The majority tend to rely on web pages which are sub sections of a much bigger ’parent’ company or on listings in local directories – sometimes paying large sums of money for sponsored entries that produce little return on investment.

Independent websites

Very few actually have their own independent websites which they can optimise for the best words and phrases that their potential clients might use to find them, and which they can ensure is mobile friendly for tap to call.

If you are part of a bigger website, you need to understand that, if this is optimised at all, it will be for the parent company and completely fails to address the needs of local representatives who are looking to be found by online searchers in their own town. So the web page becomes just an online resource that only people who already have your business card can find.

A golden opportunity for your business

When looking for new business, many financial advisers frequently attend local networking meetings to get themselves known by people in their area. But they should also be looking to use the online equivalent and show up as a listing with a balloon in Google Places (often known as Google Maps). Invariably, this listing is either ignored or not understood. It is a golden opportunity for your business to be listed as the place to go to for your service in your area.

To become known as an expert in their field, many financial advisers put really useful articles up on their sub-page – but then they have no way of telling potential clients about this valuable information because the articles can’t be found by the search engines and they don’t understand how to use social media platforms to share their expertise.

Know, Like and Trust

Some are afraid of social media – they don’t realise that, in reality it is no different to making a 60 second pitch at a breakfast meeting. It just has to be done with a really catchy headline and even fewer words, but instead of being accompanied by a tiny business card, it comes with a link that sends interested consumers directly to the information on their web page.

Social Media is all about Know, Like and Trust – just like regular networking. You don’t just start selling to someone the moment you shake hands over breakfast. You get to know them and, if you like them, then you can start to build trust by answering their questions with authority.

Those networkers might not need your services immediately, but they will remember any helpful free advice and come back when they do have a requirement, or recommend you to friends who need that service or product.

It works in exactly the same way with Twitter, Facebook and Linked In. You build up a network of people that you know, like and trust through engagement and interaction on a variety of subjects. And, whilst you’re doing that, you send out regular status updates that link back to informative articles on your web page.

Missing a huge trick

But once you’ve sent them to the page of really helpful advice, you’re still missing a huge trick – whether you are part of a large organisation’s website or do actually have your own.
In the majority of cases, these will not have the facility for social media sharing. Google is a machine and cannot make aesthetic judgements about how good an article is. Even if you have the on-site function to tell the search engine that you are there and what your page is about, Google needs some form of human proof that your stuff is as good as you say it is.

By placing Facebook Like, Twitter retweets, Linked In share buttons and bookmarking symbols at the bottom of your article, you allow human visitors to vote for your content and share it on their social media profiles. The more social approval you get, the more Google begins to trust what you’re saying.

Searching for the answer

That means when someone is searching for the answer to that type of information in your area, your page is more likely to be represented on the results pages. And people like LOCAL advisers that they can meet up with face to face, rather than big conglomerates via the telephone. They want to be able to get to know, like and trust an individual personally, not leave their precious savings in the hands of a company representative who may change from phone call to phone call. Statistics have shown that most transactions will take place between a consumer and supplier who are within the same five mile radius.

What do financial advisers need to do to succeed online?

1. Check out what words and phrases potential customers are actually typing into the search engines. Think outside of the box. Just because you know the technical terms, it doesn’t mean that is what your target market will be asking for.
2. Ask your parent company if it is possible to SEO your individual page and to have social sharing icons.
3. Set up your own small website which will allow you to incorporate the keywords you have identified and to make the best use of social media sharing.
4. Get on Twitter and start building relationships, whilst sharing your knowledgeable content.
5. If you have a bricks and mortar business that customers can visit, create your own Google Places page – it’s free and will allow you to get a listing for your area.
You need to improve your online visibility so that Google can start putting you where targeted consumers are searching.

Want to be found by more prospective online clients?

Jo Shaer directs traffic to her clients’ websites through SEO and Social Media at Lollipop Local. To find out how you can be found by more prospective online clients, visit http://lollipoplocal.co.uk or call 01702 476517

1 Create a good profile page. As well as letting ‘tweeps’ (ie Twitter users) quickly know what you do, it helps them to find you. Go for a simple but eye-catching and professional-looking page design. Use a high quality logo or photograph as your profile picture. In just 160 characters, your ‘bio’ information must strike the right tone and sell your business. Include your website address, obviously.

