Kalli
Welcome, we are live with the Kalli Collective “Ask Us Marketing” livestream. I'm your host Kalli Fedusenko of Kalli Collective, a digital marketing agency connecting financial advisors to their target audience through data-driven custom content and advertising. Have you ever wondered what your clients say when you're not in the room, or have you wondered what you're doing well and what you're not doing well from your client's perspective?
Today we're interviewing Angela and Elyse from Custom Strategic Marketing for Wealth Advisors. They interview your ideal clients and referral partners to determine common themes, and they've picked up a lot of tips along the way. So let's pick their brains on what they've seen work and what they've seen not work. I'll start us out here with some of my own questions, but please ask your questions in the comments.
We'll see them on our end and answer them as they come in. If we happen to get more than we can handle, we'll reply in the comments after the event. So, welcome ladies. Thank you so much for being here today.
Elyse
Hey, thanks for having us. Happy Monday, everybody.
Kalli
Happy Monday.
Angela
Pleasure to be here.
Kalli
So my first question for both of you is what do you do and why are you interviewing clients or advisors’ clients?
Angela
Kalli, we create custom strategic marketing plans for our clients based on data that we collect from interviewing their ideal clients. And this is different in the industry from the way marketing plans have typically been done, which is why we really want to share our knowledge, because it makes the whole sense of marketing and what you're supposed to be doing makes sense because it works.
It really does work. The interviews give us insight as to who the ideal client is, and it's usually not who the advisor thinks it is.
Kalli
Now that's interesting. So how does that come out? How does it end up not being who they think it is?
Angela
Well, what happens is we look at not only demographics, which is pretty standard, but we look at the psychographics and life circumstances. And what happens is the psychographics and life circumstances generally paint a picture of a younger client than the advisor is seeing their client. So, for example, their ideal client is just about to approach retirement, who wants to travel more.
But when you dig into those life circumstances, why they came to the advisor in the first place? Typically when we pull the curtain back, they came to them when they were in their forties and fifties and they were sending a child to college or they just got a divorce or or something of that nature to then get them to where they are now to be their ideal client.
So we don't necessarily go for the current demographic and psychographic, but we go to where they were when they came to the client.
Kalli
Yeah. So basically your top client now wasn't your top client when they started. That is really fascinating. I mean, my first question is, what is the biggest takeaway that you've discovered? Would you say it's that? Or is there something else as well that kind of you've been like, A-ha, I've figured this out for advisors.
Elyse
I think that it is that it's so many prospective clients that we speak to when we ask them, Who is your ideal client? It's also really broad. Small business owners, right? Angela and I are both small business owners. Kalli, you're a small business owner. People who are watching are small business owners, different things motivate us to make decisions.
So this whole idea really allows us to learn a bit more than just sort of the general nametag, if you will.
Kalli
Mm hmm.
Elyse
So by doing these interviews, we're able to kind of dig in a little bit more and say, is it a small business owner who is in a certain industry or lives in a certain geography or has a certain viewpoint of how they see themselves in the world?
Kalli
Mm hmm. Yeah, that's super interesting. I mean, of course, everyone's clientele in business is different, but since you're only working with advisors, you've likely picked up some trends across the board. Are there specific things that advisors in general are getting wrong?
Elyse
Yes. Just the lack of strategy. So many people try marketing tactics, but there isn't a consistent strategy and string that pulls all of those tactics together.
Kalli
Hmm.
Elyse
So as we like to say, these sort of have shiny object syndrome, Right? Like: I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. Oh, wait, and I'm only going to do it for like six or eight weeks.
Kalli
Yeah. Right.
Elyse
And then they come and then they come to you or they talk to you and they go, Oh my God, this doesn't work. Like, you shouldn't be telling your clients to invest in something for six or eight weeks and if it doesn't quadruple, it doesn't work. Right. It's sort of that same mindset.
So, you know, when we talk about marketing strategy and we get the puppy look, right? That look.
Kalli
Mm hmm.
Elyse
It's just like an investment strategy. You're just investing in growing your business and your marketing.
