Hello everyone! My name is Jackson Smith, one of Out & About Communications’ Digital Communications Interns. Currently a senior at the University of Missouri in Kansas City earning my degree in English, I’m excited to join the Out and About Communications family and dive into the world of digital marketing this summer. Last summer, I had a unique opportunity to spend time in Hong Kong learning various business skills with my uncle who is an entrepreneur there. Energized by the lessons I learned, I was eager to build on this experience by spending time learning from another entrepreneur, this time, in the digital marketing industry. I am stoked to have the chance to work and learn from Lauren Hong and her team. Here’s to a fun and productive summer at Out & About Communications!

Fun Facts:

• I am very creative and spend a lot of time writing poetry.
• I really like cars: my dream car is either a Cadillac CTS-V or a Porsche Boxster.
• I once climbed Mount Fuji from the bottom up in a massive rainstorm.
• In San Diego, I am most looking forward to eating as much authentic Mexican food as possible.

Hello everyone! My name is Jackson Smith, one of Out & About Communications’ Digital Communications Interns. Currently a senior at the University of Missouri in Kansas City earning my degree in English, I’m excited to join the Out and About Communications family and dive into the world of digital marketing this summer. Last summer, I had a unique opportunity to spend time in Hong Kong learning various business skills with my uncle who is an entrepreneur there. Energized by the lessons I learned, I was eager to build on this experience by spending time learning from another entrepreneur, this time, in the digital marketing industry. I am stoked to have the chance to work and learn from Lauren Hong and her team. Here’s to a fun and productive summer at Out & About Communications!

Fun Facts:

• I am very creative and spend a lot of time writing poetry.
• I really like cars: my dream car is either a Cadillac CTS-V or a Porsche Boxster.
• I once climbed Mount Fuji from the bottom up in a massive rainstorm.
• In San Diego, I am most looking forward to eating as much authentic Mexican food as possible.

Hello everyone! My name is Jackson Smith, one of Out & About Communications’ Digital Communications Interns. Currently a senior at the University of Missouri in Kansas City earning my degree in English, I’m excited to join the Out and About Communications family and dive into the world of digital marketing this summer. Last summer, I had a unique opportunity to spend time in Hong Kong learning various business skills with my uncle who is an entrepreneur there. Energized by the lessons I learned, I was eager to build on this experience by spending time learning from another entrepreneur, this time, in the digital marketing industry. I am stoked to have the chance to work and learn from Lauren Hong and her team. Here’s to a fun and productive summer at Out & About Communications!

Fun Facts:

• I am very creative and spend a lot of time writing poetry.
• I really like cars: my dream car is either a Cadillac CTS-V or a Porsche Boxster.
• I once climbed Mount Fuji from the bottom up in a massive rainstorm.
• In San Diego, I am most looking forward to eating as much authentic Mexican food as possible.

We’re looking to hire a part-time project coordinator. A great fit would be someone who digs marketing and love getting into all of the nitty gritty (taking photography, event planning, researching, scheduling social media and more!). Knowledge of Adobe Create Suite and social media platforms is a big plus. Must be based in San Diego, able to work in our office. The full description is below!

PROJECT COORDINATOR

Out & About Communications is an integrative marketing and communications firm based in San Diego, CA. We are seeking a go-getting Project Coordinator to join the team. This part-time position will comprise of day-to-day administrative duties, scheduling content, updating design files, website updates, client engagements, and projects as assigned.

To apply, submit your cover letter, resume and social links to hello@outandaboutcomm.com.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Updating website content and website page layout.
• Updating design files and pre-scheduling content.
• Participating in and photographing events.
• Proofreading content and providing recommendations.
• Crafting educational content for blogs, social media, and other digital platforms.
• Supporting with SEO updates and authority building.
• Participating in client meetings and team meetings as needed.
• Research and list building.
• Taking notes and summarizing meetings.
• Events planning and support with day-of logistics.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Basic understanding of Adobe Creative Suite, Buffer, WordPress, and HTML, and email marketing tools.
• Fluency in Google Docs, Dropbox and is a must.
• Strong organizational skills.
• High attention to detail when making edits and reviewing documents.
• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent experience, preferably in Public Relations, Graphic Design, Marketing or Journalism.
• 1+ years of hands-on experience with tactical project management from development to execution.
• Experience working with diverse clients.
• Must be based in sunny San Diego, CA.
• A self-starter who has a genuine passion for marketing, excellent judgment, and efficient work ethic.

