If you’re not visible on LinkedIn, you might lose credibility with certain demographics. LinkedIn represents the “digital handshake” for professionals, including financial advisors. It’s a platform where you can give prospects insight into your firm, your credentials, your network, and even personal touches like your dog. This personal connection can be what prospects need to convert into clients.
For wealth management firms, LinkedIn offers a deeper connection with the people behind your tech stack, collaboration opportunities with other advisors on best practices, and the ability to present value propositions in more human and relatable ways than a website can. It’s more than just a social media platform; it’s a hub for thought leadership, mission statements, and financial trends. Here are three ways RIAs and firms can leverage LinkedIn to create new revenue streams and position themselves for growth.
Develop Connections on LinkedIn
Like any LinkedIn user, the first strategy is a relative no-brainer: build new relationships and network with existing ones. Using LinkedIn’s direct messaging functionality, you can reach out to specific individuals with a call-to-action that invites them to explore your services. Crafting personalized, informative messages about the potential value your firm can bring to an individual’s financial portfolio can result in more engagement than ads or page posts ever could.
Just as with face-to-face pitches, effective direct messaging on LinkedIn relies on a variety of best practices geared towards (1) respecting the privacy of potential clients and (2) generating interest in your financial services. Some strategies include:
- Sending personalized connection requests.
- Using icebreakers to build rapport.
- Finding prospects via existing client networks.
- Asking mutual connections to vouch for you with new prospects.
- Configuring LinkedIn notifications to alert you when connections have been promoted, changed jobs, or graduated.
- Providing value (i.e., sending a helpful blog link or white paper) before starting your sales pitch.
Identifying potential clients based on their income level alone can be difficult, but using strategic keywords and filters to search for employees with specific titles or roles can give firms a great place to start when searching for new prospects. Similarly, being willing to test new strategies when reaching out to potential clients allows you to experiment with your messaging and see what best resonates with your target audience.
Use Data to Make More Informed Marketing Decisions
In line with most social media platforms, LinkedIn offers a wealth of information that firms can use to provide more personalized investment services. Many users — particularly those that fall into the millennial and Gen-Z categories — expect customized communication in a variety of digital and in-person channels. These shifting audience profiles correspond with a growing sector of younger investors who are accumulating wealth and wanting guidance on how to best manage it.
By creating a LinkedIn page for your business, you will get access to LinkedIn analytics and can better track who is looking at your page and engaging with the content you post. This data can also help you identify trends, like the time of day most people click on your business profile, or see characteristics (like gender, financial background, and location) that give you more insight into your target customers. Once you have this data, you can create more tailored messages with specific calls-to-action for different audience segments.
Share Your Knowledge and Earn Customer Trust
Since LinkedIn is a network for professionals by professionals, it offers a unique opportunity to showcase industry knowledge and expertise via text-based posts or external blogs. Most would-be investors are actively looking for content on how to select the best wealth management option. For example, new, flashy investments, like cryptocurrencies, receive lots of hype but aren’t clearly understood by white-collar professionals with the money to put into them.
Positioning your firm as a thought leader on financial topics can simultaneously attract new investors and prove your value to existing ones. Creating and sharing thought leadership pieces — whether in blog form or simply a post from a company executive — can signal to customers that you are worthy of their trust (and, by extension, their hard-earned dollars). Indeed, 20% of investors reported that more financial education was the top benefit they wanted their advisors to provide more often.
An easy way to dip your toe in the proverbial thought leadership waters is to attend industry conferences and events. Not only is in-person networking easier, but you’ll also be able to share (or even participate in) panels and presentations that focus on the latest financial trends and predictions. Building up your wealth management firm as a business worthy of repute and trust is one of the single best ways to position yourself for future growth. LinkedIn is a highly visible and convenient platform for working towards this goal.
Don’t forget to use tools like PreciseFP to enhance your LinkedIn strategy. You can create a link for your favorite lead magnet or a high-level fact finder and plant it as a call-to-action button on your profile. Additionally, embedding your calendar right into engagements makes it easy to schedule a coffee catch-up over Zoom with industry friends. With these strategies, you’ll position yourself for growth and success. Sign up for a free trial today.
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