Seminar Marketing Tips for Financial Advisors: A Seminar or Webinar can be a great tool not only for sharing your expertise as a financial advisor but also for building credibility and securing potential clients; however, a Seminar won’t do you any good if no one attends. So, you’ll need to market your Seminar to your intended audience actively.
Seminar and Webinar will be used interchangeably in this blog post!
Right off the bat, I would like to say that I will be using the terms webinar and seminar interchangeably throughout this blog post as times have changed and advisors can now be Virtual Advisors !
I’ve been around working with advisors for many years!
If you’ve been following my blog since 2004, you’ll know that I have been coaching financial advisors for quite some time, when I left my finance job to start my coaching practice. In addition, I had two businesses in the past, so I know how to market and grow a company since I have been a business owner for so many years.
I have had enough time in this work to know how financial advisors can fail, and one of them is not getting enough clients through holding Seminars or Webinars. So in this Seminar Marketing Tips for Financial Advisors, I guarantee you will learn a lot! If you’re not working with a coach, try my consultation schedule. Or, I can recommend a coach for you so that you truly implement everything discussed here.
My Seminar Series blog posts for financial advisors:
If you read my blog and other resources, you know I give a lot away for free. That’s because I enjoy giving value to the Financial Advisor Community and since I can’t work with everyone (my schedule is too full), why not give away knowledge to help everyone!
Here are several blogs I have written about giving a seminar. Cheers!
1. Planning a Seminar – A goal without a plan is just a wish! You will have to plan out your seminar to get the best results. Be intentional about everything you do. Don’t skip this step!
2. Crafting the BEST Seminar Titles – If your webinar doesn’t have a good title, there is very little likelihood you’ll have good attendance. A catchy title will put more rear ends into your virtual or real seats.
3. The best Financial Advisor Seminar Invitation – Give potential attendees something to motivate them to attend. The invite, whether paper, digital, or Canva, is essential!
4. How Advisors Can Book Appointments at Seminars – Make the most of your seminar by booking appointments at the event! You have a captive audience. Take advantage of it.
5. Be a better public speaker at seminars – For Financial Advisors – There’s nothing worse than a boring seminar. Be motivational. Be engaging! Wow your audience and you will have more success.
6. Seminar Response / Evaluation Form – Get as much data as you can from your seminar participants. This will help you in future events and help you get more clients!
Why Seminars & Webinars work!
Webinars and seminars are a great way to magnify your reach and get your message in front of MANY prospects at one time, depending upon how you hold your events.
Instead of spending a lot of time prospecting one-on-one with many prospects, when you market your practice using seminars, you can not only optimize your TIME you can also put your BUDGET where it needs to go to be effective: seeing more prospective clients at one time.
Today, not only will be be covering “Seminar Marketing Tips for Financial Advisors” we’ll be covering WHY you might want to make Webinars a “regular thing” and how you can best market your Seminar to convince prospective clients to attend. Read on below for more info.
Why Should I Host a Seminar or Webinar?
There are many reasons you should consider hosting a Seminar – Webinar regularly. These reasons include:
- Seminars and Webinars allow you to provide valuable content to your audience and community.
- Seminars make knowledge and information more accessible.
- Webinars allow you to share a message with a specific audience.
- Seminars can be monetized and can earn you additional income (only AFTER ONE YEAR WHEN you have consistently held seminars and are known for your expertise).
How Should I Market My Seminar or Webinar?
Use a Cross-Channel Seminar Marketing Strategy
A cross-channel financial advisor Seminar – Webinar Marketing Strategy refers to using multiple platforms to reach your potential audience. This sort of strategy has a number of benefits, such as:
- Increased Reach. Promoting your Seminar or Webinar via various platforms allows you to reach a wider audience and a more significant number of potential registrants.
- Greater Credibility. More often than not, potential attendees will be impressed if they see that you have a presence on multiple channels. They’ll thus be more likely to attend.
Make Your Financial Advisor Seminar a Regular Series
Rather than making your Webinar a once-in-a-while thing, it’s better to make your it part of a regular series. Having a regular schedule allows you to build momentum and engage your audience in the long term.
