### WordPress - Web publishing software
Copyright 2011-2019 by the contributors
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
This program incorporates work covered by the following copyright and
permission notices:
b2 is (c) 2001, 2002 Michel Valdrighi - m@tidakada.com -
http://tidakada.com
Wherever third party code has been used, credit has been given in the code's
comments.
b2 is released under the GPL
and
WordPress - Web publishing software
Copyright 2003-2010 by the contributors
WordPress is released under the GPL
---
### GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
### Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom
to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is
intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
the GNU Lesser General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
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you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
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We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
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The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
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### TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
**0.** This License applies to any program or other work which
contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be
distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The
"Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work
based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work
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included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee
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is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program
(independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that
is true depends on what the Program does.
**1.** You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
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use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement
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no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that
users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling
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Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an
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an announcement.)
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
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may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
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**NO WARRANTY**
**11.** BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO
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KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
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THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
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WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY
AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU
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FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF
SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGES.
### END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
### How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these
terms.
To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to
attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.
Copyright (C) yyyy name of author
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper
mail.
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
when it starts in an interactive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
for details.
The hypothetical commands \`show w' and \`show c' should show the
appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
commands you use may be called something other than \`show w' and
\`show c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever
suits your program.
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or
your school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program,
if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
interest in the program `Gnomovision'
(which makes passes at compilers) written
by James Hacker.
signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program
into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library,
you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary
applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the
[GNU Lesser General Public
License](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html) instead of this
License.
How to Build a Marketing Plan for Financial Planners - sinth.info
Financial planners meeting to review their marketing plan.
Building a financial planning business can entail plenty of challenges, not the least of which is deciding how to market your new firm. A solid marketing strategy can catapult your business to success while a weak marketing plan may leave you struggling to stand out among the competition. Effectively marketing financial planning services starts with understanding who you want to serve and shaping your plan around your ideal client.
Ready to grow your client base? SmartAdvisor can help you connect with leads.
Importance of Marketing for Financial Planners
Anyone in business has likely heard the sage bit of wisdom that ‘if you build it, they will come.’ While that’s not bad advice, it’s not foolproof either.
Why? There’s so much competition in the financial services industry that it can be difficult to get seen without a concrete marketing plan in place. Simply putting up a website for your financial planning firm isn’t enough; you also have to do the work to bring prospective clients to you, at least in the beginning.
Marketing can help you develop your brand as a financial planner and increase visibility in the marketplace. Brand recognition and awareness can be critical for building trust with your audience and conveying your firm’s unique value proposition. That could help you acquire more clients, which can in turn generate more leads if those clients trust you enough to refer you to friends, family members or coworkers.
While you might be concerned with working out the legalities of establishing a new financial planning business on paper or obtaining the necessary funding you need to open the doors, marketing is not something you can afford to neglect.
Strategies for Marketing Financial Planning Services
Financial planners reviewing marketing strategies for their financial planning services.
The most important thing to remember when developing a marketing plan for a financial planning business is that you’ll need to figure out what works best for you. With that in mind, here are some tried-and-true strategies for marketing as a financial planner or advisor.
Start With a Self-Evaluation
Before creating a marketing plan to grow your client base, it’s helpful to first establish your starting point. That involves doing some analysis to better understand:
Who your biggest competitors are and how they’re marketing financial planning services
Where your strengths and weaknesses lie, relative to your competitors
Who your ideal client is and what type of buyer persona they project
What message your branding conveys with regard to what you do and why prospective clients should care
Knowing your client is perhaps the most important part of a self-evaluation. If you don’t know who you’re trying to help or what their biggest pain points are, it’s likely going to be more difficult to fine-tune your marketing message or determine where to project that message online so that it’s seen by the right people.
It’s also a good idea to evaluate any tools you might already have in place that you plan to incorporate into your marketing plan. That might include a company website, blog, email list or social media accounts.
When evaluating these tools, ask yourself how consistent your branding is across each one. Also, consider how user-friendly they are. A website that takes too long to load, for example, could lead people to click away and miss out on the valuable message you’re trying to share.