2 Be a follower. When someone follows you – follow them back. Don’t wait for followers to come to you – search for them (sites such as Twellow are useful). As well as potential customers, it could be suppliers, membership organisations, trade bodies, media organisations, small business or networking sites. Retweet or reply to tweets regularly. Sort the people and organisations you follow into categorised lists (eg customers; suppliers; media, etc) using Twitter’s ‘List’ tab.

3 Be a regular user. You risk losing followers or followers losing interest in you if you show up every once in a while with a few random tweets. Three or four well-considered tweets a day provides a useful benchmark, although occasionally you might tweet more or not at all. If someone makes an enquiry by direct message via Twitter, reply quickly.

4 Watch your manners. It pays to be polite on Twitter. Say thanks when people follow you, mention you or ‘retweet’ your tweets. Mind your language, too. Swearing isn’t big or clever – especially for businesses. And use the ‘Direct messages’ function if a message is best kept private.

5 Don’t get personal. Sharing deeply personal information with people you don’t know probably isn’t wise. Don’t criticise competitors and steer clear of contentious topics. You don’t want to upset customers or get drawn into a slanging match on Twitter.

6 Don’t bore people. Some measured wit, intelligence and personality can win you followers, but only if you’re capable of it. Write engaging tweets about interesting subjects; use teases that encourage people to click-through to find out answers to questions you pose. Leave out the mundane stuff – no one’s really interested in what you had for lunch. And don’t just tweet about yourself or your business all the time. It’s not just about you, you know.

7 Don’t just broadcast sales messages. It turns people off. Instead, engage them in a conversation. Ask questions. Provide valuable, interesting or entertaining information. Include links to other websites, not just yours. Share information that can help them. Encourage your followers to like and trust your business, then they won’t mind occasionally hearing about products or special deals. Just don’t overdo the selling.

8 Recommend others. Let your followers know about people you follow and why they should follow them. ‘Follow Friday’ is perfect for this, when every Friday you list the Twitter address of users you recommend following and add #followfriday or #FF in the tweet so others see it. If someone’s tweet appeals to you, retweet it.

9 Don’t forget your hashtags. The # symbol (‘hashtag’) marks keywords or topics in a tweet (eg #smallbusinesses). Tweeps organically created hashtagging to categorise tweets. Using hashtags will mean your tweets will show up in searches, which could win you new followers. Don’t use more than three hashtags per tweet.

10 Maximise your efficiency. Clicking a button on your Twitter profile page will mean tweets appear automatically on your business’ Facebook page, if you so wish. And rather than logging into your Twitter page every time you want to post, sites such as TweetDeck or HootSuite enable you to schedule your tweets in advance.

Social networking sites are an essential way to establish your brand online and get in front of people you want to communicate with, from your clients and suppliers to potential partners, employees and even the media.

People tend to over-complicate social media, but put simply, sites like Twitter and Facebook facilitate conversations and relationships like any other method of real-life networking – except that they are online and the reach is much wider.

Identify clients

To really get the most out of social media, you need to know exactly who your clients are, how to find them and what you want to say to them.

You’ve got to think through your objectives. Are you looking to raise general brand awareness or achieve something specific like educating clients about your services, or inviting client feedback on a new launch.

Or, you might be thinking about how to reduce the number of client service phone calls you receive. By setting up a facility on Twitter, for instance, you could invite customers to send in queries that way.

Build relationships

Crucially, it’s not about going in with a pushy sales agenda, sites typically work by building up relationships between you and your audience so it’s more about establishing yourself as a credible brand, or an expert in your field.

To do this, pick a site to write an informed blog about your industry sector or to add regular comments on industry news. If people find it useful, they’ll recommend you, and you therefore build up your profile. You can then add value for your audience through special promotions, previews and offers.

So how can you get started? First, building a successful online presence is no different to any other marketing activity, so it’s important to plan your approach and work out your objectives before diving in.

Finding the right site

Equally, you need to identify which social networking site is right for your market. Sites like LinkedIn, Ecademy and Plaxo are more business focused than Facebook or MySpace while Google-operated site Orkut attracts a US audience. According to a survey carried out last October, 73 per cent of businesses used Facebook to connect with customers, while a third used Twitter.

Searching for specific key words and phrases linked to your business will also help you decide where your business should be most visible. If you find lots of groups talking about your sector on Facebook, for instance, it’s worthwhile signing up. Tools like Tweetdeck, which is free, will monitor references on Twitter and Facebook for you or if your audience is very wide, you could employ a social media agency to do the job.

