attract younger clients

How to Attract Younger Clients

By Barbara Kotlyar, Senior Marketing Manager on Monday, March 28th, 2011

People my age are accumulating wealth and recognize the need for help and advice. After all, many of us are already at the stage of managing our first wave of major financial projects such as buying a home, paying-off school loans, starting a family or saving for a wedding. Yet, whenever I talk to friends who are professionals in their mid 20’s to 30’s about working with financial advisors, I always get the same three questions:

1) What do advisors actually do?

2) How much do they charge?

3) How do I find a good one?

If you’re a financial advisor, and you want to appeal to the next generation of clients I suggest you keep the messaging clear and simple, and communicate in ways that we can relate to. Here are 3 Tips to help get you started:

Be a storyteller & avoid financial industry jargon. Tell us a story that we can relate to about how you helped a client save for a home, or pay off their loans. A blog post is perfect for this—just long enough to get the point across, just short enough to leave us wanting to learn more. Also, when you tell a story, don’t forget the “show” part. Incorporating visuals such as short videos, images, diagrams etc. can be an easy, yet powerful way to simplify your message.
Use social media. Setup your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts, and let us find you. Your goal is basically to create a personality online that allows us to get to know you in places we are already familiar with. If you don’t do any social media yet, a good place to start is definitely LinkedIn. For a guide on how to get started check out this blog post.
Make your fee structure clear, straightforward and easy to understand on your website. We don’t have a problem paying for a service, but we need to understand how you charge and what you offer for that fee. Show us how it adds up, and we’ll understand why it makes sense to hire you.