While scouting for a marketing agency, there’s a lot to choose from–and you might find the process a bit overwhelming. One thing in particular to decide is whether to opt for a full-service marketing firm or a boutique agency.

Our take? A boutique agency is the way to go. Maybe we’re a bit biased since we’re a boutique marketing agency ourselves. But here’s what you need to know about the boutique advantage–and some tips for getting even more out of your agency collaboration.

The Boutique Advantage: Why Choose a Boutique Marketing Agency?

The Axle Eight is made up of marketing professionals of all backgrounds–traditional agencies, boutique agencies, in-house team members. In other words, we’ve seen all sides of the fence. If you’re going to work with a marketing agency, boutique is best.

The Bespoke Approach

Every marketing category has its share of general best practices that can apply to most situations, but each business and industry will have its own nuances, too. What works best for one vertical may completely flop when applied somewhere else. 

Except larger firms tend toward a “one-size-fits-all” approach and apply the same marketing strategies across all their clients. The strategy they implement for you might work–or it might not.

Boutique agencies focus on customized solutions. The marketing channels and strategies applied to your account will be crafted from the ground up specifically for your unique business. Each business has its unique audience, market, and personas that significantly influence which marketing strategies will resonate. 

Your business is different. We are too—it takes one to know one.

Agile and Adaptive

When is business ever predictable? Your business and marketing needs could change on a dime. Your agency needs to be able to keep up.

Nimble, specialist-packed teams at a boutique marketing agency are better positioned to quickly adapt to changing client needs or market dynamics. Smaller teams aren’t dragged down by complex processes or long chains of command, which makes them inherently more flexible and responsive. 

While quality work can’t always be as fast as a same or next-day turnaround, you can expect quick response times and prompt action on high priority items.

An Extension of Your Team

A boutique agency’s client-focused approach means that they feel more like an extension of your team than an external service provider. With closer relationships comes improved communication, deeper understandings, faster response times, enhanced flexibility–and maybe even pet introductions and inside jokes shared along the way. 

You’re not just another client in a vast portfolio; you’re a partner in a shared mission to elevate your brand. 

Marketing is about being relatable on a human level to your brand’s audience. If you can’t relate to your marketing agency, how can you expect your agency to relate to your audience?

Key Questions to Ask a Potential Marketing Agency

Next up: narrowing down your options to find the perfect fit.

Even after deciding to take the boutique marketing agency route, you’ll have a lot of options to choose from. Before launching into a partnership, poke around. Ask questions. Snoop for customer reviews.

The perfect agency for your team is out there. To get a feel for the agency’s expertise, operations, and potential fit, ask questions like:

• What services do you offer, and what don’t you offer? Are you versatile enough to meet our unique needs?
• Do you have experience working with other clients in my industry? Can you provide any case studies?
• Who will be my main point of contact, and who will I be working with on the team?
• How will you collaborate with my in-house marketing team?
• Will there be a contract? How long will we be locked in?
• How do you measure success? What metrics will you be monitoring for us?
• How long will it take to start seeing results?
• Are there additional fees for “rush” projects, and if so, how much?
• For creative work, how much can I edit or request changes? Is there a limit on revisions?

Another unspoken question to keep in your mind during those initial conversations: do our personalities match up well? Boutique marketing agencies are all about building relationships, and it’ll be easier to connect with a team that matches your passion, energy, and excitement. 

Tips to Harness the Full Potential of Your Boutique Marketing Agency

Like any relationship, both sides will need to put forward a bit of effort to achieve the best results. The agency will do the heavy lifting when it comes to marketing strategy and implementation–but they’ll need your support and industry expertise along the way.

Here’s how your business can hold up your side of the relationship and maximize the results you get in the end.

Reflect on Your Goals and Provide Information

Before meeting with the boutique marketing agency for the first time, reflect on your own business goals, strengths, and challenges. Anything you can share about product offerings and company initiatives can help.

• What problem is your business solving?
• What makes you different?
• Who are your main competitors?
• What do you know about your target audiences? 