Kalli
Right. And that's based off of these client interviews, right? So you're digging into who their top client is, and then, hey, and correct me if I'm wrong here, this is how we obtained these clients. So let's do some more of this. And then here's some other places that we could look for advisors or clients who fit that profile.
Elyse
It's that. But it's also with these interviews we learn about like where they get their information. You know, we talk about things that you learn. We had a client and we are interviewing their ideal clients, and they're definitely a digital native bunch.
Kalli
Mm hmm.
Elyse
But they weren't spending a lot of time on Facebook and the comment we got was, yeah, I have a Facebook account but that's where I put the pictures of the kids so my parents can see them.
Kalli
Mm hmm.
Elyse
Where so many people are like, Oh, my God, I have to have a presence on Facebook. Yeah. So what we can go back and do and say, Look, this is what they're telling us, so let's not spend a ton of time there, because unless you want their parents, it just doesn't make sense, right?
Kalli
Yeah. All right. So strategy is the thing that in general you see them getting wrong. What are some things that you see them getting right?
Elyse
I think what we see them getting right is there is for us in our ideal client, if you will, the ones who are recognizing that they need to have a marketing presence. That we can't, you know, as we know the old school, you can't just hang a shingle and expect people to come. It's about building relationships. So I think what people are getting right is they get it. We just don't know how.
Kalli
Yeah. Got it. So after you've interviewed clients and referral partners, how do you deliver those results? Is that something that the advisor can take with them and share, say, with their marketing agency?
Angela
Absolutely, Kalli. What we do is our process is three phases. The first phase is the strategic analysis where we interview the advisors’ ideal clients and we take all the information that we are confidentially given as in terms of their demographics or psychographics and life circumstances. And we look for patterns and then we take the data and present it in the form of an avatar so the advisor can see it's a single woman that likes to travel or likes wine or like study groups, whatever it might be, so we can physically create the avatar.
Then we take the avatar and the data and we create in phase two marketing recommendations how that data plays into digital communications, written communications, events, philanthropy and public relations. And not every advisor would fit into all those buckets. Everyone will fit in the digital and communications, but some won't fit into the philanthropic bucket, or even PR or thought leadership.
So we look at all of that and then we present it and have a discussion, figure out what the priority is, what the team bandwidth might be for implementation. And then phase three is a marketing calendar which lists out month by month a roadmap on every activity, who under each bucket, who's going to be responsible for it, and the timeframe and then we have a quarterly overview.
And then we have the monthly overview. So that is the entire report and it is provided digitally and absolutely it is meant to be shared with the digital marketing agency and anybody on the internal team and external team, because as we talk about when we plan events, all the stakeholders need to know what their role is so that everybody can march to that same drum and get to the same goal.
Kalli
Yeah, I mean, I love that. You’re speaking my love language.
Elyse
And it makes your job so much easier, I would imagine. And our video production friends and our podcast friends to be able to say, this is who we're talking to. These are their love languages and this is where they get their information. These are where they are in their life. You know, we don't dive into like, what are the burning questions that that particular person would have, because we aren't the financial advisor, but it's a road map for everybody that's on the team.
Kalli
And I think it's super. I mean, it's vital. It's vital if you want to have a successful marketing strategy, you have to know your audience. That's like the three things I preach is know your audience, know your goal, know the steps to get you to your goal. So I think you guys digging in and really creating that avatar of their audience is huge.
I imagine that advisors, though, are nervous about you interviewing their clients. So I think I think it's important and it's needed, but how do you walk them through that? Like and what kind of response have you had from their clients? Because I know sometimes people are nervous about something, Then it's like, hey, actually people really appreciate that we're reaching out.
Angela
It's all over that. So yes, by nature, advisors can be skeptical when they work in the industry. We let them know we've been doing this and the clients we speak to. Well, first of all, let me back up. What we're doing is in compliance. That's usually the number one question. So we let them know. We're not asking personal information, we're not talking about their finances, we're not soliciting complaints.
