Reach More Prospects With These 8 Outreach Strategies for Financial Services Providers

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Your financial services firm needs more clients, but the marketplace is more crowded than ever. Where will you find them?

That depends on your financial services niche — the services you actually provide — and the typical profile of the clients you target. You probably have a good idea already which efforts will bear the most fruit.

Still, a lot has changed in financial industry marketing. If you want to make the most of your outreach campaigns, you need to know what works right now.

1. Cultivate an Active Twitter Presence

Start by developing an active presence on Twitter. Twitter has something that Facebook, with its far higher active user count, doesn’t: potential to help savvy users build real credibility online.

The Twitter account for Asiaciti Trust, a fiduciary services provider based in the Asia-Pacific region, shows how this occurs in practice. Asiaciti Trust’s tweets focus narrowly on its core areas of expertise: finance and fiduciary services. They’re not as promotional as you might expect from a for-profit enterprise, and they generate engagement precisely because they’re so helpful for users.

2. Use an Email Marketing Tool If You’re Not Already

If you’ve been prospecting online for any length of time, you probably use an email marketing tool already.

If you don’t, start today. And if you do, make sure your choice still works for your needs, especially if you’re planning to scale quickly. You have plenty to choose from, as this comparison from Influencer Marketing Hub makes clear.

3. Join Finance-Focused LinkedIn Groups

Like Twitter, LinkedIn is a great place to meet and interact with financial influencers. It’s also a great place to network and find prospects.

One hidden LinkedIn superpower is the platform’s extensive array of thematic groups. Many are invitation-only or require applications, which are usually just formalities. As long as you have legitimate finance industry credentials, you shouldn’t have any trouble gaining access to the most relevant.

4. Join Platforms and Communities for Financial Firms and Influencers

Don’t stop with social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. Join purpose-built platforms and communities for financial firms and influencers too.

These platforms have powerful networking capabilities, and some are client-facing as well. XY Planning Network connects U.S.-based financial planners with prospective clients, for example. If you do business internationally, look for similar networks in your home country or continent.

5. Highlight Your Key Employees’ Expertise

Your employees are incredibly valuable — if you know how to leverage them.

That starts with exposure. Encourage (or require) key team members to publish original content relevant to their areas of expertise on platforms you control, like your company LinkedIn page or blog. They should be amenable, as this sets up a classic win-win: more authority and exposure for your enterprise and potentially invaluable thought leadership for your employees. 

6. Publish Regularly on LinkedIn

And if you don’t have any employees to publish on your behalf? Easy: take matters into your own hands. 

Your company LinkedIn page should be a font of fresh content — at least one new post per week, and preferably two or more per week. These don’t have to be full-length white papers, but they should leave your audience wanting more.

7. Become a Contributor to Finance-Focused Publications

It’s easier than you realize to become a contributor to blue-chip publications like Forbes and Inc. These erstwhile magazines are now mostly digital, and their appetite for high-quality user-generated content has expanded dramatically. As long as you can furnish finance credentials and prove that you can string a few sentences together, you’ll find little resistance here.

8. Answer Your Prospects & Clients’ Questions

Finally, work to be a resource for people who know less about financial services than you. Be responsive to prospects’ and clients’ questions on Twitter and any other social media platforms you use regularly. Then go a step farther and seek out purpose-built Q&A platforms like Quora and Reddit, always being mindful of those sites’ restrictions on promotional activity.

Be the One They Remember

The financial services industry is highly fragmented, particularly in niches like wealth management and fiduciary services. Your prospects encounter your competitors on a daily basis.

You don’t need to be reminded that you must stand out from the noise to maintain a steady flow of new clients. You know you need to catch prospects’ attention.

Now, you have a blueprint for doing just that:

• Cultivating an active Twitter presence
• Using email marketing tools
• Joining and participating in finance-focused online communities and platforms
• Leveraging your employees’ (and your own) thought leadership
• Always being attentive to client and prospect queries

None of this is any great mystery. Like so much in life and business, success comes down to execution.