When I meet with an advisor for the first time, I always ask, “What one urgent problem do you solve for a specific niche?” The answer to that question is the heart of your marketing strategy.
Having a one-sentence explanation of the urgent and specific problem you solve for a unique set of clients is critical for your marketing for three reasons:
- First, we need your existing clients to be able to answer that question so they can introduce you to folks who need your help.
- Second, we need referrals to understand your answer so they believe that you’re uniquely suited to help them.
- Third, we need to communicate your answer to prospects through your marketing to attract your ideal clients.
Have you taken the time to articulate your answer?
Why You Need To Answer This Question
Oftentimes, clients aren’t sure how to introduce you to people in their network who need your help. They may say, “We really trust him,” or “She’s helped us with our financial plan,” but that doesn’t convey your expertise or explain why you’re the best person to help the referral.
To make an impact, we need them to position you as the go-to expert in your unique niche. It’s important to train them with a simple statement that explains exactly what you do and how you help.
Through your marketing, you should repeat this idea over and over until everyone you know understands and can communicate your unique specialty.
Do You Know Who You Serve Best?
The problem is that very few advisors have taken the time to figure out the one urgent problem they solve for a specific group of people. Have you?
Maybe you don’t want to define your niche because you fear it’ll limit your scope. Of course, you do more than solve one problem for a specific group of people. But for your marketing efforts, it pays to be specific.
In my case, I help specialist advisors target their ideal prospects with content marketing. I do other things too—like teach advisors how to use LinkedIn and run search engine optimization for their websites—but the core of my work is content marketing for advisors with a true specialty.
How To Define Your Specialty (Without Alienating Anyone)
“The riches are in the niches,” I always say—especially when it comes to digital marketing. Embracing a specialty doesn’t mean you can’t serve people who fall outside of that niche, it just means you have a clearly defined audience to target with your marketing.
Without a defined specialty, you get lost in the online masses and end up wasting a lot of marketing dollars. It can be frustrating.
I find that most advisors either draw a blank or give way too much information when asked what they do and who they serve. What about you?
If you’re struggling to figure out who you serve best, I highly encourage you to attend my free webinar workshop on Radical Relevance. It walks you through how to choose a niche and create a radically relevant marketing message that resonates with that group.
How To Create Your One-Sentence Answer
If you don’t have a clear, one-sentence answer to the question “What one urgent problem do you solve for a specific niche?” take 10 minutes today to come up with one!
I find that it helps to picture your top clients mentioning your firm to their friends. What would you like them to say? How would you like them to position your expertise?
Download the worksheet below to brainstorm characteristics of your top clients to see what they have in common. (This worksheet is part of The LinkedIn Course for Financial Advisors. Enroll in the course today to learn everything top advisors are doing to generate new business on LinkedIn.)
After you complete the worksheet, there are two templates you can use to create your answer:
- “I help [TARGET AUDIENCE] do [XYZ].”
- “I specialize in providing [SERVICES] to [TARGET AUDIENCE].”
Here are a few good examples from advisors I know:
- “We help LGBT executives retire on time.”
- “I help anesthesiologists prepare their practices for a buyout and retirement.”
- “We help business owners remove assets from their business so they can find true wealth.”
- “I specialize in providing comprehensive wealth management and financial services to healthcare workers and physicians.”
- “I specialize in providing retirement and income planning to state and federal employees.”
What’s your statement? If you’re comfortable, share your answer with me. I love to learn more about advisors like you!
Need Help With Your Marketing? We’re Just A Phone Call Away!
If you need help identifying a viable target market for your firm, we’d love to help! Schedule a free marketing strategy session here and we’ll go over what’s working for your marketing and what’s not. We’ll also give you actionable tips on how you can improve your marketing today.
If you’d like to learn how to grow your business by 25% in 2021, register for my latest webinar here. (It’s my most requested webinar to date, so I’m excited to share it with you!) You can also sign up for my newsletter for more marketing tips each and every week!
About Claire
Claire Akin runs Indigo Marketing Agency, a marketing firm serving top independent financial advisors. She is a former Investment Advisor Representative who holds her MBA in Marketing from the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego as well as a BA in Economics from UC Davis. It’s Claire’s goal to help specialist advisors target their ideal prospects with content marketing.
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