None of that. We let them know. We're talking about demographics, psychographics and circumstances, just like we mentioned before. And if there is a question about compliance, we provide bullet points and or our script clients approves it, and then we're all set. What we do is we let the advisors know this is a very easy process for them. We actually provide copy for them to send an email and or talk on the phone to introduce us to the clients, and then we let them know that the clients do love it.
When we say you're an ideal client and we would like to clone you, and they just they love it, you know, they feel so special, and rightfully so. The advisors are nervous, but there's no reason to be nervous because it's really and being a third party, the advisor’s clients where they feel comfortable sharing and we let them know it's confidential.
The advisor does not know who says what because when we meet, we put in a format like the avatar. So they do not know who says what. And we interview anywhere from 6 to 10. So we have a variety. So it's not obvious.
Kalli
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. What kinds of questions are you asking?
Elyse
Well, like we said, you know, we'll get the demographic information from the advisor. And one of the things I wanted to note in here, too, is we ask the client who they want us to talk to, right? So we don't get past the database wall. It's a very simple: who do you want more of?
Kalli
Yeah.
Elyse
So that's part of it. So the demographic stuff we usually get from the advisor because it's kind of boring. When we talk to the clients, it's, it's a conversation. It's like this. Like, who are you? What do you do with your free time? What clubs do you belong to? Like, tell me your story.
Not only how did you get to be a client of this advisor, but like, you know, we found both with advisors and ideal clients. If we can learn a little bit more about like their previous life, if you will, it sheds a ton of light on this. So it's like, okay, so you're telling me now that you're a nurse, did you do anything before you were a nurse?
And then they'll be like, Oh, I did X, Y and Z. It just paints a fuller picture. Sure. Yeah. So there's that part. And then like I said, then we get into like where do you get your information? And we give a couple of different scenarios. You know, if you're looking for a plumber, that's kind of one thing.
If you're looking for professional services, that's kind of another. We kind of compare the two. We ask them about their social media usage, but also whether it's for like entertainment or for research.
Kalli
Yeah.
Elyse
Again, see the Facebook story right. And yeah, just trying to get started this idea. Usually most of our calls, we slate them for 30 minutes.
Kalli
Yeah.
Elyse
I can maybe count on one hand how many of them actually went 30 minutes or less.
Angela
Because they love talking about their experience.
Kalli
Yeah.
Elyse
And I think part of it too, as much as we connect with our client, we therefore also connect with their clients, right? So, you know, sometimes you get on the call and it was like, oh, this person actually like we were on one and was like, they lived not far from Angela in California and kind of like, Oh, do you go here?
And what are your favorite restaurants? Yeah. So yeah, that happens.
Kalli
Yeah, I love that. Have you ever had negative feedback on the calls? Maybe about the advisor or their experience?
Elyse
We try to be really careful to not dive into that. You know, Angela comes from the in-house advisory world. I come from the sports and entertainment marketing world. So one of the red flags that went up is like if somebody says something negative, you actually have to report it to compliance. So we try to stay away from that.
The question we will often ask is if there is something that they would like the advisor to do differently.
Kalli
Okay.
Elyse
We had one who was like, they always used to send me chocolates at Christmas. And then they stopped sending me chocolates. But I really like the chocolates. I like chocolate too. Okeydokey, we'll let them know.
Kalli
Actually, great feedback, because when you're the person sending it, you’re like, I don't know. Is this hitting home?
Elyse
Exactly.
Kalli
And so I know you mentioned it before that the clients are a little more candid when it's not someone on the team which I mean, makes complete sense. But do you have any advice for an advisor who wants to do it themselves? Should they have someone on their team reach out or should they send a survey? Or maybe they just shouldn't do it at all?
Angela
They absolutely should do it. If an advisor wants to DIY it, the best recommendation we have would be to ask the questions in the review meetings. So they're not interview-ish, they're not putting them on really, you know, they know when to stand off or to be, you know, so uncomfortable. But a casual conversation, you know, maybe split it up between a few meetings.
Where do you spend most of your time on social media? Do you belong to any country clubs? And they should know some of this information. And then what we recommend is tracking it, putting it in the database, you know, Excel spreadsheet, whatever it might be. And then as you've talked to many of your clients, look for the patterns.