Prospective clients will be expecting the next Seminar you host and will be more likely to register each and every time. What’s more, marketing a Seminar as part of a series makes things look more cohesive.
Hold Seminars for a minimum of 12 months!
You wouldn’t believe how many clients I have worked with who told me that seminars don’t work. When I ask why, they tell me about putting on an event ONE TIME and that it was not successful.
Well, no wonder! You have to make a name for yourself and you can’t do that with only one event. Create a series (as mentioned above) and be consistent. Weekly, monthly, a series, whatever it is.
But don’t measure until AFTER ONE YEAR!
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17 Seminar Marketing Tips for Financial Advisors
First, before the marketing tips, we should cover what you’re going to speak about and how to present your message.
1.Promote Actionable Skills – What does your Target Market Want to Learn?
When writing up your promotional content for your financial advisor Seminar, focus on promoting the actionable skills that attendees can walk away with.
Remember, your attendees want real-world skills that they can put into practice. Highlighting this in your promotional materials will increase the chances of people attending.
Additionally, when attendees put their newfound skills to good use, they’ll remember your event and will form a more meaningful relationship with you and your personal brand as an expert.
a.Working with Women clients
If you are a female financial advisor, it makes sense to niche your market to women’s cares and concerns. One way to do that is to hold a Seminar for women! Read my blog post about Prospecting to Women, and challenges women face before you settle on a topic. Don’t worry. If you’re a male financial advisor, you can still target women!
b.Working with Small Business Owners
If you are an advisor working with small business owners, think about what are their biggest points of pain and how you can align your services to help them. Read my blog post about Prospecting to Small Business Owners.
c.Working with Retired Couples or those thinking about Retiring
If you are an advisor who would like to work with more retirees or pre-retirees, you would be wise to base your seminar or webinar on their pain points. Yes, they are retired or retiring, but they still have money issues that keep them awake at night. Read my blog post about Prospecting to Retirees or Pre-Retirees.
The point is, don’t just pick a topic that “works for everyone.” Target your market. Have a niche. Solve a problem for a niche!
2.The Financial Advisor Seminar Invitation
If you don’t have a good title and a list of the skills participants will walk away with, you won’t have much interest from folks wanting to attend. Formulate a list of 3-5 key facts that attendees will learn. This can be presented in bullet point format. Including other key information depends upon whether you’re using an invitation or a Canva image (see blog post below) to promote your financial advisor seminar – webinar. Learn more here: 14 Elements of The Best Financial Advisor Seminar Invitation
3.Use Re-targeting Ads and Other Paid Media
Even though someone who visited your website or social media page didn’t register for your Seminar / Webinar, you shouldn’t assume that they aren’t interested or won’t register for a future event. In fact, only a small percent of web traffic instantly converts on their first visit. So, you can leverage retargeting ads to entice people who are already familiar with your services and have demonstrated interest in the past to sign up for your financial advisory Seminar / Webinar.
If you have money to spare, you can also try experimenting with paid media such as targeted social and display ads. However, if you go down this route, it’s important not to pay for randomly placed ads; instead, you’ll want to refine your ad targeting to reach the correct target demographic. Read more here about re-targeting ads.
4.Leverage Your Employees’ and COI Networks
If you work with a team of writers, graphic designers, accountants, etc., then you should get your employees and Centers of Influence COI’s involved in your Seminar / Webinar marketing plan. It’s likely that the people you work with know a few people who may be interested in attending your Seminar / Webinar.
According to a report by LinkedIn, employees have ten times more connections than a company has followers. So, ask the people you work with, and Centers of Influence COI’s, for a favor by asking if they can help spread the word about your financial advisory Seminar / Webinar.
5.Create an Email Schedule for Promotions
One of the most direct ways to market your Seminar is via email; thus, you’re going to want to put a considerable amount of effort into email promotions. Hopefully you’ve been using your website to BUILD YOUR LIST, so you have plenty of names to send a promotion.
