.

The same study showed that 66% of them used LinkedIn to prospect for new clients, indicating that it is the #1 social media marketing channel for advisors.

This makes perfect sense, since the platform offers detailed search filters for finding & connecting with a specific niche audience. On top of that, it’s also a great networking tool, which enables you to build high value relationships with potential prospects after connecting, and thus to convert new connections into clients further down the road.

So if you’re a financial advisor who’s currently not using the platform, you’re missing out on a great opportunity (and if you are using it already, it’s always worth looking into ways to improve your prospecting game).

Top 3 LinkedIn marketing tips for financial advisors

1. Focus on a specific client avatar

This advice is critical not for most marketing channels, but on LinkedIn it’s even more important than for other channels.

The main reason for this is that the platform offers very detailed search filters that you can use to find and connect with your ideal target audience. If you want to know how to unlock the full power of the search filters, check out our article on LinkedIn boolean search.

So if you don’t have a specific target audience, you’re missing out on one of the biggest advantages offered by the platform. In fact, failure to do this correctly is one of the biggest LinkedIn mistakes to avoid.

Secondly, having a well defined target audience allows you to position yourself much better as an authority to them specifically. You can use all of the different parts of your profile to address your ideal client avatar, and to show them how you can help them.

By specializing on a well defined target audience, you’ll also be able to create and post more valuable content for them on your profile (articles, long form posts, videos, etc.). This makes it much easier to build trust with your prospects, and to become the go-to expert in your network.

2. Optimize your profile as a sales tool, not an online CV

The majority of financial planners set up their profile in the style of an online CV. It’s all about them and their work history. But when it comes to inspiring your ideal clients to work with you, your CV is probably the most boring thing you could ever show them.

Instead, set up your profile as a client-facing sales page that calls out their specific pain points, and showcases the benefits of your solutions. For more details on this, check out our LinkedIn profile tips.

Let them know what outcomes they can expect if they work with you. How will you improve their life? Try to make them feel like you’re someone who understands their challenges, and can help them find a solution.

And while advisors in some locations may not be able to post client testimonials because of compliance issues, you can definitely use case studies to position yourself as an authority and as the go-to expert to your ideal target audience.

3. Proactively reach out to your ideal prospects

If you want to get the best results on the platform, it’s essential to have a good outbound strategy.

As a LinkedIn lead generation agency, we run a lot of lead generation campaigns, and in our experience the vast majority of leads are generated from outbound messaging.

But one thing you need to avoid like the plague is pitching your services to new connections right after connecting. That’s worse than not saying anything to them, since most people will get annoyed with you. And as a result you’ll lose the opportunity of ever working with them in the future.

Instead, approach your outbound social selling strategy as if you were at a real networking event. Build rapport with new connections first, and then ask them questions that will uncover whether or not they need your service. Then, and only then, explain how you can help them and propose a call, or an in-person meeting to them.

If you’re interested to learn more about how you can make this work for your business, take a look at our LinkedIn marketing course.