8 Marketing Moves for 401(k) Advisors to Implement Now

[0:00] JD: Samantha Russell from 20 over 10. Say hello to the people, Samantha. [0:05] Samantha Russell: Hello everyone. So great to be here. [0:08] JD: Let's jump right into an article I read from you. You said or the title of the article was, if I was a financial advisor, these are the eight marketing things that I would do right now. Can you take us through those one through eight? [0:23] Samantha Russell: Number one is if you have any pre scheduled communication. So whether you buy content or you use a service that syndicates content for you, or you wrote something in advance and you had scheduled it out, you want to check all those campaigns to make sure you're not pushing something out that's going to appear really tone deaf. I've seen some really big brands actually do this. I was on Reddit recently and one of the ads was like, you have places to go and people to see. And it was like, no, we actually don't. You want to make sure that any of the language you're using in those communications is going to be appropriate. The second thing is updating your current website to make sure it's reflecting any of the contact information and something else called Google my business is up to date. And I'll mention Google my business here in a second. But when I say up to date, what I mean is most of you are not working in an office anymore. So you want to make sure if there's a phone number that's being forwarded, if you're using your cell instead of an office line, that you've changed all of that. People can get in touch with you and you don't just want to have a form for people to fill out. I see a lot of firms where they don't have an email address prominent, but let's say your client's older and they get ill, you know, they fall ill. You want their family members to be able to reach you, so you need to make it where they can get in touch with you. [1:49] JD: Are you suggesting that your website should allow people to figure out how to get in touch with you? [1:53] Samantha Russell: Going back to my earlier point. So Google my business. If you're on the call right now and you've never set this up for your company, write that down as an absolute must do when you get off this call. It's a free tool that any business owner can set up and every single person who owns a business or website should do this. So it allows you to claim your business on Google and tell Google things that you want it to know about you so that you can help determine when people should find you online. So it's we have a whole blog post about it on our 20 over 10 blog, which I'll give a plug to, I'm sure many times throughout this presentation. This webinar. What did you call it? A zoominar. [2:33] JD: Zoominar. [2:34] Samantha Russell: A Zoominar. But yeah. So if you go to blog.20overtend.com, you can search Google my business and we have a whole checklist for you of what you should do. But it will really make a difference in how people find you online and how well you're ranking. And most advisors don't do it. So if you do it, you're going to stand. [2:54] JD: I think retirement plan advisors could maybe scoff a little bit at SEO in terms of is a committee or decision makers really going to Google to find their next 401k plan advisor. But I think Samantha kind of touched on it. If that was true and they're not, they're surely going to Google you once they've met you to kind of get and vet you out. And that's always true. And so anyways, I agree with that. A million. [3:20] Samantha Russell: And to your point, you know, most people get a list of 2 to 3, 4, 5 at the max, names that they're going to seriously consider and what is the first thing they do? Yeah, they're gonna look, you know, so, and this kind of leads me into my second point, which is if you are not currently creating content that talks about how you help people, so you want to talk about the problems that potential customers or people that you're selling to have and the solutions you provide that alleviate that problem. That is the story you want to always have in the back of your mind, what is the pain point in the problem that people have and why are they hiring me? And then come up with article under the sun to address those problems. That's content marketing in a nutshell. And content marketing is really late to the game in our industry as a whole, you know, because people I think, always felt like they were giving away secrets if they put too much information out there. But it's the exact opposite. People want to hire someone to do things for them that has already proven themselves to be knowledgeable. [4:23] JD: You've done really well. And what I've seen from you on the Internet is you, you walk your talk like you're very busy on social. You're always putting stuff out there and in valuable stuff. So the content you put out drives value. Right? It's actually stuff that people can use and it from a variety of different subject matter and I see that as your ethos of what you're doing. And I think more people need to understand that, you know, keep giving things to people that they can use that are valuable and then once in a while you can tell them about yourself and what you do. But what you really should be doing is giving them things that they want to have. And I see you do that really, really well. And I felt like that's what you're kind of touching on there. [5:08] Samantha Russell: Well, thank you for the nice compliment. I mean, at the end of the day, people are gonna hire you because you're helpful to them. That's why they're hiring you. You're again, providing some sort of solution. And when you think about it doesn't even always have to be content that you create when it comes to social media. So I just saw right before we hopped an advisor who works with large hospitals and medical professionals at the hospitals. I don't know if he provides the 401k plans to the administrator, but he had these great resources. He's been sharing on social media of free discounts that any medical professional can get right now. Oh, God. What did I say? [5:51] JD: Mark? Elizabeth. This is not fair. I lost. No, sorry. Good guess, Samantha. Keep going. That's not the word. [5:59] Samantha Russell: Sorry. I'm staring into the camera and not all of you. So it took me a minute to keep doing that. It's great. [6:05] JD: Yeah. [6:08] Samantha Russell: So he provided this roundup of discounts that different companies are offering to nurses and doctors right now. So it was a list to say, like under armour, 40% off if you can prove you're a healthcare worker. And so it has nothing to do with what he does. It's just a helpful piece of information that's in. Interesting. And so many people were liking and commenting on it and saying, I'm going to share this with my friends who are doctors and nurses. But he happens to provide financial planning and advice to that demographic. So his name is getting out there and it's tied to a good deed, but it has nothing to necessary. It wasn't content. He had to create, if that makes sense. Yeah. [6:48] JD: Let's take you to number three, which is on your list, which you said was put together a weekly email to all clients. And maybe in the past we could have given the same advice. But it's more important now, right, to be doing that. [7:03] Samantha Russell: Yeah. I mean, I don't know about you guys. It's been pretty overwhelming to try to keep up with the news. I think a lot of people have been taking news detoxes they don't want to read it all. I love what my advisor has done from the economic standpoint. He has been reading all the articles coming out, you know, whether it's about PPP plan and what's happening with that or the CARES act and all the different parts of that. And he will send an email every week saying, here's the top points. You should know your takeaways from everything that's transpired over the last week. He does them in bullet points and at the bottom he says pulled from articles and links to those articles that he read them in, whether it's the New York Times or wherever. So I don't have to go and read all these articles. He's doing it for me. A tip, though, what he does that's very effective is he always will include in those weekly client emails a personal story. So it something that's not related at all to the markets or the pandemic. And that's. He's told me the thing that people always respond back to the most. So he has two little kids. He's sort of sharing funny antics about what they're doing during the lockdown. So, you know, be useful and relevant, but also think of ways to just like you guys all do here, to forge connection and be a real human being, it needs to be written by a person and come across like it's written by a person who's checking in, hey, how are you doing? And you could, even if you're sending it to 600 people, you can start it by saying, hey, how are you doing? Like you genuinely want to know, right? And so keeping that in mind, like you're writing to a human being, not blasting to 600 people.