We had the pleasure of working with Legacy Consulting Group, a fee-based financial planning firm in Plano, Texas, to redesign their website to align with their values and offerings. They came to us with one mission: to build a website that allowed them to clearly show-and-tell their story. We helped them clean up the visual aspect and create a flow to improve up the user experience. Not only did we want the website to look great, but also wanted a fluid website experience for visiting client or prospects. Take a look at where we started...

BEFORE: HOME PAGE

BEFORE: SERVICE PAGE

BEFORE: TEAM PAGE

We sat down with the Legacy team to really understand their mission, their values, and what they wanted to better communicate on their website. Working with their design assets (aka their logo and colors) we gave their website a refresh to tell more of their story. Take a look at their refreshed home page...

AFTER: HOME PAGE

What's super cool about this website redesign is that we were able to keep the look/feel of their brand, but we were able to accomplish the following:

Easy-to-use Navigation

A clear navigation is HUGE if you actually want people to stay on your website and dig into what you have to say.

Articulated value proposition

You land on their home page, and now you know that they help people live the life they want. It's not just about financial planning, it is financial planning with a higher purpose.

Hello, awards!

We hit you with their recognition and honors before you can scroll. Why is this important? You want to hit your audience with trust building factors right away. This way they know you're legit and it isn't just you saying that you know your stuff.

What do you do?

We have a section dedicated to what they do and how they do it. We added a "Bring Your Wealth to Life" section with 4 teasers that let prospects learn a little more and dive deeper into their website to discover more of who they are and what they care about.

Client Profiles - Tell me more!

We included a few client profiles. In the financial planning world, you have to be careful about compliance issues. As a result, you can't have testimonials on your website. One thing you can do, however, tell stories. Share about a challenge and how you were able to help your client overcome this challenge. This gives your audience an idea of what you can do and the impact you can make. It also helps to make your firm more relatable.

Call-to-action

We have the same call to action on every page. This gets folks to their contact form to connect and learn more.

Want to see another example? Check out this one...

AFTER: SERVICES PAGE

Here we took their services page and made it look sharp on mobile and desktop. It leads a prospect through their process and what they should expect. It takes them through the journey of their work together vs just a list of services and a lot of text. More on why explaining your services are important here...

 AFTER: TEAM PAGE

We totally redesigned their team page. This page is KEY. Prospects are going to go to this page to take a look at who you are and find something they can relate to so that they can really get to know you. If you don't believe us, just take a look at your analytics. If you're a professional services firm – human resources company, insurance brokerage, executive search firm, wealth management firm, etc -- we bet your team pages are some of the most visited pages. Why? People care about you. They are buying you, your services and knowledge, and what makes your firm different. If you're thinking to redesign your website, make sure you spend a good chunk of time on the pages that show the awesome humans behind your business. They can make or break your website and can really impact your bottom line.

Here the Legacy team all took new photos with lots of light. Each of their bios was updated and we made it easy for visitors to get in contact with them. Take a look.

Thinking to redesign your website? A bunch of tips to make your website work for you night and day are here. Or don't hesitate to get in contact with us to chat more!

By Lauren Hong

You can attest to the balancing act of providing tailored guidance to established clients while continuing to build a pipeline of new business. Not an easy task. Your clients and prospective clients appreciate the attention you pay them. Your high-touch approach is undoubtedly what attracted them to your business in the first place. It’s what helps make you different from the advisor down the street or a robo advisor option. So how do you manage to stay engaged while balancing lead generation on top of your workload?

We often hear clients who want someone else to manage their marketing, so they can get back to doing what they love – helping people with their finances. Some financial advisors assume that if they handing off their marketing will magically produce loads of leads and they won’t know how to handle them. Others just feel their brand is little league and know it needs some ramping up to help them compete in the big league. I want to let you in on a secret. Just because you invest in marketing doesn’t mean that you’re going to get waves of new clients knocking down your door overnight. It will still take time to build trust. That time will still be reflected in your sales cycle. The job of good marketing is to help you identify your target market, help you build your audience, and help you to frame your message, and help you to get that message to your target marketing at the right place and time.

