Take the Guess Work Out of Your Advisor Marketing Strategy
Keeping track of your firms marketing metrics allow you to work smarter - not harder.
At least 85% of Americans report performing online research before purchasing a product or service. Because advisors are finally jumping aboard the web strategy train, many financial professionals are now asking how to determine whether their efforts are actually paying off.
To take the guess work out of determining the effectiveness of your firms online presence, we put together a cheat sheet of three of the most important marketing metrics every firm needs to track, which can easily be collected using a
1. Traffic Origin
Each visitor arrives at your website as a result of typing in your web address, clicking on a search engine result (organic or paid), or they were referred to your site from another webpage that linked to your website (i.e. social media, online directories, blogs or perhaps, other industry websites).
Identifying what types of content are interesting to your web audience is a big deal because it reveals a lot of information about your visitors. Wouldnt it be easier to decide what types of content to put on your website (and blog and social media outlets) if you knew how visitors ended up on your website? Delineating where your web traffic originates helps evaluate areas where youre succeeding, in addition to the places where your site can use some improvement.
If your social media followers and friends are engaged with the content youre sharing, try elaborating those messages and creating a blog article on a related topic. Most of the content you share online is transferrable to other digital channels; use this to your advantage.
2. Call-to-action click through rate
Calls-to-action (CTA) are the little buttons that urge web visitors to do something, like Book a Meeting or sign up for a Free Evaluation. Usually CTAs lead to a landing page with a form that people fill out in order to receive the offer (and you receive a new lead). Calls-to-action are a websites primary lead-generation tool.
The more click throughs your calls-to-action receive, the more your offerings resonate with your web audience. Even if you dont get any click throughs on your CTAs, this is still great feedback because it shows you what area needs improvement.
Analyze your calls-to-action in terms of how many times theyre clicked (click through rate) and how often a form is completed. If you want web visitors to book a meeting but its not happening as frequently as you would like, try offering an action that requires less commitment like, Download a white paper. This example is actually a great way to share your knowledge and convince web visitors of your expertise, further instilling trust and establishing your identity as a thought leader in the financial planning community.
3. Organic search traffic
Organic search results are listings on search engine results pages that appear because of the relevance to the search term, as opposed to advertised (paid) results. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an example of non-organic searches.
How much organic traffic should your website generate? It depends. If your site is fairly new (live for a year or less) it may receive as little as 100 organic views a month. Established advisors with a properly maintained site can expect over 1000 hits from organic traffic each month.
Organic search traffic is, arguably, the most important source of traffic to a website. Organic search traffic is important because it means that users are searching for you with intent. A rise in this number indicates that your website contains relevant information to searchers. Web users who are searching for you online are more likely to be interested in your firms offerings, thus more likely to convert into potential clients.
If you really want to get serious about increasing your organic search traffic, start with improving your sites SEO (search engine optimization). Once your advisor site begins ranking higher on search engine results, your site will naturally access traffic that wasnt there before.
This high-level overview of vital marketing metrics will help if youre looking to advance your marketing game. For more information on how to fine-tune your digital marketing strategy, check out the free ebook,
Maggie Crowley is the Marketing Coordinator for Advisor Websites where she manages the company's online presence.