Gather up some resources you can share to help introduce your company. Beyond your public-facing website and social channels, do you have any sales collateral, pitch decks, or content you’ve created in the past? 

A good agency will supplement your information with thorough research as they dive deeper into your company and industry. That said, a solid starting point helps them get situated and launch much faster.

Be Responsive

Your agency will handle marketing strategy and execution, but you’re the expert in your space. Ongoing communication and collaboration is a crucial ingredient in the recipe for success!

Early on in an initiative, this might mean interviews to get your expert insight or opinion. Farther into an initiative, you’ll likely need to approve most or all of what the boutique marketing agency creates before it can go live.

The quicker you respond, the faster they can move forward with your marketing strategy, launch ads and content, and start generating results.

As you build familiarity and trust with your agency, this part of the process will get faster and easier. But starting out, it’s crucial to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Be Patient

Marketing results are rarely immediate, so patience is key. Especially for niche companies, it can take time for the agency to test different strategies and optimize for best results.

There will also be a learning curve as the agency picks up the ins and outs of your specific industry. You’re an expert in your field–with years or even decades of experience in your space, you know your stuff better than anyone. As your boutique marketing agency takes the time to learn from you, you’ll be supporting their ability to market your brand effectively.

Be Open to Learning

Just as the agency will learn from your expertise, you should be open to learning about theirs. During the partnership, the agency will likely introduce you to new marketing strategies you might not be familiar with.

Boutique agencies are packed with highly experienced team members with specialized knowledge. Instead of marketing “jack-of-all-trades” generalists, you’ll be working with professionals who know advanced strategies and best practices in their focus area–and how to best fit their piece of the puzzle into the overall marketing strategy.

Remember that a solid partnership is built on trust, collaboration, and a shared goal of success.

Axle Eight: Your Boutique Marketing Agency

We hear it time and again that we don’t operate like most other marketing agencies—and we intend to keep it that way. At Axle Eight, we’re obsessed with personalized strategies, flexibility, and genuine relationships with our clients. We don’t just offer services; we solve problems and get results.

If you’re ready to take your marketing strategy to the next level with a boutique agency that takes the time to sync with your needs, reach out and let’s explore working together!

What is ChatGPT?

First, let’s talk about what ChatGPT is and how it works. ChatGPT is a large language model that uses deep learning techniques to generate human-like responses to natural language queries. It was trained on a vast amount of text data, including conversations, books, and articles, and has been specifically designed to understand the nuances and subtleties of human language.

One of the key ways that ChatGPT differs from other language models is that it is designed to be “interactive.” This means that it can continue a conversation and generate responses based on previous input, allowing for more natural and fluid conversations. This is in contrast to other language models, which often generate responses based on a single query without taking into account previous input.

How will ChatGPT change SEO as we know it?

So, how does this relate to SEO? Well, one of the biggest challenges in the world of SEO is understanding and predicting how people search for information online. Search engine algorithms, such as Google’s, are designed to provide users with the most relevant and useful results for their queries, but this can be difficult to do when people use complex, multi-faceted language to express their needs.

More Accurate, In-Depth Results for What You’re Searching For

ChatGPT, with its ability to understand and respond to natural language queries, has the potential to make search algorithms more effective and more accurate. By “listening” to a user’s query and generating responses based on that query, ChatGPT could help search engines better understand the intent behind a user’s search, and provide more relevant and useful results.

One potential way that ChatGPT could disrupt Google is by improving the accuracy and relevance of search results. As mentioned earlier, ChatGPT is trained on a vast amount of text data and is designed to understand the nuances and subtleties of human language. This means that it has the potential to better understand the intent behind a user’s search query and provide more relevant and useful results. If ChatGPT is able to provide significantly better search results than Google, it could potentially attract users away from Google and disrupt its dominant position in the search engine market.

