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In recent years, many financial advisors have turned to social media as a marketing tool to connect with prospective clients. Its ease of use and potential to reach large audiences have made it a very attractive channel to generate potential leads. But as a highly competitive venue with an excess of information, personal finance personalities, trends, and products, social media is rife with individuals all vying for everyone’s attention. Faced with what can feel like overwhelming competition and messaging, many advisors are left trying to figure out not only how to get noticed by potential clients, but also how to stay connected enough to gain their trust and business.
In our 90th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss the importance of being increasingly relevant to find the minimum viable audience as an effective way to capture attention, drive interest, and grow a following on social media.
As a starting point, it’s important to recognize that social media engagement is usually better when the content is relevant to a specific audience. Though social media has the potential to reach mass audiences, delivering generalized content to reach everyone doesn’t work nearly as well as narrowly targeting a very specific audience. Even if a user is reticent to agree with a particular message, if the message is clear and specifically relevant to them, they will be more likely to pay attention to and engage with the message because of its relevance.
Importantly, the best way for advisors to develop narrowly targeted messaging is to determine their 'minimal viable audience'. Just like figuring out which niche to serve, finding the minimum viable audience means finding the specific demographic subset of people that would not only be remunerative for the advisor, but that the advisor wants to serve over time. Understanding who the messaging is for will allow the advisor to connect with their audience more specifically and meaningfully, creating more of the right connections.
Ultimately, the key point is that finding the minimum viable audience will allow the advisor to develop messaging that is highly relevant to a specific target audience. And while choosing a smaller demographic target might feel counterintuitive and scary (as it means fewer people will be targeted), creating connections with a smaller group of the ‘right’ people can actually be more lucrative, resulting in warmer leads and more new business. And connecting with more of the right types of clients upfront (versus making more connections with anyone) can help advisors develop longer-lasting relationships with the clients who they will be happiest working with over the long run!