Kalli
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Angela
And then when you have the pattern then adjust your marketing plan accordingly. So, for example, if you're always hosting large client appreciation events or large educational events and you're finding that most of your clients like 15 or less people and you should start adjusting.
Kalli
I know we talked about like demographics and stuff, but that was actually a great point about the event. So asking about events, social media, is there anything else that someone should earmark, oh I should ask my clients about this?
Elyse
I think one of the good ones to and well, first of all, don't make an assumption just because you have some idea of what their finances look like, what their preferences are. We had another example where we asked the client about their philanthropic endeavors.
Kalli
Mm hmm.
Elyse
And again, if someone's got like, a really big trust, you can kind of figure out where, like, where the money's going. But if they don't, they still have philanthropic interests. Yeah. So, like, are they animal people? Are they, you know, Greenpeace people? Are they sustainability folks? Again, can you find patterns? So whether it becomes an event, whether it becomes targeted mailings through like your emails ways to connect with them, It's just another way to kind of learn about who your clients are and what's important to them.
Kalli
You mentioned, I think Angela like create an Excel spreadsheet and look for patterns. What about an advisor who's just starting out and doesn't have any clients? Do you have any advice how they can start their business off strategically without that ability to interview top clients?
Angela
Yes, it's the same process, but a little bit different. So they look to themselves. What is their unique selling point? Who are they? What are they like? What do they do? Where do they live? Demographically? Psychographically? And who do they want to work with? And let's say once they niche, let's say they want to work with.
Harley Davidson Motors. Because they are a Harley Davidson aficionado. Then they start looking at people in that demographic - where are they on social media? What clubs are they in? Then, they do market research, so they find a few people in those various areas. Let them know they are conducting market research for their business and ask them those questions and then take that, create the avatar and then create your marketing.
And you might have to just actually with any advisor in any marketing, you'll have to shift and adjust as you start to get going. But that's how you would do it if you're just starting out.
Kalli
Yeah, that's great advice. And then on the other end of the spectrum, like a lot of the advisors I work with continue to increase their minimums as they're growing. And then of course their top ideal clients change, at least monetarily. How often should they be interviewing their clients? Like if it's a whole new top client, should they then, okay, we need to re-interview?
Angela
Well, we don't recommend or it's really we haven't seen the need to reinterview every year or even more than that. What we do see as you're creating your marketing plan from year to year, you'll see what's working and what's not. And typically, as you add more ideal clients, you'll make the natural shift in your plan. We recommend, and we've seen going through the ideal client interview step and adjusting your avatar maybe 2 to 3 times through their whole career.
So when you're starting out, very often when you're starting out, you'll work with anybody who finds a mirror. Right? Then as you progress in your career, you realize or you have a solid book of business and you know who you like to work with and who just isn't a fit anymore. And you build your marketing to, as you said, clone those that you want to continue for the next part of your career and then there might be another shift sometime during their career if they're looking to develop a succession plan or bring on another advisor. So a lot of times you might have to typically it's two times to maybe revise everything, but maybe a third.
Because if you're looking to bring on a junior advisor, then you need to kind of maybe modify to not only attract your ideal client but their ideal client, but then every year you need to look at your marketing plan. Actually, every month you should be looking at it every quarter and then definitely every year before the year is up to say, well, this didn't really work or we want to adjust this a little bit, or the feedback you got from your attendees or from the social media posts. You just want to take all that. And it's a it's a living document.
Kalli
Yeah. I think after you create a strategy based on these interviews, what kind of success have you seen for the advisor?
Elyse
You know, I think we touched on this a little bit, but it really is what they say, it takes the spaghetti off the wall, right? Like, you know, you have a plan, you know, kind of where you're going. You can actually focus on what you're doing and kind of go deeper instead of shallow. And that helps create these longer relationships.
