4 easy ways advisors can add more personality to their marketing
Everything that you create and share should have an element of you in it.
As an advisor, being better isn’t always better. Especially if your clients don’t understand what “better” is going to do for them in a complex financial world. New York Times bestselling author Sally Hogshead says that being different is actually better than being better.
How can you stand out?
In a world where every advisor is using the same marketing strategies and tactics, copying each other’s processes and many times selling the same products with different wrappers, how can you stand out and be seen as different in the eyes of your potential clients?
You use the one thing that is truly different and unique to you — your personality. You’ve probably heard this a million times by now. There’s the cliche sayings that “people buy people” and we do business with people we “know, like and trust.” These things sound great, but how do you actually showcase your personality in your marketing? How do you let your clients get to know you, without sharing too much, getting in hot water with compliance or just stating more facts, numbers and graphs in your content?
The first thing you need to do is to get out and in front of your marketplace. Show your face. Let them see you and not some stock photos your web designer found and threw together for your homepage.
Showcase more of your personality
Another way to get out and in front of your marketplace and showcase more of your personality is through video. When you are talking to a camera, in the same way you would talk to a client, they get to see you. They see the way you act, the passion in your eyes and you get to instantly bond with anyone who is watching.
Here are four simple ways you can add more personality into your marketing and your videos to stand above and apart from everyone else in your market.
1. Tell more real-life stories.
We know that facts tell and stories sell, but how do you come up with great stories to share in your marketing and in your videos? The easiest way is to go and dig out the stories that are occurring in your everyday life. Here’s how you do that. Pull out your calendar and look at the last 30 days. Look at all your client meetings, events you have attended, things you have done and people you have helped. Start listing out all the stories that came from these events. These are the stories you want to tell. Why? Because your prospects are likely going through similar situations. They have similar concerns. Telling these stories let’s them know that they are in the right place and that you are the right person to help them.
2. Have fun with costumes and props.
One of our clients came to us and said that in his seminars and events with clients he likes to act like a football referee and pull out penalty flags for all the things people are doing wrong. He does it in a way that is very funny and engaging and his clients love it. When we filmed a series of videos for him, I made him bring the referee costume with him and we had a lot of fun filming him as the referee, blowing his whistle and pulling out the penalty flags. (link to video if you want to link to one of them. Another client is a huge baseball fan and loves to wear his Cubs jersey while giving baseball references and analogies to explain complex financial issues. The idea here is to have fun and bring out your personality by dressing for the part.
3. It’s OK to be weird and talk about your hobbies.
Here’s a dirty little secret: We are all a little weird and have weird hobbies that we enjoy. For me that means reading comic books, training for American Ninja Warrior and practicing archery on the weekends. Now in my own videos I always reference these things, whether I conquered another obstacle or I share an adventure shooting at targets with a recurve bow. When you do this a funny thing happens: People start asking you about these things. They chime in with tips and advice. I even had a client invite me up to his ranch to go hunting and use his bows this winter. Don’t hide the things that make you unique, use them as strengths to bond with people that are just like you.
4. Find points of affinity.
My mentor Dan Kennedy always told me that marketing is meant to do one of two things: either attract people toward you or repel people away from you. I like to focus on attraction and I find that the more I share common points of affinity, the more I bring the right people around me. Affinity points could be things like:
- Coming from a big family, or being an only child.
- Being an alumni from a certain school or a common teacher (especially if you are in a small town).
- Being a member of the military.
- Being a dog lover (or a cat lover).
- Eating a certain diet (vegans connect well with other vegans, so do people who like grilling out or the current trend of being on a Keto diet).
- Being from a certain small town or a big city.
What you are looking for here are things that you, and your perfect prospect, will have in common and then talk about it in your videos and your marketing.
These are just four simple ways to add more personality into your marketing. Everything that you create and share — from an email or newsletter to a blog post to a video — should have an element of you in it. Otherwise you will look and sound just like everyone else. What are you going to do to stand apart?
Related: 3 ways insurance agents can raise their profile in the marketplace