For example, let’s say that you’re a regular at a monthly event. You know that name of the host and the other regular attendees. You arrive early to talk with the speaker. You set-up coffee with the other event goers. Every month, people assume you’ll be in attendance. They look for you. They’re reminded that they needed to tell you something or that they needed to make an introduction for you. Guess what, digital marketing works the same way. The only difference is that you’re becoming a “regular” online, in people’s inboxes and news feeds instead of. offline at the café.

Where does this take us? Being a regular at an event can be lucrative over time, but as you continue to grow you can’t be everywhere and be everything to everyone. One way to market and grow your firm with consistent messaging is to build your digital presence.

What the heck is a digital presence? In short, it’s your online footprint. It’s your website, your social media accounts, your emails, your PR features, your awards, your webinars and so on. It is all of those interactions that your prospects and clients have with you, your brand, and how you work. It’s that feeling they get before they step into your office. It’s the tone you set online that explains what you do, why you do what you do, and how you do it. It is that “this firm gets me” feeling without having picked up the call or set-up a meeting.

Just like the event example, you can do the same thing but keep showing up online. When you show up online regularly, it is important not to sell to your audience. After all, you don’t want to come off like a car salesman. Be genuine. Instead, you want to add value to your audience. What do they care about? What do they want to read or listen to? You can create content for them online to help show-and-tell your offerings to help educate them about your world and why it makes sense to invest and to build a relationship with a financial planner.

When you show-up online, the world listens. It’s kind of magical to hear your online voice go offline. You might be in a meeting with a contact and hear them say something like:

• “Congratulations on your award! I read about it in your newsletter.”
• “I feel like your post about [enter topic here] really helped me better understand what makes your firm different.”
• “I read all of your bios. It’s really important to me to know who I’m going to be working with.”
• “I saw your post on Facebook about ETF’s and it got me thinking...?”

When you show up online, you are leaving footprints across the web. You’re telling Google, “Hey, look over here. I have something meaningful to share with you about XX topic.” When you show up online, you build your audience. If done right, you’ll have an audience of followers who are willing to direct others to your website, share your content, and will turn to you as a thought leader in your space. The added bonus is that over time leads are listening, clients referring and this frees up time so you can get back to serving your clients.

Over the years, we have helped companies grow. We see firms that increase their search traffic by more than 30% year after year. Firms that have bounce rates much lower than the industry average. Firms who see their website become their main lead generation tool.

The outcome: more people find your online, more people spend time on your website, and your network engaging with you and sharing in your success. You might find your team feels starts to feel proud to send people to your website and show it off more. Plus you’ll now be able to frequently communicate with your audience. And you can build lead pipelines that connect to new folks surfing your website.

So how do you do build a digital presence?

Having helped financial services firms grow, we have learned a few growth tricks. You can start to attract qualified clients and turn them into leads. The foundation of a strong lead generation strategy starts here:

Have a killer website.

Online presence is key for any business and is often a lead’s first impression of your service. While there’s desire to impress any visitors, your website shouldn’t overwhelm. Keep it simple:

• Make sure your headlines are strong. People often scan websites for headlines and bullet points. Get the main points out in the headlines and not in the paragraph text.
• Keep your design clean. A busy or unorganized design can discourage visitors instead of engaging them.
• Know your target market. Part of what makes your website work is understanding your target market. When we sit down with our clients, we discuss who they currently work with and who they hope to attract as clients as part of our initial design process. A defined target market will inform our design decisions for colors, images, and content language.
• Ditch the dated look. Your website’s overall look and content should build trust and lay the stepping stones that lead your next potential client to you.

If you’re not sure you’re ready for a new website, here are some tips. When you start designing your website, here are some tips to help with the design process. The cost of a well designed and functional website is not negligible. Redesigning a website is kind of like remodeling your house. You start with one concept and you usually adjust things along the way. More on the real cost of a website redesign here.

Call them to action!

