By 2025, more than $16 trillion in assets are expected to be managed with the support of a robo offering. To put that number in perspective, it’s three times the assets of the world’s current largest investment firm.
If you’ve included a robo offering as part of your portfolio of services, you’re probably hoping to reach out to a new target demographic and let its members know financial planning resources exist to support them. Even if they aren’t sure whether they’re ready to commit to a full-fledged financial planning or wealth management partnership, offering a tech-based relationship can empower them to begin investing in their financial success.
If you’re providing a robo offering as an avenue for connecting with new clients, you may be concerned about how and when to promote these services as part of your financial planning offerings. After all, if you’ve built a reputation on personal connection and high-touch service, how do you incorporate a robo offering into the value proposition?
We’ve put together some guidelines for creating value with a robo offering and using it to attract a new demographic of clients to your firm.
Strategy #1: Consider Connecting Differently
You’ve built a brand and reputation on your ability to connect with your clients. When you’re striving to connect with a new generation of clients, you may wonder about how to build the right relationships.
While most high net worth individuals recognize the important role a financial advisor can play in their personal wealth management, many people who are still building their wealth don’t recognize the benefits a traditional advisor can provide.
For example, only 11 percent of millennials currently use a financial advisor, and less than 30 percent plan to create a relationship with one in the future. A robo offering should be positioned as a way for them to begin a relationship without feeling like the additional expense makes it a high stakes commitment.
Consider connecting through different channels to create these relationships. For example, you should still make valuable face-to-face connections, but you should also create online opportunities to connect, such as lead magnets that allow you to collect email addresses in exchange for sharing valuable content or access to a webinar or other program.
Strategy #2: Give Your Potential Clients Plenty of Information to Guide Their Decision-Making
Millennial consumers are far more likely to rely on online information, particularly content marketing like blogs, than they are to connect with traditional advertising options.
These consumers want to have a good grasp and understanding of the product or service they’re buying into before they make a commitment. For example, 95 percent of consumers choose the solution that provides content to answer questions and support the value of its offering at every step of the way.
Connection in this case means giving your prospective clients enough information to be well-informed and assess whether a solution is right for them. Creating white papers, offering video demonstrations, and highlighting the technological capabilities of your robo offering can help support your potential clients through the decision-making phase and “sell” your value more thoroughly than traditional advertisements.
Strategy #3: Determine the Appropriate Amount of Online Visibility for Your Business
If you’re working to reach new potential clients with a robo offering, it’s important to make sure you have accessible online information supporting that offering. However, you don’t have to place your robo option front and center on your website.
Generally, your site should appeal to the broader part of your consumer base. If your main focus is serving high or ultra-high net worth individuals, you know they want a high-touch relationship and will benefit more from a traditional relationship with your firm.
For new clients you’re seeking to bring on board with a robo offering, you can still make information available online, but will want to consider placing it in a less prominent area or creating a microsite that specifically highlights the robo offering. Then, as you promote your offering online, through means like social media, email marketing or pay-per-click advertising, you can send interested parties directly to the page that highlights the robo offering.
You may also want to give the robo offering landing pages a slightly different look or style to differentiate the service from your other offerings. Your messaging can also have a different tone if you’re seeking to appeal to a more tech-savvy or younger audience, but make sure you stay on-brand and don’t let your tone come across as patronizing.
In addition to ensuring you’re pushing this offering to the right potential clients, personalizing and targeting communications to specific groups can generate higher response rates. Segmented email campaigns can generate up to a 760 percent increase in revenue, so separating out this content makes sense from a marketing perspective as well.
If you have a robo offering and are trying to find the best way to present it to your clients, Out & About Communications can help. We work with many financial advisors and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals to build strategies for growth as well as introduce new products and services.
Take a look at our portfolio of award-winning work to see how we’ve helped others highlight their services, and how we can help you.