Keep things updated

While you don’t have to be on every site, it’s still advisable to monitor your brand regularly. Once you’ve signed up to the social networking community, the golden rule is to be proactive. Update your status regularly, keep your blog fresh and make sure you’re getting involved. Otherwise, you won’t be able to influence what people are saying about you. You can’t necessarily control the content, but you can manage it effectively.

Here are ways you can begin branding your company and increase the name recognition of your firm.

1. Hire a branding company to bring your image and message under a brand. Develop all collateral and image materials (web, stationery, logo, tagline, mission statement, business cards, brochures, elevator pitch, newsletters, letters, project sheets, bios, etc.) to coincide with the brand and your message.

2. Develop a mission statement that shows your reason for being and the value you provide to your customers.

3. Develop a memorable tagline that expresses who you are and what you do.

4. Make a matrix of all those you’d like to reach in the next year and the potential influencers on those people. Develop a timetable and calendar of outreach.

5. Regularly write and issue press releases to the media.

6. Regularly write and post press releases to your website.

7. Regularly write and post press releases directly onto the internet.

8. Regularly write articles and do all three of the above.

9. Regularly write and pitch feature story ideas to the media.

10. Diversify all marketing, PR and media to reach the markets where your clients are to be found (as opposed to marketing within your own service industry).

11. Participate (attend, speak, host, present, show) in at least two national and local industry conferences.

12. Create and issue an online or direct mail newsletter.

13. Get known for niche expertise or specific industry knowledge. (speak, write, present, teach).

14. Participate and sponsor local charitable efforts; get your name in the program the charitable cause distributes; get your name in the press surrounding the event.

15. Get to know all potential teaming partners in your new geographic area. Let them know your people, your areas of expertise and potential for cross referrals.

16. Develop collateral material with a regional bent; think what projects, services, people or elements might be important to this new market and capture this regional tone in all collateral material.

17. Develop tip sheets as to how your company is different than your competitors and why this makes a difference to teaming partners and to your end users-your potential clients. Include these differentiating tips as the basis for all your branding statements.

18. Develop a calendar of local and regional events in your locale and make your company visible in the areas most related to your company and your potential clients’ interests.

19. Post your calendar of appearances and participation on your website.

20. Plan a media release before and after each event.

21. Hire an industry professional to conduct a survey on your behalf; post the results on your website. Publicise the results most important to your industry.

22. Update your website to be informational based so that search engines can find you, and clients can read in-depth material demonstrating your expertise.

23. Add informational website content a minimum of four times per month.

24. Establish your brand by regularly updating the financial value or potential value associated with your brand. Quantify results achieved and add these results to your brand value. Communicate through all methods, the value of your brand to those associated with it.

To sell to these new audiences effectively, marketers need to know more about their client base as a whole, across all brands and services as internal promotional channels are highly efficient, especially in niche markets.

1. Simplify subscription sales and marketing

Marketing products and selling them on your website shouldn’t be so difficult. For years, marketers have struggled to join up product and subscription sales (print, online, bundles, and now mobile/tablet) and present a clean set of options to the site user typically because they have different systems managing content and client data for print, web and internet. We can all learn from the Retail sector how to sell products online. It’s not rocket science!

2. Experiment to find the right digital access model

At some point in the near future, if not already, you are going to need to think about generating more revenue from your online content, and not many publishers know where the sweet spot is when putting up the paywall or registration barrier for their online content. Traditional time-based, incremental registration, metered access, PPV – flexibility is the key here. When selecting your technology partner, make sure they offer flexible access control models which let you experiment at will – don’t get tied into a model which is really expensive to change – the chances are you won’t get it right first time round.

3. Create a unified view of your clients

As a financial services marketer, you should know who your clients are and what they are buying – sounds simple doesn’t it? But how many of you really know if the person going to your events is the same person buying access to your website and subscribing to an email newsletter? It’s hard to find one system that natively handles all this audience and client data, so choose a system which can unify disparate data sources into a single view and you should improve your levels of client service and maximise cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

4. Develop your audience using analytics and insight

Your clients are at the core of your business, but what about all of the valuable audience data you are collecting around that core? Think about your website registered users and leads generated by marketing campaigns – these are your future clients. With the right database technology and business intelligence tools you can develop your audience based on trend analysis and insight across all brands, products and services.