It isn’t enough that visitors simply view a website, they need to interact with it in order to become a viable lead for your business. An interaction may be a form fill or phone call. Of course, while we all hope for leads to immediately pick up the phone and dial us when they view our amazing website, in reality, it takes trust to build relationships. We’ve seen that a lead will likely visit your website multiple times before they are ready to take action. By integrating calls-to-action such as downloading valuable information, or inviting visitors to events -- think webinars or events you host -- your website can capture lead information and direct permission to contact your new potential client. Your call-to-action should be a value added for them. This ultimately helps them to learn more about you and builds further trust. The more trust you can build, the closer you are to the sale.

Build backlinks.

Backlinks are the internet’s referral system, and we all love referrals. The more your website is referenced on other sites, the more search engines will recognize your website as a recommended source of information. The more backlinks you have, the further up in the search results your business will appear. You can think of backlinks as any link on another website that directs people back to your website. Here are some examples:

• NAPFA
• Dimensional Network
  
• GuideVine
• Fee Only Network
• LinkedIn
• Investopedia
• Social Media (Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram etc.)

If you haven’t already started to spruce up your profiles on the networks above, you can start building backlinks by looking into the associations you are a part of. Also, think out of the box. Do you volunteer, serve on a board or are you a part of an association? They probably have a website and getting your name on their website with a link back to your firm's website is a smart thing to do.

Wait, it gets better. There are public relations and awards too. NAPFA and Help a Reporter Out often post public relations opportunities to their members. Both local and industry awards will help you cast a larger net with your website. Business journals, non-profits, and local media are all outlets you can look into to find award and recognition opportunities. Even streamlining and enhancing your professional profiles with up-to-date information, photos, and associations will increase your website’s credibility.

Show up.

Remember that first story about being a regular at a networking event? There is something to that. You have to stay top of mind with your network. You know that no matter the size of your organization, it’s hard to prove reliability and dedication without consistent and authentic communication. Creating a consistent communication schedule also helps ensure you are in the right place at the right time to capture a new referral and expand your lead base. A few suggestions:

• Know your target market and attend events or get involved with organizations where your target market attends
• Create a marketing and communications plan and calendar. If your firm is larger -- usually 6+ advisors -- they should have the bandwidth to prioritize marketing. When you prioritize marketing you can put together a marketing and communications plan to help guide your action. Your communication plan is a proactive system to help you retain the sphere of influence you’ve spent so much energy building.
• If you implement a marketing plan, you can learn from the analytics to help inform your strategy. More details on analytics below.

Bottom line - be consistent with your message and prioritize staying top of mind.

Grow from your analytics.

Analytics provide business with an opportunity to learn from mistakes and grow from success. Not everything you employ on your website is going to work but working off these directives and starting somewhere will help you make informed decisions about future marketing and lead generating strategies. Zero in on the content that attracts the most traffic as well as the backlinks and resources that have led visitors to your website. Build on what works and refine the areas that aren’t cutting it to maximize success. In addition to your website analytics, consider reviewing your own communications as part of your client interviews: how did they learn about your business, what ultimately led them to contact you directly, are there questions you hear repeatedly from your clients? There’s a lot to be learned about your target market from asking questions, and the analytics can help you further understand your client, why they chose to work with you and what their pain points are.

Feeling overwhelmed?

We know it’s a lot of work whether you’re a boutique firm or a multi-office organization, to plan ahead and stay in front of your market, but know it’s not going to happen overnight. The important thing is to embrace that you are in an industry that takes a long time to build trust. You know that trust is not going to come instantaneously. Embrace your sales cycle. Think long-term about your firm's goals and let the marketing fold in to help you live your vision, amplify your brand and attract prospects. We hope that the above tips will provide some food for thought.

PS: Yes, we have implemented these strategies for clients and have helped them generate a new qualified lead per day. It really does work. It just takes a lot of time, energy, and expertise to maintain the plan. No, there isn’t a magic bullet. The above points are simple tips that we have seen work with real skin in the game and patience. The magic is knowing your target market, growing your audience, being consistent with your messaging and branding and staying top of mind in the appropriate channels.

