Credibility and trust are key components that make or break a financial advisory business.
To help financial advisors build more trust, I provide three copywriting examples below and highlight a key question to pose to clients that helps build trust (as described by a renowned research professor).
Recently, I watched a TED talk by Simon Sinek and was captivated by one particular comment: Trust is a feeling.
His remark got me thinking about how to frame words that create feelings. Words financial advisors and other financial consultants can use on websites and social media channels to build credibility, ultimately creating feelings of trust.
What are feelings?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary offers several definitions, including: an emotional state or reaction, often unreasoned opinion and the overall quality of one’s awareness (conscious recognition).
Therefore, for advisors developing your own marketing copy or outsourcing to a freelance financial services writer, the words you choose in order to create the feeling of trust must address underlying sensations and a lack of conscious recognition.
To accomplish this, you must be specific regarding your services, capabilities, firm culture, etc.
In order to be specific, you need to provide tangible attributes, benefits and examples. It’s tangibility that addresses and, therefore, minimizes “unreasoned” opinions. Without tangible statements, your marketing copy is just fluff, possessing no compelling reasons to generate an action, e.g., website visitor emails you, client refers another, etc.
Interestingly, one of the many mistakes I see on advisors’ websites is the lack of specificity, non-promissory of course.
3 Marketing Copy Examples of Creating Feelings that Build Trust
What follows are three examples of words that create feelings of trust. Notice that all examples have specificity, e.g., full morning or afternoon, every third Friday, etc.
Specificity supports your claims, building credibility.
#1 — Career Page
“With the overarching objective of helping our clients achieve their financial goals, each week all team members are encouraged to spend a full morning or afternoon working on whatever they want.
When you join our team, our leadership understands it’s your ideas that help us remain competitive and provide comprehensive services to our clients. Therefore, you’re encouraged to think, plan and develop ideas beyond your everyday responsibilities, because they matter and make a difference — not only to our clients but to the greater community we serve.”
RELATED (Special Report): Build Trust and Boost AUM by Addressing These Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Concerns
#2 — Team/About Page
“Every third Thursday of the month, our staff gathers to watch a TED talk, followed by an open discussion. Our goal is to extrapolate the latest thinking to help ensure we are providing leading-edge advice to our clients.
Moreover, the discussions enable each team member to share their unique experiences and opinions, resulting in the broadest thinking. Also, so that all staff members can participate, we utilize an answering service during these 1.5 hours, ensuring clients can reach us in the event of an emergency.”
RELATED: Financial Advisor Trust-Building Question for Clients
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In her excellent book dare to lead, (#CommissionsEarned) author and University of Houston research professor Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW wrote, “Trust is in fact earned in the smallest of moments.” (For advisors, remembering the names of your clients’ parents is an example.) She also provided a key trust-building question, “What does support from me look like?” This is a powerful question advisors can pose to clients and prospects, expediting incremental trust building. I very much enjoyed reading her book—very insightful.
#3 — Home Page
“Since [insert year], more than 155 everyday people in the greater [insert small geography] area have chosen ABC Financial to help them save and plan for retirement. In fact, 98 percent of them, including those with inherited family wealth, remain clients today.
These enduring relationships demonstrate our team’s ability to listen and provide responsive service, knowledgeable financial advice and open communication among all ages.”
In Conclusion
In closing, many financial services websites are generic. To distinguish yourself, add as much specificity as possible to your marketing copy. In turn, you’ll create feelings of trust and your AUM will grow organically.
Before You Go
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Independently Yours,
Sharron