5. Discover, develop and create new products

Once you have the above elements in place you can iterate through the lifecycle and drive your business forward, identifying new product development strategies based on analysing the data at your fingertips and turning your audience into new clients.

Augmented reality technology integrated into the app allows homebuyers to view properties available to buy in the surrounding area. It also offers additional information and advice about taking out a mortgage.

Mobile agency Grapple created the Halifax home finder app, which is now available to download on iPhone and Android phones.

Ashley Machin, Halifax digital banking director, said:

“I’m certainly not thinking about it as to whether it’s a transactional tool or a brand enhancement tool. [It's] an opportunity to make life an awful lot easier for people who are in the process of looking for or buying a house.
“I’m really hopeful that it will be used by people all over the UK regardless of where they bank. It is entirely focused around this notion that we should get much better at providing services to meet customers needs on an end to end basis.”

Halifax’s home finder app will also have a contact number throughout to give access to mortgage advisers at Halifax.

The launch of the app comes as Halifax attempts to innovate in the digital space following research from the Boston Consulting Group that suggested the UK is one of the most advanced ecommerce economies.

Machin said: “We are very keen that Halifax continues on its path of being the major challenger bank in the UK.

“We want Halifax to be that bit different and quicker than the rest of the market and that’s why Halifax is first out there with the home finder app.”

The app’s mortgage calculator allows prospective buyers to work out how much they would need to borrow and estimates monthly mortgage repayments, while Land Registry data informs users of previous sold prices in the area.

Local area guides on the app provides details including distance from schools and transport links in the local vicinity, while a homebuyer guide will provide tips to support people through the home buying process.

Additional functionality allows users to book viewings, rate properties, add comments and images during viewings and share details with friends and family through an emailed PDF.

Article by Matthew Chapman.

The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) is launching the “Pensions and Employee Benefits” stream at its Annual Conference and Exhibition in Liverpool in October. The new stream will reflect the growing interest in pensions as part of the wider employee benefits strategy, particularly with the upcoming introduction of auto-enrolment.

The stream will consist of various sessions focusing on:

• The business benefits of providing good quality pensions under auto-enrolment, and its changing role as a workforce management tool;

• How to engage different segments of a company’s workforce in pensions planning;

• The key factors, and things to watch out for, when considering which staff pension to choose;

• The evolving role of corporate wraps and flexible benefit offerings in workplace savings.

The stream will feature high-profile speakers coming from both the HR profession and the employee benefits industry.

Darren Philp, Policy Director of the NAPF, said:

“Pensions have become an increasingly important issue for the HR profession but need to be set in the context of the wider employee benefits offer. We have decided to offer a new stream at our Annual Conference to reflect this growing trend and to better meet the changing needs of the HR industry.

“This year’s stream will provide HR directors and managers with tailored and hands-on information on pensions and employee benefits. But it will also give HR experts and the employee benefits industry the chance to get together and better understand their different needs. This will enable both industries to create better synergies, which we believe they will have important repercussions for the take up of retirement savings through the workplace.”

The Pensions and Employee Benefits stream will replace the HR stream which has featured in previous conferences.

The NAPF Annual Conference and Exhibition will take place in Liverpool from 17 to 19 October. It is expected to attract 1,000 delegates from the pensions industry. This year’s focus will be on reinvigorating workplace pensions. Among the key speakers confirmed so far are Pensions Minister Steve Webb and Shadow Pensions Minister Gregg McClymont.

The nationwide study shows advisers are seeing a surge in requests for advice on annuities and retirement income with 71% reporting a rise in clients asking for advice.

It also reveals low levels of understanding among clients about retirement income options and the Open Market Option. Just under half of IFAs (49%) thought clients were aware of the OMO while a staggering 82% of IFAs believe that clients are not aware of the various retirement income options available to them.

Dominic Grinstead, Managing Director of MetLife UK said: “Clients will have to literally live with annuity decisions for the rest of their lives so it is crucial that they receive the best possible advice and explore all retirement income options.

“Advisers are best placed to help in that process – the industry needs a step change which enables customers to genuinely shop around and the focus should be on ensuring that people are encouraged to make positive choices about their retirement income

“With the demand for advice remaining strong, confidence in industry standards need to be a key priority.”

Regionally, those in the South West – the region with the highest proportion of smaller pension pots – were the most concerned about the standard of advice offered to this group. Meanwhile, advisers in the South East thought they had the least informed clients with only 7% stating that clients were knowledgeable about retirement options.

