Some people still think the earth is flat. So, it comes to no surprise that myths are frequent in the marketing world as well.
According to The Wall Street Journal, financial industry firms spend on average about 8% of their total budget on marketing. That is a lot of money. And losing some of that money due to marketing misconceptions is very bad for business.
So, we decided to compile a list of marketing myths we have overheard in conference rooms, meetings, cafes, and just about any other place where people talk about marketing.
1. “I am sending a bunch of traffic to my website, where are all my leads (and sales)?”
More traffic just doesn’t translate to more, and better, leads.
You need to give visitors a good enough reason to become your leads. A formidable “lead magnet” offers something that a visitor really wants or needs. Maybe it’s a free consultation, a free 2-week trial of your premium newsletter, a demo, or a white paper or industry report.
Setting up a “give to get” offer and creating a sense of urgency to get your offer, plus a website with top notch UX design, are marketing must haves to pull the right leads into your funnel. But it doesn’t end with your website.
You need to have a smart funnel with many touch points, where you “nurture” your prospects until they become customers. Email drip campaigns, calls by your brokers or a sales team, posting and sharing high-quality blog content, social posts, articles, white papers — and patience — will all aid you in earning trust and new accounts in the online era.
Once you have campaign offers and a nurture process in place you’ll begin to see more quality lead conversions.
2. “If you publish, it will rank on Google”
This myth is as old as search engines.
Publishing a piece of content on your website and expecting it to rank on the top of Google´s results is like expecting every post on social media to go viral.
For your content to even have a slight shot at appearing on Google’s top results, you need to prove to Google that your post is very relevant for the searchers of a particular topic. For example, if you are an RIA, it would be natural for you to create posts covering retirement planning or investment-related topics.
Your website needs to be mobile-optimized, fast, well-structured, with high quality backlinks, and it must contain the target keyword multiple times.
Keep in mind, only the patient succeed with SEO. If your website is new, do not expect it to rank for at least a couple of months.
In some cases, you will be against such stiff competition, there will be no purpose in trying to rank for a specific keyword. They only way you could rank is with a different variation, and most likely a more specific (long-tail) keyword.
Also, SEO should be one of the cornerstones of your online marketing efforts, not something you just outsource to anyone in India and forget about it. Because that’s exactly how you make your content not rank on Google.
SEO is a great way of driving on demand traffic to your website. But it’s a long-term build.
3. “We started advertising 24 hours ago, where are the sales?”
Many clients expect almost immediate tangible results from online advertising.
Hold on.
It doesn’t work that way. Not with traditional marketing, and not with online marketing. And even less so in the B2B sector.
A good marketer knows that every scenario is different. They need to first test audiences, ad formats, and messages to figure out what works. Even when tracking conversions such as sales on Facebook there is a “learning” period for Facebook´s pixel to be acquainted with the audience.
Apart from that, you need to establish a connection with your audience and give them time to decide. The purchase journey for trading, brokerage, and financial services can last for months.
Trust your marketer and give them enough time to confirm what is working, and what is not. If you are patient enough, you will see the results. And your marketer should be able to demonstrate month-over-month ad metrics to quantify results.
Over-eagerness can be frustrating for both marketers and clients. Therefore, it is important to set up expectations before beginning to work. And keep in mind that good results, take time.
4. “All marketers can take care of your marketing needs regardless of the industry”
- “Oh, you are a lawyer. You should handle my tax case”.
- “Sir, I am a divorce lawyer”.
- “But…you are still a lawyer”.
Lawyers are not the only ones that have to deal with this scenario. Marketers experience this all the time.
That’s why clients tend to achieve better results with agencies that specialize in a certain sector, and have enough muscle power to take care of all the client’s needs.
It is a misconception that a “marketer” is all you need. You need a multidisciplinary team with paid advertising experts, designers, programmers, copywriters, and managers that can work together to make your project a reality.
Also, they should know your industry.
Financial services, for instance, is a very complex industry. Your marketing team must know how to establish a very strong bond with your customers. Not all marketers know the intricacies of achieving this deep level of trust through their campaigns.
Marketing will work better when you’re working with an expert in your field.
5. “Financial services cannot reach high quality clients with online advertising”
Pretty much everyone is on the internet. Yes, even your clients!
Most financial service companies have very strict criteria as to who they want to target. And –aside from the recent problematic digital marketing of cryptocurrencies — online advertising is a great component of an overall marketing plan. Online channels offer targeting capabilities that can benefit just about any advertiser.
You can target long-tail keywords on Google search to reach prospects with very specific inquiries and high purchase intent. On LinkedIn, reach users by profession, education, company, and seniority. On Facebook you can target users in specific ZIP codes and create powerful similar audiences that could align with your actual target audience.
These are only some of the options that can be used to target financial services clients. From all the available targeting options, you can specify which ones can best reach your target audience.
6. “Only certain types of businesses can benefit from content marketing”
I know what you are thinking. Content is for “cool” B2C brands that sell soft drinks to teenagers.
This cannot be further from the truth.
Content marketing can have favorable results in any industry. In fact, it is proven to be effective for financial services firms, which are in a subject matter expertise arms race. When you prove that you understand the challenges and solutions of your potential clients, you begin to earn trust.
Producing high quality content helps demonstrate your expertise and can give you the authority that other types of marketing wouldn’t achieve. According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing, and generates more than three times as many leads. The financial industry can greatly benefit from content marketing, as well as any other industry for the same matter.
Of course, content marketing is not just about getting your articles and blog posts out there. It’s about publishing quality pieces with the purpose of educating leads and clients.
High quality content assets such as industry white papers, financial calculators, long-form guides, and industry reports are all examples of content that can build your authority in the industry and attract highly qualified leads.
7. “A website redesign will automatically increase leads”
Why did you redesign your website? It is important to have numbers behind this decision.
If your site is not responsive or user-friendly, or if you have researched that your industry standard visitor to lead conversion rate is 5%, and you are at 1%, it was a good decision to redesign. But, if you just had a “hunch” that you need a redesign then you don’t really know what to benchmark once the new website is out.
A redesigned website doesn’t mean the number of leads will jump through the roof. Improving the traffic-to-lead conversion ratio means much more than redesigning your website.
You need to improve the quality of the traffic you are receiving, make your web copy and value proposition more compelling, or perhaps what you offer prospects in exchange of their email is just not good enough.
There is a myriad of reasons why a website isn’t converting. Thanks to tools such as funnel visualization in Google Analytics you can know exactly at what point of your funnel visitors are dropping off. Remember, everything that happens online can be visualized numerically.
Do not redesign your website for the sake of it. But do it to solve a specific issue you identified.
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These 7 common marketing misconceptions prevent campaigns from reaching their potential, prevent the right leads from converting to clients, and frustrate clients and marketers alike.
Interested in learning how to shatter these misconceptions that you or your financial services firm may be clinging to? Contact us and let’s break these ideas to help make marketing great for everyone!