Improving Website Experiences

Another potential way that ChatGPT could disrupt SEO and Google is by improving the user experience on websites.  ChatGPT could be used to power chatbots on websites, allowing users to ask questions and receive helpful, human-like responses in real time. This could improve the user’s experience on a website, potentially leading to higher engagement and conversions. If ChatGPT is able to significantly improve the user experience on websites, it could potentially give businesses a competitive advantage over those using Google’s search engine, which could disrupt Google’s dominance in the market.

ChatGPT Can Write Relevant and Optimized Content For Your Business

Finally, ChatGPT could also have a big impact on the way that content is created for the web. As we mentioned earlier, ChatGPT is trained on vast amounts of text data, including conversations, books, and articles. This means that it has a deep understanding of human language and how it is used. By leveraging this knowledge, writers and content creators could use ChatGPT to generate high-quality, engaging content that is optimized for search engines. If businesses are able to use ChatGPT to generate better content than their competitors, it could absolutely give them an edge in the search engine rankings and cause complete disruption to everything we know about SEO today.

Overall, ChatGPT has the potential to be a game-changer in the world of SEO. Its ability to understand and respond to natural language queries, improve the user experience on websites, and generate high-quality content could help search engines provide more relevant and useful results, and help businesses better engage and convert their audience. While it’s still early days for ChatGPT, there’s no doubt that this technology has the potential to revolutionize the world of SEO in the future.

At Axle Eight, we’re looking at ways all of our clients can begin to utilize the power of this technology today. If you’re interested in working with a forward-thinking agency, get in touch with us! 

Search engines can’t easily parse and index audio content

Video transcription is a great way to improve how well your content will rank in search engines (SEO). Search engines cannot easily parse and index audio content, but they can parse text. Transcripts provide value by allowing keywords and phrases from your videos to be indexed and improve your ranking in search results. This really helps you maximize your ROI for your content strategy and SEO efforts.

In addition, longer videos are more likely to rank higher because there’s more keyword opportunity for the search engine to find. If you make sure you have good-quality, accurate transcriptions or all of your videos, they’re also more likely to be linked to, which helps with your backlink profile.

Video descriptions and brief summaries are also important for user experience. Doing this for each video transcript page on your site will make sure that everyone who views these pages sees these important pieces of information first thing on their screen instead of having scroll down or sort through long pages of text just trying to what they’re looking for.

Reach a wider audience by making your content accessible

It’s also important that your audience finds what they’re looking for when they come to your website or channel. A transcript also allows you to reach a broader audience by making your content accessible for people who are in places where they can’t watch the video because they’re at work or somewhere else where it isn’t appropriate (such as a class, or in a waiting room). Many people like to read transcripts while watching videos anyway—it allows them focus on one thing at a time, which helps keep their brain engaged.

Additionally, transcription makes videos fully accessible to those who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as those who prefer reading over watching. It’s a really great way to make sure you are fully inclusive!

You open up more internal link-building opportunities on your website

When you start adding more content, such as video transcriptions, you open up more internal link-building opportunities on your website. If you’re publishing video content, you’ll most likely have related content on your website that viewers might be interested in reading or watching. By including links to these resources within the transcript of your video, you’re helping them find that content and engage with it.

Additionally, internal links are important for user experience and engagement. They increase the likelihood that a viewer will stay on your site longer because they are able to follow related topics throughout the site’s navigation structure without having to click over to another page (which would require an extra step).

Use videos to their full advantage for SEO

Video transcripts are a great way to improve your SEO and get more traffic. You provide more information about your videos to search engines, you reach a wider audience by making your content accessible, and you open up more internal link-building opportunities on your website. The best part is that it’s something you can do yourself and doesn’t require expert knowledge or complicated software! If you’re looking for more help on the SEO front from industry experts, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team at Axle Eight – we love working with brands who understand what quality content can do for their business.

TikTok and older demographics

The number of Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers using TikTok have exploded in the past few years. In fact, TikTok is now used by millions of Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers but often times brands overlook TikTok as a platform to reach this audience. The hours spent on TikTok for the demographic of 35+ year old’s has grown faster than any other social media platform usage in history.