Set Your Marketing Goals
Once you’ve done the initial groundwork you can move on to setting some goals for marketing your financial planning business. You may start with some broad goals, and then narrow them down to make them specific and actionable.
For example, your initial goals for marketing may include:
Those aren’t bad but you’ll need to narrow them down. For instance, instead of saying that you want to grow your social media presence, you might specify that you want to gain 1,000 new followers on Instagram or TikTok if you’re marketing on those channels. You might also set a goal to acquire 20 new clients within the next six months.
Once you have a goal in mind, you can then lay out a plan for achieving it. For instance, if you’re hoping to get your first 1,000 followers on TikTok your marketing action steps might include spending time on the app to get a better understanding of what type of content gets the most views, likes or shares, brainstorming a list of content ideas and creating a consistent schedule for posting.
Develop Your Content Strategy
There are a number of different types of content you might produce when marketing financial planning services. The options include:
Having so many choices can be a little overwhelming if you’re just getting started with marketing as a financial planner. You may benefit from focusing on one type of content to start, then branching out to try your hand at other forms of content creation.
One thing to keep in mind regardless of the type of content you’re creating is search engine optimization or SEO. SEO encompasses a number of techniques but what it comes down to is this: Making content that can be easily found in search engines.
With so many people using online search to access financial information and connect with financial planners and advisors, spending time learning about SEO can be a worthwhile investment. You may also consider hiring an SEO expert to evaluate your website or marketing content and offer advice on how to improve it.
Remember that any content you create should reflect your branding and your unique value proposition. The message you send to prospective clients should be consistent and immediately tell them what it is you bring to the table. Prospects may need to be told what you can do for them multiple times in order to be convinced to try your services.
Leverage Existing Audiences to Market Your Business
Creating your own website and maintaining social media channels or an email newsletter are all ways to get your brand out there and build an audience. But the reality is that doing all of those things yourself can be time-consuming and exhausting and it may take a little while for your efforts to begin producing fruit.
If you don’t have the means to outsource some of those activities or you’re not yet seeing the kind of results that you’d like, you might consider looking into opportunities to leverage an existing audience as part of your marketing plan. For example, that might include:
Being a guest on a podcast that has an established following
Writing a guest article for a popular website whose readers represent your target client base
Taking part in an online webinar or workshop as part of an expert panel
Getting quoted as an expert in media outlets, which can help build your credibility
Collaborating with other financial professionals or publications in the financial space can help put your business in the spotlight. Even if it’s only for a moment, you may still be able to reap significant benefits from the extra exposure.
Track What’s Working (and What’s Not)
Marketing as a financial planner may have ups and downs and it’s important to focus your time, energy and money on things that produce results. Keeping track of each strategy you implement and tracking it in measurable ways month to month can offer some insight into what you’re doing well, where you may need to adjust and what you might want to spend less time on.
Some of the metrics you might track include:
The most important metric, of course, is conversions. The best and most effective marketing strategies are the ones that help you to gain a steady stream of new clients. If you’re spending time and money on something that isn’t helping you to get those valuable leads, you may want to dial back your focus on in that area.
You may also consider simplifying lead generation to drive better results. Using an online lead generation tool like SmartAdvisor, for example, can help bring qualified leads to you. That could free up time you could spend serving your existing clients and scaling your business.
Bottom Line
Financial planners discussing how to implement a marketing plan for their financial planning services.
Marketing a financial planning business usually means going through some trial and error. Taking time to research different tactics, understand your clients and hone your brand message can increase your chances of seeing success at a comfortable pace.
Tips for Growing Your Advisory Business
Getting referrals can help you to grow your advisory business but online search can be an exceptionally valuable addition to your marketing plan. The more visible you are online, the easier it may be for clients to find you. If you don’t have a lot of time to spend on launching a digital marketing campaign, you might let a tool like SmartAdvisor do the work for you. SmartAdvisor is an online lead-generation tool that can help bring clients right to your inbox.
Social media is a critical element in any online marketing plan. Developing an effective approach for social media marketing means knowing where prospective clients typically spend their time online. Identifying the channels they visit the most can help you better shape your social media content and messaging. If you’re unsure where your clients spend their time, sending out a simple survey is an easy way to find out.