If you're going to put the time, energy and resources into marketing your financial services, you might as well do it right. After all:

      "The difference between try and triumph is a little umph."

We all receive hundreds of emails a day telling us to buy this or check something out, but what do we truly engage in? Most of the time, for me at least, the links I open are the ones most relevant to my life. So what should you take away from this?

Target, target, target!

Specific content is key in creating your inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing simply means marketing yourself through blogs, podcasts, video, eBooks, newsletters, whitepapers, SEO, social media marketing, and other forms of content marketing. Knowing your audience is the difference between producing quality content and producing quality content that is actually seen.

Lets look into the three simplest ways to market your financial services: social media, emails, and of course, through your advisor website

Social Media

LinkedIn is the financial professionals best friend. It has the power of establishing yourself as a credible and trusted source that facebook and twitter lack. Using LinkedIn as a tool to network, is useful in marketing your financial advisor services. This can be achieved through the participation of relevant groups.

For example, if your niche is investment advice for doctors, try joining a group such as Doctors & Financial Planning. Becoming a relevant thought leader and sharing your expertise is a great way of self promotion without spamming connections. By focusing on a small group of interested participant, you increase the chance of engagement, increasing your click through rates, and increasing the chances of harnessing leads from this form of marketing.

Email

Email is a great way of keeping your current contacts connected with updates and news about you and your financial services. Try to target your subject line to the segment of contacts receiving the update. Although the content inside the email may be very similar, if the subject line of your email is interesting, yet relevant the odds are greater that the recipient will actually open it.

For example instead of the subject line for you update being - Newsletter: November 2013, try - Financial Updates for the Medical Community: Your November Newsletter.

MailChimp created a great overview of their study on successful subject line practices.

Your Website

Finally your advisor website is your business card on the web. Make your services easily accessible on your website by having it directly in your navigation toolbar. If you are an expert in a financial service, this is the place to not display modesty. Brag! Boast! Shout it from the rooftops! Just make it known that this is your specialty.

Try to include long-tail keywords in your website to help with your search engine optimization (seo) organic ranking. For those that don't know, long-tail keyword is simply a very targeted search phrase that contains at least three words.

For example, keyword: advisor. Long-tail keywords: how to find a financial advisor; financial advisors in Atlanta, GA; tips from a financial advisor. Organically incorporate long-tail keywords into your financial website content to allow for your web pages to rank higher in google.

Incorporating some of these tactics will help your financial advisor services shine through the clutter of the web!

PS - Have you heard about The Great Holiday Handout? For six weeks leading up to Christmas, each brand new Advisor Website client will be entered to win a cool, amazing and awesome prize!

Every Friday from November 15 – December 20, advisors who sign up with Advisor Websites will be entered into a weekly a drawing where we’ll be giving away prizes from awesome gifts like Omaha Steaks, iPods, and golf accessories. Already a client? Enter into the drawing each time you refer Advisor Websites to a friend or colleague. Once they sign up, both names will be entered!