Mistake number one many companies make is completely dismissing this platform as a valid marketing opportunity for their business because they do not yet understand it (or use it themselves). This is a mistake, because there are millions of Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers on TikTok using it every day. Not to mention, people are spending more than 3X the amount of  time on TikTok vs. Instagram and a little less than 2X the amount of time on TikTok vs. Facebook. For the past 4 years, user’s time in-app on TikTok has continued to grown exponentially.

TikTok for B2B Companies

TikTok is being used by some of the largest B2B brands too. And the platform has not yet seen widespread adoption, making it a lower cost option for advertising and maximizing your media spend, at least for now.

Companies from Adobe to Shopify, Sage Accounting Software, and even corporate accountants, attorneys and commercial real estate companies are getting advertising on TikTok and growing huge organic followings because it’s one of the easier platforms to create content that goes viral (even for the beginner).

TikTok is a great place for B2B brands to advertise, but it’s not the only platform you should be using. As an agency that specializes in helping businesses grow their reach and revenue through social media marketing, we also recommend Facebook and Instagram advertising as two other platforms that give B2B brands the ability to target specific audiences with hyper-targeted ads – and yes, B2B brands can get INCREDIBLE results on these platforms too, despite them also being seen as a B2C powerhouse. They have targeting capabilities that lend themselves very powerful for direct audience targeting for most all B2B target audiences and is also great for retargeting their website traffic.

TikTok can be used by any company

Companies of nearly every shape and size can use TikTok to amplify their brand, but there are a few things to keep in mind when doing so.

#1: If you’re looking to get started advertising on TikTok, make sure you first create a few organic posts on your profile that are relevant to your audience.

People don’t like to see an empty company profile if they click to learn a bit more about the company first from an ad. They want to see that you’re at least somewhat active here. If you just start hitting people with ads and promotions instead of creating non-promoted content first, you’ll likely get negative feedback from users who don’t want to see those types of posts in their feed.

#2 for organically posted content don’t use hashtags that have been overused by other brands who have a lot of followers.

For example, if you search for the hashtag #TikTokChallenges on TikTok, there are millions of videos with that tag. That means there’s already a lot of competition for this hashtag, so it’s unlikely that you’ll get many impressions from using it. Instead, try to find a more niche hashtag that isn’t as popular yet i.e. #RealEstateTikTokChallenges. By doing so, you can get more exposure from users who are searching for content related exactly to what you’re creating.

This leads well into the final recommendation… which is relevant for both ads and organic TikTok content. Always make sure above anything else that your content is relevant, engaging and is crafted with your ideal target audience in mind.

If you’re just posting videos of people doing something irrelevant to what your target audience cares about, it won’t get many views, likes, or click-throughs from users you are targeting. Instead, try to find out what people are searching for on TikTok in your industry by doing some research and create content around that topic. You can easily look through all the videos on TikTok related to a particular hashtag and see what types of videos people are posting that are getting great engagement then make it your own with a unique angle or spin to it.

PRO TIP: Use TikTok’s Creator Marketplace to search for ideal TikTok creators to collaborate with for your brand!

TikTok Advertising Opportunity in Summary

If you aren’t looking at TikTok for your company’s marketing, you could be missing out on one of the biggest secret opportunities for your industry. TikTok is the fastest-growing social media platform in the world and reaches millions of users every day. And now you know, it’s NOT just teenagers! And for all of the reasons listed above in this article, TikTok is a great platform for advertisers who want to reach all audiences, despite the common misconception of demographics using the app. The videos are short, the soundtracks are upbeat, and there’s no better way to connect with ideal customers than through beautifully crafted, educational and engaging content. Plus, since TikTok ads manager is a new platform, marketers can possibly get their products or services in front of people with an overall cheaper media budget (higher ROI!).

So if you’re looking for new ways to attract customers while also engaging them in ways that people from your industry might be missing out on, TikTok may be worth checking out. Don’t rule it out, my friends! And if you need some assistance or want to talk through some strategies, reach out to our team at Axle Eight for a complimentary strategy session.