What’s next? Take the time today to start thinking about what you what to do long-term with your firm and what your critical pathways to success are. If you want to talk digital marketing or grab a coffee virtually or in San Diego, we are here to connect.

There’s no right or wrong way to go through the design process. Sometimes it’s easy to identify the style or mood you’re looking for in a design and sometimes the iteration phase of the design process is the key to unlocking your vision. We listen close when we work with our clients on design projects, whether it’s a new logo or an floor-to-ceiling website re-design, so we can create options that speak to you. Choosing the right design for your business is a big deal. A great way to feel out if your design will go the distance is to test it out in the real world. Once you start to narrow down your final design, we'd encourage you to design test your project. Here are our suggestions.

Show-and-tell.

Ask the people who know you well and more importantly, those who know your business. What does your team say? Are they excited to show it to the world? Ask your family what their intuition is when they see the design. Sent it to your loyalest customers or oldest clients. Does the design align with how your clients see you? Or how you want your clients to see you?

Print it out!

Fire it up and print your new letterhead on your company printer. How does it look with your paper? Do you like the ink color? Some files might be great for digital letterhead or could work great to be emailed, but don’t thrill you on paper in hand.

Look through different windows.

If your design is something digital like a new landing page or a title card for a video, try it on different screens. Maybe it looks great on your phone but you’re not into the color on your retina display. Try your website on different screen shapes and sizes. Maybe you like the full-width background on a wide-screen but it’s not dramatic enough at standard resolution.

Go back to square one.

Look back at to your original plan, inspiration, or Q&A session if you’re an Out & About client. Make sure images and content match you and your target market. Does the outcome align with your vision? Does the design accomplish the goal you set out to achieve? For instance, if you considering different newsletter designs, does the design make you want to keep reading? Does your new landing page design make the next step POP?

Looking to spiff up your marketing collateral or website? Don’t hesitate to give us a ring. At the end of the day, your design should get people talking and help you cut through the clutter.

Our award shelf is filling up this year! We’re humbled and proud to receive a Communicator award for our redesign of TurningPoint Executive Search’s website. TurningPoint is an incredible search firm with a large talent roster. Putting qualified candidates in touch with opportunities seamlessly is TurningPoint’s priority for the redesign. We focused on our efforts on user experience enhancement, building an intuitive content management system on the backend, and putting a spotlight on TurningPoint’s messaging.

The Communicator Awards, presented by the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts, honors creative excellence for communication professionals. Founded over two decades ago, The Communicator Awards is an annual competition honoring the best in advertising, corporate communications, public relations and identity work for print, video, interactive and audio. The 2017 Communicator Awards received over 6000 entries from ad agencies, interactive agencies, production firms, in-house creative professionals, graphic designers, design firms, and public relations firms.

See the TurningPoint website in Action.

There’s nothing sweeter than watching one of your long term clients grow. It has been a pleasure to be a part of Sweet Stamp Shop growth over the years and we’re thrilled to announce that the launch of their newly redesigned website!

Sweet Stamp Shop was founded in 2011 by the incredible Nicole Rixon. Nicole started Sweet Stamp Shop with just 8 stamp sets and has grown her business into a crafting phenomenon with thousands of products. We collaborated with the Sweet Stamp Shop team to refresh their design and build out a more robust ecommerce platform to match the demands of a business that’s scaling quickly. Visit their new website at sweetstampshop.com and check out their Instagram or Pinterest for killer craft ideas. Sweet!

Face it. There aren’t enough hours in the day to be an incredible CEO or COO and the head of marketing at your firm. The mental bandwidth it takes from jumping from dealing with operations to putting on a sales hat is daunting. Adding marketing management into that equation simply does not compute. Senior leadership at firms who are strapped for time reach out to us often. They know their need for marketing strategy and want to implement it, but they need the right team in-house.

What will my ROI be?

It is difficult to predict true marketing ROI. As you know, sales do not come overnight. It takes time and trust to build relationships. Staying top of mind with prospects is key. Our job is to bring you qualified prospects, drip on them, and help best set you up for the sale. We manage the strategy, the communications and all of the marketing tactics so you can get back to doing what you love.

How do you calculate ROI?