You know, what kind of success have we seen? You're not trying to talk to everybody. You're trying to talk to, you know who you're trying to talk to. So it's allowing that to work and bringing people in. And how, you know, with some of our clients, we then say, okay, so if we know these are your ideal clients and this stuff about them, how do we going to my sports background, how do we turn those clients into fans?
How do you get them to help you sell some season tickets? So we've seen that sort of client referral piece work. We've seen with these interviews being able to really get in like a succinct call to action. You know, I do these events and they're like they're great. Yeah, but like, what do I get out of them?
Well, you don't really have a call to action. You're not asking people to do something. It's allowing you to kind of be more specific in that call to action. You know who you're talking to. It's really what it boils down to.
Kalli
Yeah, that's great. As we come to a close here, what last words of wisdom do you have for our audience?
Elyse
So, our audience are financial advisors. They're all individuals. Really understanding who you are as an individual and kind of like what that speaks to. Really important. Don't try to be someone you're not and don't try to do it all by yourself. There's amazing people like us out there, but seriously, I don't. I know enough to know that I shouldn't be doing my own investing.
I have my own financial advisor. A financial advisor shouldn't be doing their own marketing, shouldn't be writing necessarily their own marketing plan. They shouldn't be doing their own SEO. It takes a village, lean into that village. That would be a piece I would recommend.
Kalli
Yeah.
Angela
I would also add to that not to get discouraged when things don't work immediately. Within two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, don't get discouraged because when advisors get discouraged or anyone gets discouraged, you'll just go to revert back to what's comfortable but may not necessarily work. And it's the shiny object syndrome. So you may want to revert back to, Oh, well, we saw this trend or Oh, well, this is supposed to get me a bunch of new leads and then you have a bunch of spaghetti on the wall and it's all sliding down. And it might not all stick.
Yeah. So just to really stay the course and especially as it is, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
Kalli
Yeah. I mean definitely for digital marketing, we typically say 18 months. In fact, we won't even work with people anymore unless they're doing a 12-month contract with us. With what you see do you have a time frame that you're like, give it this long before throwing in the towel?
Elyse
I mean, honestly, it's a year. Yeah, we were talking with a client the other day and he was lamenting and I'm it's hard to tell, but I'm a pretty direct person and I'm like, So you've been doing it for six months this way, but you've been doing it for 19 years the other way. So I get it like, like this is supposed to fix everything.
We're still kind of undoing all the dog years.
Kalli
And then you got to get into that ebb and flow. Yes.
Elyse
And you have to give people a chance to get to know you and kind of your new you.
Kalli
If you will.
Elyse
And that doesn't happen in six weeks because there's just a lot going on out there in the big, wide world.
Kalli
There is.
Angela
I remember once they had an event and we'd been working for a couple of years to really get to know that the female clients of the business, as well as prospects and it took a while. We did a brunch. What do you want to do? What do you want to get out of this relationship with this advisory firm?
And we whiteboard it everything. And there were lots of different things they wanted. They wanted social, they wanted fun, they wanted education. A lot of these women, were the wives of the ideal client or the client. And they always took a back seat. And that's pretty typical in the industry. But they really wanted a voice. And we had a lot of clients that were single, divorcee, whatever it might be.
Well, long story short, we spent a lot of time and after a couple of years we had a paint and Pino event. Yeah. Bring bring a friend if you like. And oh my gosh, they were standing room only for painting in the back because they all brought two or three or four friends and the advisor and I were sitting in the back.
Saying this is working and it took a couple of years and because they all felt comfortable to bring their friends, they were having a good time. It was just the community, build a community and let it happen naturally.
Kalli
Yeah, that's great. Thank you both so much for sharing with us and your insight. Again, like I said earlier, I think it's super vital to a successful marketing plan to really dig into the audience. If you'd like to learn more or reach out directly to Angela and Elyse, you can use the following contact information to reach them.
Also, speaking of standing room only, I'm going to be speaking at the FPA annual conference, so make sure you bookmark effective digital marketing strategies for the first day at 3:30. Thanks for joining and if you're not already, make sure to get savvy at the following, which is up somewhere, somewhere on this stream. Thank you everybody for joining and we will see you next time.