It’s time to rethink traditional financial advisor marketing

If you haven’t done it already, it’s time to rethink traditional financial advisor marketing.

Advertising on TV, in print or even on social media is not going to get you the results you need. Most of these channels are expensive and ineffective at attracting new clients. Not to mention – they’re INCREDIBLY HARD TO TRACK. We want the data, and we want to make marketing investment decisions based on results, right? Mmm hmm. Even having just a website isn’t cutting it anymore. Many financial advisors have outdated sites, poorly written website copy that doesn’t answer important questions, and no visibility on Google search results for keywords that would lead prospects straight to them!

The internet is the best way to reach your target audience and find new clients, but if you don’t have an effective strategy in place with execution tactics in mind then all your efforts will be wasted. Here’s a few of our favorite, and proven, tactics that our financial advisor clients have seen over 850% growth with across the board.

Refresh your branding so your company has a personality.

Branding is more than just a logo, it’s your first impression and data shows you get less than 5 seconds to make a positive one.

Branding is about how your clients and prospects perceive you, feel about you and think of you. Your website needs to be approachable and make people want to be friends with your brand (or fall in love so hard they believe your company would be their perfect marriage for their needs- love at first sight!).The first thing people see when they land on your website is the homepage. The goal of this page is to make visitors want to stay and then convert! It should tell them what you do, why it’s important and how you can help them. It should also be visually appealing so that people are excited about what they’re seeing and reading.

Refresh your website and optimize it for search.

Refresh your website and optimize it for search. You’re not going to get very far without a well-designed site that people can find easily. The best way to do this is by using a professional web designer who knows how to modernize your site and nail down your UX (user experience) for the best possible conversion rate optimization (CRO). SEO is critical to attracting new clients this day and age. The top financial advisors are using this to their advantage. This means you need to make sure you include a blog on your site (you’ll be writing a lot of content here!). You’ll also need to make sure each page has full titles/meta tags optimized for low hanging fruit keywords and create pages that provide helpful in-depth content that is visually appealing. Your website should also have videos, easily accessible navigation to other helpful content such as resources, and the pages you want them to view.

• TIP: Make sure you add your Google Analytics tag. With the Google Analytics tag added to your site there will be no more guessing about where conversions came from in your marketing efforts—you’ll have objective data telling you what works!

Get client testimonials that speak to what new clients can expect working with you.

Client testimonials are a great way to promote your business.

Place your testimonials throughout your website, but particularly important to have them on your home page for brand credibility purposes for that first impression. You want people who visit the site or pop into a meeting with you to know that other people like them have worked with you and were happy with it. It’s critical that new clients understand what they can expect when working with a financial advisor like you from their very first interaction. Bonus points if you’re able to get testimonials that highlight what makes you unique.

Not to mention, did you know that having really solid client testimonials can more than 3x your website conversion rates?! If you typically convert 3 out of every 100 people into leads who visit your home page, you can imagine how this quickly begins to become a game changer. If you get 1000 to your site in a month, now you’re talking 90 leads that month! Plus, this is a super easy conversion rate optimization tip to implement this month.

Create a content strategy that attracts your target audience

Start by taking a look at some of the financial advisors websites that you admire most. What type of content are they creating on their site? And how frequently?

Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush or Moz to conduct keyword research and perform an SEO content gap analysis to plan out which topics to write about. These tools provide invaluable data and insights into your competitors top performing web content, how much organic traffic they get each month, and what search queries have high search volumes and low keyword difficulties.

It’s also important to identify if any specific keywords are missing from your website or need more attention than others based on their user intent (i.e. long-tail keywords) in order to rank higher in Google SERPs over time–this will help attract new visitors who may be looking for information related specifically on those topics and topics only found within this space as well!

Create free content, like ebooks, guides, and industry reports as lead magnets to drive qualified leads.