We secure public relations feature that can be calculated by the ad spend or audience reached. We track the number of incoming leads via form fills and email captures. You’ll regularly be updated on your analytics reports. This way we can further track the health of your marketing to ensure that we are on track and growing the appropriate marketing indicators. You know that when marketing aligns with sales, this can help to tee up qualified leads, educates prospects, and strengthens client retention and referrals.

Where do I start with marketing?

Truthfully, there isn’t a one size fits all or plug-and-play formula for every business. We need to sit down and understand who your target market is, what your goals are, and what you are already doing to stay top of mind. Once we put together our game plan, we might need to build out marketing materials – think a client welcome packet, e-newsletter template, or downloadable resources. These tools help to free up the marketing operations so that a campaign can run smoothly behind the scenes.

Do I really need a team?

We often see firms make the mistake of hiring a single entry level person to create and implement their entire marketing strategy or only having a Director of Marketing be the “marketing department” of one. In both cases, this individual usually has about 60% of the skillsets to get the job done. It is not fair to ask them to be an expert at everything. They are going to need a team of specialists to really execute and ensure your marketing is as professional as it can be.

How do projects come together?

Once we’re into the campaign work, you’ll see a full team come together to complete the production. Our business model is built on the belief that one person can’t do it all. It truly takes a team of specialists to ebb and flow with the various tasks. For example, take the workflow creation of a brochure:

1. Strategist/Manager: Outlines the overview for what should go into the brochure and ensures that it aligns with sales and the voice of the target market.

2. Copywriter: Drafts content for the actual brochure. Content to be checked by the Strategist and Marketing Coordinator for edits.

3. Graphic Designer: Designs the brochure with the final content from the copywriter and takes visual direction from the Strategist.

4. Marketing Coordinator: Reviews the final document and prepares it for print and other useage.

Sure you can have the Strategist/Manager role do all of this, but are they really a copywriter or graphic designer? Do you want your firm to be playing at a JV level or are you ready to kick it up to varsity?

Why should I outsource my marketing?

We know it isn’t realistic for most small businesses to hire a department of 15 people and only use their skills as needed. We also know that most small businesses really need a strategist, copywriter, graphic designer, web developer, search engine optimization expert, public relations guru and more. This is expensive. That is where we come in.

Who will I work with?

When you work with us, you’ll have a marketing manager who will oversee the strategy and work with our team of specialist to execute on all of the tactics. Even better, everything we do is 100% for you. You own all of the content, marketing collateral, brand and more. We treat your work as if it was our own firms. In fact, you might even mistake us as a member of your team.

What do I gain?

We often talk with leadership who are staring down a fork in the road. They can plateau where they are at or figure out how to scale. Just like every business pivot, marketing is an investment. You, however, will gain time, have a professional brand and communications, and a growing pipeline. Like an investment, marketing matures over time. Marketing, especially for professional services firms, takes time to formalize the communications, build trust, attract and convert prospects and regularly be top of mind.

Is it better to outsource my marketing or hire a Marketing Director?

If you’re hard over on bringing in someone in house and taking on the training and overhead costs of an employee, go for it. If you go this route, we advise hiring a director level marketer and budgeting to bring on a specialist for web design, graphics, content creation and so on. You can’t expect one person to do it all and for it to be done right. After all, you know that your business was built on bringing in the right team and network to help you scale. Just like how you scaled your business, a Marketing Director will need the right team of specialist to help further scale the strategy and professionalize the deliverables.

Does it really work?

Building brands and marketing is our thing. We have:

• Taken businesses from outdated brands stuck in the 80’s to making their website their #1 lead generation source
• Helped firms attract and close new business that was once not on their radar
• Helped senior leadership earn back their time
• Moved businesses from being nonexistent on search to being in the top 3 search
• Cut bounce rates in half and increased time on sites
• Helped firms attracted new business online and close business with the right sales tools

We know what it takes to build brands, attract qualified leads, and help your firm climb that next mountain and the higher mountain beyond it.

How do I get started?

We are ready whenever you are. It really starts with a strategy call to understand your goals, challenges, and budget. From there, we’ll put together a customized proposal to start the next step to scale your business. We hope you will you’ll join us for the ride.