Cold Calling Is Out; Lead Generation Is In for 2023: Survey
SmartAsset asked advisors where they planned to focus their marketing efforts next year.
As the turn of the year draws near, financial advisors are assessing their businesses and marketing strategies and drawing up plans for 2023.
SmartAsset surveyed 272 advisors on its platform in October to find out how they are currently marketing to clients and their expectations for 2023.
Sixty-eight percent of advisors said marketing is very important for their firm and growing their client base, while another 23% said it is fairly important.
According to the survey, 38.8% of advisors said lead generation platforms will be their main marketing strategy in 2023, up from 31.7% this year. In-person events will also come into more use, cited by 21.5%, up from 16.2% in 2022.
Only 12.2% of advisors said social media outreach is their firm’s primary marketing strategy this year, but 18.6% said it will be the most important one in 2023.
Cold-calling and traditional advertisements are becoming much less popular. More than 52% of advisors said they are cold-calling less in 2022 than in previous years, and about 37% reported that they are promoting fewer traditional advertisements.
Social Media Strategies
Although relatively few advisors said social media outreach is their primary marketing strategy in 2022, many use social media as part of their general firm marketing plans.
Among social media outlets, advisors use LinkedIn and Facebook most. Some 46% of respondents said they use LinkedIn either often or extremely often for marketing, and 31% use it sometimes.
Thirty-seven percent of advisors use Facebook often or very often, and 25% do so sometimes.
In dramatic contrast, 97% of advisors reported that they never use TikTok, 82% do not use Instagram and 79% shun YouTube.
As for Elon Musk’s new acquisition, 12% of advisors said they rarely use Twitter and 74% never do so.