People love data and trends when thinking about their financial wellbeing. Create a survey and then create a downloadable industry report. We’ve seen these bring in tons of qualified traffic, and they tend to get a ton of backlinks from other websites which is really helpful for SEO..

Use content as a lead magnet to get people interested in your services and sign up for your newsletter. Once you have their contact information you’ll be able to nurture them through your emails or even retarget them through other advertising channels if they download other helpful resources that you might have or schedule consultations with them.

We’ve seen these types of content help clients grow their lead lists by more than 10x. It’s really powerful and it just flat-out works!

Create an engaging, informative blog with plenty of helpful articles.

In the world of finance, blogs are an excellent way to create content that attracts attention because people are turning to search engines and social media to get their information. If a blog’s author is established as an authority on the subject, readers will be more likely to trust their advice. That authority should be you!! Plus, if you’re worried about getting started or don’t want to worry about writing your own content all the time, there are plenty of freelance writers who can help you out (and they may even charge less than what it would cost you in overhead). Make sure you properly vet your freelancers for the technicalities that come with financial services. 

If you get stuck, reach out to us. We can point you in the right direction for how to find them. If you prefer that our team of financial industry marketing experts at Axle Eight can help you instead, we can talk that over too!

The best thing about blogs? They’re quick and easy to set up! That’s right—you don’t need any special equipment or software to start one up and get it running. All you need is an idea and some passion for sharing your expertise with others…pluuuus some data and research to support your topics and content strategy so you can optimize all of your posts for SEO and get more qualified traffic to your site, of course. 

Update your website regularly to reflect new insights, strategies and trends that may affect your clients.

Keeping your website current is an important part of maintaining a strong online presence. Additionally, it sends search engine algorithms positive signals that increase your SEO. 

Make sure that you’re consistent in the way you brand yourself online. Choose a style and stick with it across all of your social media channels, blog posts and your website. This will help build trust with your audience and give them an idea of what to expect from your content. 

When you’re writing blog posts, think about how they can be used to drive traffic. Make sure that your blog has a consistent theme and focus on topics that are relevant to your business. If you’re not sure what kind of content your audience wants, try surveying them or running an online poll.

Use video marketing to demonstrate your expertise.

Videos are a great way to demonstrate your expertise as a financial advisor. You can further explain concepts such as the basics of investing, financial planning, portfolio diversification, term life insurance, dollar cost averaging, 529 plans, 1031 exchanges and so many other financial concepts in an easy-to-understand way, making it simple for clients who want to learn more about their finances but don’t want to read through pages of text and prefer video format.

Videos also show off your personality, which helps build trust with potential clients and makes them feel like they’re getting one-on-one attention from you.

When using video marketing in your business, there are three main things you should do: 

1. Talk about all the issues that affect people’s lives;
2. Help them understand why their situation is different from everyone else’s and there is not a cookie cutter set and forget it approach that’s sustainable; 
3. Give specific advice on what needs changing and how they can achieve those changes (if appropriate).

Create an automated nurture email series to keep in touch with prospects.

Let’s say you’re already using something like Mailchimp or Infusionsoft (or whatever your favorite email platform is) to send out helpful content via email. You want to continue doing this, but also want to create some nurturing programs that will help keep prospects engaged and ready for sales conversations when they come along.

The best way to do this is through a series of automated emails that go out over the course of several weeks or even months after someone signs up for your newsletter. The key here is creating an engaging series that educates while also giving prospects just enough information so they know how best to move forward in their journey towards financial freedom with you as their financial advisor.

Some ideas include:

• Tips on building wealth (e.g. investing)
• Advice about what financial products might be best suited for them (e.g., life insurance vs term insurance vs long-term care insurance)
• Information about upcoming events and webinars related specifically toward helping people reach their goals (e.g., “5 Tips To Retire Early With Pension Income”). This way, it isn’t just all about the product; it’s also about helping people understand what might work best for them personally!

Send a newsletter that includes relevant news and advice, along with tips and tricks to build wealth.