Ideally, you’d want to start with one email each week starting about three weeks before your Webinar date. Then, you can adjust from there based on how quickly you meet your registrant goal number.
If it isn’t your first time scheduling several emails to create hype for a Seminar, stick to what works for you; otherwise, consider the following:
The Initial Invite
You should send your first email promoting your Webinar about three weeks before the date. The email should let your recipients know that you’ll be hosting a financial advisory Seminar, inform them of the topic and its date, as well as inform them on how to register.
The Reminder
You should send the reminder email two weeks before the Seminar. You can break it down into two types – an email for people who clicked on your initial invite but did not register and a different email for those who didn’t open your initial invite at all.
Both types of reminder emails should remind the recipient of the Seminar details but should also ask for feedback regarding why they have yet to register. Taking the feedback into consideration will help you improve the marketing efforts of your next Webinar.
The Second Reminder
This email is to be sent a week before the event. It never hurts to send the second reminder!
The Thank You Email
Aside from the initial invite email, this may be the most important email you’ll send out. As with the reminder email, you can break this email up into two types:
- Registrants. For this email, you’ll want to send all registrants – even those who didn’t attend – the recording of your Seminar / Webinar. Thank them for expressing interest in your event, and be sure to include social share links that they can easily share with their friends, family, and co-workers.
- Non-Registrants. For this email, you’ll be giving the people who didn’t register a chance to view the Seminar / Webinar recording. If they weren’t able to register but are now interested in the content of your Seminar / Webinar, this email gives them the chance to see what you have to offer.
6.Write a Blog Post
Writing a blog post is a quick and easy way to market your financial advisor Seminar effectively. You’re going to want your blog post to be informative but not too in-depth. That way, if readers want to learn more about the topic or ask questions about it, they’ll be more inclined to attend.
In this “Seminar Marketing Tips for Financial Advisors,” those lucky enough to be able to blog have a sincere leg up on Wirehouse advisors. If you are with a Wirehouse, plan your escape now! Read Financial Advisors – Going Independent or Changing Firms.
7.Partner Up
Partnering up with another organization or individual is a fantastic way of expanding your reach. Look around for people in your industry who may be willing to collaborate with you for a Webinar.
8.Offer to Provide a Seminar or Webinar Recording
Most Webinar hosting platforms – such as Zoom – allow you to record the session. You should always do this if possible so that your Seminar can reach a wider audience – even those who were unable to attend the live financial advisor seminar.
9.Offer a Prize for Attending Your Seminar – Webinar
People love winning, and they also love free things. You can incorporate both by offering prizes for attending your Seminar or Webinar. You can either host a short icebreaker competition or host a raffle for attendees at the start of your event. This would be a fantastic way for you to get potential attendees to convert. By announcing the winner at the end of the event, you’ll also keep the participants interested throughout the entirety and encourage them to stay.
Depending on what services you render as a financial advisor and the type of clients you work with, the prize will depend on you. But to make the most of this marketing tip, you’ll want to make sure that your prize is relevant to your audience and is deemed important to them.
10.Include Q&A Sessions
Including a question and answer segment ties in with the previous tip on writing a blog post. Your blog post on the Seminar / Webinar topic needs to be clear and well-written; however, your readers may still have questions about the topic.
Promote your financial advisor event by stating that you’ll be available to answer any questions on the topic during a question and answer segment. It’s essential to make time for this segment and answer as many questions as possible. Suppose someone attended your Seminar to ask a specific question, and you don’t get to answer them due to time constraints. In that case, they’re going to feel disappointed and may associate negatively with you.
11.Be Consistent In Your Promotions – Brand Continuity
We’ve discussed earlier that using multiple channels in your Seminar or Webinar marketing strategy is optimal; however, you’ll want to be consistent with your marketing when using various channels.
If you’re going to use graphics as well as text, make sure that the theme is consistent across platforms. Doing this makes your marketing efforts seem more cohesive and professional. And by using a consistent theme for each promotional material, you’re subconsciously ingraining that image into the minds of the people who view your ads.
