Why Your Financial Advisory Firm Should Adopt Multidimensional Marketing

Think of the word, “marketing” — what images come to mind?

Maybe your mind gravitates toward a print advertisement, or a billboard, or a television commercial. Perhaps you’re thinking of the promotional image you just scrolled past on your Instagram feed. Or maybe you’re thinking of that email from your favorite brand you just opened in your inbox.

All of these are popular and well-known forms of marketing. But what is most interesting and compelling about them is that they’re all different — they appear on different channels and can appeal to a wide variety of audiences and viewpoints. You can see these forms of marketing in your everyday life, whether it’s driving your car to work, watching your favorite television show at night, or perusing your favorite social channels.

This is an example of “multidimensional marketing,” which has quickly grown into the most impactful and relevant method of marketing today. To drill down even deeper, multidimensional marketing also encompasses the audiences you’re communicating with — thanks to advances in technology and marketing segmentation, we no longer have to distribute blanket messages to prospects. We can target prospects by geography, demographic, and even job title to make our marketing efforts more meaningful.

Many big, international brands have adopted multidimensional marketing practices, but there is one industry that has been slow to come into the fold: financial services. As more advisors adapt to working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, multidimensional marketing is becoming more important than ever — especially since advisors can no longer meet with prospects or key centers of influence (COIs) in person.

Advantages of Multidimensional Marketing

Even after the COVID-19 pandemic has passed, you can’t just bank on one marketing strategy for your financial advisory business. In order to stay relevant and continue to obtain the best possible results, you need to explore the marketing world from the viewpoint of your clients and to meet them where they are. And just like your clients represent different generations and backgrounds, your clients are likely to consume messages in entirely different ways, too.

Of course, even if you and your internal marketing team are all-in for a multidimensional approach, it’s common for some firms to run into issues getting leadership to buy into a new way of doing things. Below, we’ve listed the advantages of a multidimensional marketing approach, and how you can lead the transition for your firm:

Cross-Functionality

As we mentioned earlier, one prominent feature of a multidimensional marketing strategy is differentiation, including the channels through which you’re marketing and your intended audience. A multidimensional marketing approach starts with grouping a target market — say, high-net-worth individuals — into different segments. This grouping may be based on geography, age, and job title; once your target audience has been categorized, then you can develop detailed “niches,” which essentially are fleshed-out personas that describe who your ideal clients are.

This exercise alone makes it easier to develop the right marketing channel and message for each group. It also helps ensure you aren’t spamming your audience with irrelevant messages. For instance, if you wrote a new blog post on retirement plans for small businesses, you can send a dedicated email to the right group with that content, instead of sending a blanket email to non-business owners who have no connection to the subject matter whatsoever. If you’re offering a college education planning webinar, you can market it to an ultra-defined subset of your client and prospect base with current or soon-to-be college-aged children.

With a little bit of due diligence and organization from the outset, you’ll end up marketing the right service to the right clients. This means you’ll spend less on marketing each service with a more significant potential return on investment (ROI), something your leadership team undoubtedly will be excited to hear.

Client Stability

We often think of “marketing” as a tool we use to boost business development and bring more leads and prospects in the door. But in order to create stickier relationships, we need to market to our existing clients, too.

As a financial advisor, your goal is to provide services that fulfill all of your clients’ lifetime financial needs, and their preferences (in terms of service and communication) will evolve over time. If you were using a one-dimensional marketing strategy, this “evolution” in expectations may result in instability that’s bad for business. However, with multidimensional marketing, it’s easy for you to rely on a more stable market. You have already divided and categorized your target audience; hence, you can easily analyze when they’ll need your financial advisory services. Therefore, when one group’s need for a particular service expires, you can easily shift focus to market a more relevant service that is presenting itself as a need in their financial life.

More Profitable Marketing Activity

Can you spend on marketing without expecting profit? Of course, the answer is no. This is often the issue with static, one-dimensional marketing approaches. You can easily purchase a beautiful, full-page print advertisement in your local business magazine and have no idea if it actually generates leads or ROI. You can send out a blanket mailer to your entire client list promoting a new service and never receive a call back to learn more. You can invite 100 prospects and clients to an in-person educational event, and while you may have a few substantial conversations, you could very well never speak to them about that topic again.

This lack of control and uncertainty disappears when you embrace multidimensional marketing. When you offer your prospects and clients exactly what they want, it becomes infinitely easier for them to buy into your services. As a result, you may even save money from your marketing efforts, especially since new-age marketing tactics are often more affordable than traditional marketing tactics. For instance, advertisements on LinkedIn are less expensive than print advertisements, and you get far more insight into how the ad performed and who actually took action on it.

Likewise, when you embrace a targeted, multidimensional approach, your clients and prospects better understand your services since your offerings are better spread across the market. And of course, when you have a large market target, you find more clients and, consequently, increase revenue.

For a financial advisory firm, multidimensional marketing may seem like you are losing market focus. But with the evolution of the marketing world, it’s always best to keep your sites narrow and defined. With this marketing approach, you can explore your market with flexibility and authority.

Are you interested in giving multidimensional marketing a try? Contact Beyond AUM to learn more