Don’t underestimate the value of newsletters. They’re a great way to stay in touch with prospects that have gone dormant, and they can help you continue to be a thought leader for your existing clients. Newsletters are also an ideal way to highlight new services or products you offer, or other value added things like ebooks or guides, new blogs on topics relevant to your business, webinars, consultations and testimonials from happy clients. You can even use newsletters as an opportunity to highlight original video content you’ve created!

Get traffic from other websites through backlink building

Backlinks are important for SEO and help bring you additional web traffic. Get yourself listed online with all the major directories that clients look up when they’re shopping for advisors (S&P, Morningstar, third party websites and blogs, etc). These will not only get you new website traffic but will also get you that SEO bump by providing a backlink.

There are also several ways to creatively get backlinks. Reach out to bloggers who talk about finance and personal finance, ask them if they’d be willing to write a piece on your company or service – either pay them for it or trade some value (like promoting their blog post on social media). If a blogger writes something about your company/service then make sure there is a link back to your website (Ideally a do follow link) so that you can get additional SEO value and more traffic to your website! Pay attention though because not every site is created equal! Also think about what industry keywords might be valuable to your SEO strategy and see about getting those in anchors for your backlinks on these bloggers sites.

Use paid media to increase leads and grow your social following

Paid advertising is a great way to increase your leads and your social following. You can target your audience on numerous platforms like through Google search queries on Google Ads Manager or by certain job titles or industries on LinkedIn. We’ve seen financial advisors get great traction with high quality leads when doing targeted ads on LinkedIn and Facebook with solid content and lead magnet campaigns.

Run ads on social channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram that get your target audience to take a simple action that provides them value, such as download a free industry report on a topic they care about, or some other guide, checklist or template to help them on their financial journey.

You can track your results with the direct advertising platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads Manager and LinkedIn Ads Manager so you know which campaigns are giving you the best ROI over time so you can replicate those successes with other campaigns later down the line. 

Google analytics and UTMs will also allow you to be able to see which advertising channel was responsible for each conversion from these campaigns so if one lead comes through because someone clicked through from an ad but another two were from SEO efforts or email efforts, you’ll be able to tell!

Don’t be afraid to make the leap! Acquiring more clients for your financial advising business doesn’t have to be a chore.

Don’t be afraid to make the leap! Acquiring more clients for your financial advising business doesn’t have to be a chore. You can do it! And if you’re wondering why I’m sounding like a motivational speaker, it’s because this is an important part of your success.

When we get into fear mode, we stop ourselves from moving forward with our goals and ambitions. We become paralyzed by the anxiety and doubt that comes with taking risks on our own behalf or on behalf of others who need us in order to succeed at their own goals and ambitions. And when we allow ourselves to get stuck in this negative mindset, we end up losing out on opportunities that would otherwise help us grow our businesses (and lives) exponentially—if only we had stepped out of our comfort zone long enough to pursue them!

So don’t let fear keep you from growing your business; instead, use these tips as guidelines for overcoming any hesitation or apprehension about making new marketing plans work for your financial advising practice!

You can do this, but if you need help, Axle Eight is your financial advisor marketing expert team.

If you’re ready to take your financial advising business to the next level, it’s time to get creative. There are plenty of ways that you can use these marketing strategies and tactics as a financial advisor to attract more clients and grow your practice. Don’t be afraid! Take a step back from your day-to-day activities and think about how you can expand on what works and improve on what doesn’t. If you just don’t have the time or the team to fulfill this, Axle Eight is here to help. We’ve worked with countless financial services businesses and we know how to catapult yours into marketing marvel 😉 Reach out here and we’ll chat.

Marketing departments everywhere have relied on case studies to exemplify company growth. So just hear us out when we say that case studies are an absolutely essential aspect of building out a strong content marketing strategy and remarkable sales asset. That said, many companies make the mistake of creating case studies that are dull and ultimately forgettable. 