For example, you can promote the event via email, Facebook, LinkedIn, and your website for your next financial advisory Webinar. If you do this, you’ll want to use a consistent theme for each graphic and consistent copy as well. Being consistent with your promotions allows your potential registrants to make the connection between the various channels you’re promoting on and makes them more inclined to register for your event.
Being consistent means you are promoting Brand Continuity to your prospective clients!
12.Use Canva for all visual ads promoting your Seminar or Webinar
What is Canva? It is an online service with customizable, pre-designed promotional materials such as invitations, posters, Instagram promotions, visual images, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
Visual design is VERY IMPORTANT to attract attendees to your events and maintaining a cohesive look is crucial. Read this article I wrote about using Canva to market your business.
13.Consider What You Can A/B Test
In this “Seminar Marketing Tips for Financial Advisors,” if you really want to optimize your marketing efforts, you should test as many aspects of your promotions as you can as often as possible. Through A/B testing, you can gain deeper insight regarding what works best for your target demographic.
Remember that when you test, you should only be changing one small variable at a time, so it’s easier to understand what exactly is creating an increase or decrease in promotional performance. To keep things organized, you’ll want to keep a physical or digital log of what variables worked best during your A/B testing. This information will allow you to build on what you learned in order to make your future marketing efforts better.
Depending on what type of financial advisor Seminar / Webinar you’ll be hosting and where you’ll be promoting your event, you’ll have a lot of variables to test. Here are a few to help get you started:
- Messaging. Find out which call-to-action would be most effective for marketing your Seminar.
- Title. Test whether a simple title or a witty title would be most enticing for your target audience. Read this article I wrote on 5 Ways to Craft a Financial Advisor Seminar Title to Attract an Audience.
- Creative. Test out what ad formats are most appealing to your potential Webinar registrants.
- Seasonality. Do some testing to find out whether your target demographic is more inclined to attend your event during certain months of the year.
- Topic. Find out which topics resonate well with your audience. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to host Seminar or Webinar for retirees if your target audience is young professionals.
14.Set Goals for Each Channel You Plan On Using
Be sure to set goals for every platform where you plan on marketing your Webinar. Setting goals will allow you to measure whether your financial advisor seminar marketing tactics are effective. It will also give you a sense of direction and guide your decisions.
A simple goal you can set for yourself is the number of Seminar registrants. It’s one goal you can set for every marketing channel you use. You’ll also want to keep a log of your historical Seminar performance, too. Doing so will allow you to reference past benchmarks and compare performance when updating your goals.
15.Social Media for Seminar Marketing
The days of using the Yellow Pages to find what we want to buy are over. These days people read their social media feeds to find professionals to help them with their financial challenges. It’s time financial advisors used social media to promote their Seminar or Webinars!
More to come here! The next time I have a break in clients, I will write more here.
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16.Post your Seminar or Webinar Canva Images on Social Media
By designing and using visual images from Canva, you can promote your event on all your social media channels. This means having a good profile, posting frequently, increasing your connections, and good overall usage of social media. As previously discussed, post on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and don’t forget to use hashtags!
17.Review Performance
This point is closely tied with A/B testing and setting specific goals for your financial advisor seminar marketing campaign. Reviewing the performance of your promotions is a fantastic way to find out what worked for you and what didn’t. By identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing, you can figure out what to improve on next time.
Social metrics, reporting tools, Seminar or Webinar platform analytics — there are dozens of metrics you can look at to review your event marketing campaign’s performance. As mentioned earlier, however, one easy-to-follow and effective metric for tracking is your registrant count. You can use this metric to track performance over time and across your several Seminars.
Final Thoughts – Seminar Marketing Tips for Financial Advisors
You’ve done all the prep work for your Seminar – Webinar and are confident you’ll deliver important and timely information to attendees. However, none of that would matter if no one shows up to your financial advisor seminar. So, you’re going to want to apply the seminar marketing tips for financial advisors that we listed above in order to encourage as many people as possible to register. This is what I call financial advisor success!
If you’re having more trouble running your financial advisory business, contact me today. As a coach, I’d be more than happy to help you reach your business and career goals.