Nationally, the study found that the average pension pot size came to £68,000 with 37% valued at under £50,000.

The comprehensive report outlines some of the biggest areas of growth in this area including targeted paid search spend, Yahoo/ Bing market share and an increase of mobile search activity, especially from tablets.

A significant growth in paid search spending

The first quarter of this year has seen the highest year on year growth rate in ad spend since before 2009. Google CPCs are on the decline and are down 4.4% while an increase in clicks (29.1%) as well as click through rates (20.4%) has been seen. As users can select results that are more relevant to them compared to a past reliance on blanket keyword advertising, the adoption of new ad formats seem to have an advantage over organic search. If this continues, marketers may see better return on investment on paid search.

Yahoo/Bing is on the rise

According to IgnitionOne’s research, there was more competition in Yahoo/Bing auctions after their recent best practice and broad match keyword push. Using broad match keywords as a stepping stone into exact match, there has been an increase of 40% year on year for these types of keywords even though traffic has barely increased. With this jump in spend, Yahoo and Bing have had their best quarter since the two joined forces and now make up 21.2% of the market share.

Mobile and tablet search activity continues to accelerate

Though only 12.3% of the total search advertising spend in Q1 was allocated to mobile search, mobile clicks were up 246.1% year on year and impressions were up 119.9%. It is no surprise that mobile search is on the rise, and the adoption of tablets are adding to our need to search on the go.

As tablet click through rates are 0.6% higher than PC rates of 2.5%, this will definitely be an area that will continue to grow in terms of spend over 2012. With a reliance on first-position search advertising, small screen ads would have greater results even though the fight to be at the top is more difficult. This could indicate why mobile devices with full browsers almost doubled the PC click through rates at 4.4%.

Overall, the growth of advertising spend is encouraging. Google is still the leader in the paid search space but the move of Yahoo and Bing to merge as a single force seems to be paying off.  With our continued adoption of tablets, mobile search will rise throughout 2012. Until these devices saturate the market, this rise will continue into the foreseeable future.

Financial advisers in Asia remain the most confident in their local economies with an average score of 6.6, with respondents from both Hong Kong and Singapore having the most positive outlook, reporting a confidence level of 6.7 out of 10.

Adviser’s confidence in their local economies has seen a rise in all regions other than Europe, where ongoing uncertainty around the debt crisis has seen confidence levels fall to an average of 4.4, from 4.6 in Q4 2011. This is in stark contrast to their outlook on the global economy where respondents from Europe exhibited the highest confidence score at 5.7 out of 10, representing an increase of 8% since the previous survey. In fact, of all the advisers surveyed only those from Europe and the UK had more confidence in the global economy than their own.

Over two thirds of financial advisers surveyed believe that the European debt crisis is the biggest threat to their local region, this in contrast to the previous two quarters where global contagion was seen as the biggest potential issue. Unemployment was selected as the second biggest threat by advisers with 36% believing this may negatively impact their local region.

Confidence in investment sectors seems to broadly mirror the advisers’ confidence in their local economies with nearly a third saying that emerging market equities and emerging Asia equities are the sectors most likely to offer the best investment returns over the next 12 months. Less than 1% of advisers believe that European equities (ex UK) will offer favourable returns, which reflects the unease about the current crisis in Europe – despite the strong run seen by European equities (ex UK) during the first three months of this year, returning 9.75%** over that period. However, UK fixed interest was the least popular investment sector for advisers with just 0.4% selecting it to provide the most profitable returns over the next year.

Phil Oxenham, marketing manager at Skandia International comments:

“The European debt crisis continues to have a significant impact on adviser sentiment. The findings of this survey clearly show that financial advisers globally are concerned about the continued effects of this on their own regions. This is reflected in the advisers’ choices of where to recommend investments during the next 12 months, as European equities remain very unpopular. The selection of emerging Asia equities and other emerging markets equities as the sectors likely to offer the best returns over the next  year demonstrates the wide spread belief that emerging markets offer the best potential for investment areas – although these are also likely to be more volatile.  As always, it is important that investors select a balanced portfolio of assets and sectors that is aligned with their individual risk profile.”

*The offshore adviser confidence barometer was conducted by Skandia International in Q1 2012 and attracted responses from 445 advisers from around the world – Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, UK, Europe, Africa and Latin America.

** Source: FinEx Analytics, 31.12.2011 – 31.03.2012 in EUR.