So, if you want to create a case study that is memorable, engaging and actually drives results, here is a guide to conducting a badass one:

Finding A Case Study Candidate

A case study is a designed document that exemplifies how you have driven success with a customer. With that in mind, it’s important to cherry-pick a client, past or present, who had a good overall experience with your company. 

The two primary factors that contribute to an ideal candidate are clients who have had the most success with your offerings and have the best relationship with your internal team. As a way to gut-check your candidates, consider the following:

• Are they an overall promoter of your business?
• Do they have a good phone presence?
• Will they be engaging in an interview setting?
• Do they have access to hard statistics to back up KPIs?
• How long have they engaged with your product/company?

Consult your account managers, customer success team members,  or salespeople to get the most valuable insight on clients or customers. Put together a list of potential candidates and reach out to top contenders. See if your team is willing to send that initial email and introduce the case study author/marketing team. Once you’ve locked in a candidate, you can start to plan your interview.

Gather Talking Points

A case study is a narrative designed to highlight a solution to a problem. When planning the content you want to include in your case study, treat it as though you are writing a cohesive story. At Axle Eight, we like to group interview questions into buckets based on the different stages of the timeline of this narrative.

There are essentially three stages to consider:

• Exposition: Setting The Scene

• • • Have the subject describe their business in their own words to get a general idea of their mission/purpose/audience/services
    • How were they navigating the industry prior to using your product or service?
    • Identify the pain points that led them to needing your product or service
    • How did they find your product among competitors and what were their goals?

• Action: Using The Product/Service

• • • Why did they choose your product over others in the market?
    • Have them detail their experience with your team from onboarding to support? 
    • Ask them to give specific examples of your product or service in action within their business

• Resolution: Gather Results

• • What was life like AFTER your solution was introduced?
  • How has the product or service helped them with their ability to assist their own customers?
  • Collect hard statistics on the success such as KPIs before and after integration i.e. on average they’ve saved $275,000 per year by implementing your solution
    • This can take longer to collect so ask them to have this on hand before the meeting
  • How have their pain points changed since taking advantage of your offerings?
  • Would they recommend your product or service to a peer?

Designing Your Case Study

Now that you have the tools equipped, you’ll need to make a decision about how you want to present your case study. Some people may choose to present their case study in blog format to drive SEO value or great on-site UX, while other companies may choose to use it solely for the sales team or present it as a piece of gated content for lead gen on their website. 

Assuming you are presenting it as a designed downloadable asset, here are some tips for you as you go about writing the copy for your memorable case study: 

• Define the case study company’s broad goals early (specifically those that align with your company’s value propositions)
• Use icons and imagery to break up the text and draw attention to important statistics
• Make sure you utilize hard data to make irrefutable, concrete points
• Incorporate direct quotes from your interview, especially those that mention your company explicitly.
• Use branded shapes and colors. Use highest contrast colors as the focal point more most important elements such as statistics
• Use action based language that compels the reader to take immediate action
• If available and relevant, use charts to break up text and visualize data
• Be strategic in designing the document and follow the narrative arc when presenting information
• Stay on brand by including brand colors, logos and consistent design elements throughout

Designing a case study that’s tailored to your brand can prove to be a challenge, especially if you’ve never built one before. Between design and data collection, it can take some companies months to put together a case study that drives real results. 

How Axle Eight Can Help

When it comes to marketing, staying ahead of the curve means putting out consistent content in a timely manner. But time is a resource many companies just don’t seem to have a ton of this day and age, and we get that! That’s why many businesses consult outside help to generate their content and case studies in a more effective manner. Enter Axle Eight.

Axle Eight is a boutique digital marketing agency that loves working with bold brands that aren’t afraid to push the boundaries of their respective industries. With all of our combined years of marketing expertise, we have the know-how to set your team up with a cohesive and consistent marketing strategy with a tangible ROI. Unlike competing agencies, Axle Eight understands that your business’s needs can change on a dime which is why we don’t lock you into restrictive, long-term agreements but rather present you with a flexible, month-to-month relationship. 

Interested in seeing how we can help you push your company to grow? 

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