Southern Cross Financial Planning

How we successfully grew a financial planner’s business using targeted Facebook ads

Southern Cross Financial Planning (SCFP) relied on business networking and referrals for enquiries. An erratic source and one they had little control over. They wanted to grow. But investing in new people and new locations is risky when you do not have a dependable source of new business.

Fortunately SCFP had an excellent niche service offering – aged care financial advice.

A service that goes above and beyond to help aged parents and their adult children to:

Navigate the maze of government departments that have such an impact on entitlements.

Make informed choices about the options from in-home support to aged care facilities.

Clarify the financial implications – how to pay for it? Should they sell the family home? How much do they need to live on?

It’s complex, emotive, and important work. It is peoples’ Mum and Dad.

The Challenge

To build a sustainable marketing programme that

delivered a steady stream of enquiries

carried on working into the future

grew the brand – greater visibility, increased website visits

developed an expert position, for even more cut-through in the market. Plus this makes it easier for people to refer.

is done for them – so they could focus on other parts of their business; and life.

Work involved

1. Discover:

In-depth research about:

• the business, their specific niche service
• their clients – their emotional drivers: fears, needs, the transformation they are seeking
• the local market – other direct competitor activity.

The purpose was to develop a distinctive and valuable service offering in the context of the people who would be buying his services.

2. Develop:

• the enquiry-generating pathway from initial awareness through to proactive contact
• initial content pieces – copy and creatives – to attract and qualify the prospective audiences, using their language, based on their emotional drivers
• testing matrix – the life-blood of all successful digital marketing
• persuasive landing page on SCFP’s website.

3. Deliver

An in-depth process using Facebook ads:

• Reach targeted audiences and start to qualify with further pieces of content that they interact with
• Relentless testing and optimisation of all elements of the enquiry-generating process – ad copy, imagery, audiences
• Prospective clients were starting to identify themselves and move along an education pathway towards interest in SCFP’s aged care financial planning services
• Building a flow of prospective clients that interacted with multiple pieces of content whilst offering multiple enquiry pathways for prospective clients.

Outcomes

High conversion rate of inbound enquiries – the same as word of mouth referrals.

Multiple conversions 

For every aged care advice client that came on board, SCFP converted into another 2.4 clients (typically their children)

Word of mouth referrals

High word of mouth referral to other older people

ROI of $3.27 in year one.

If you take the lifetime value of these financial advice clients it shoots up into high teens.

Brand exposure:

1014% increase in website visits – additional enquiries about other services.

Valuable client research:

What they like, areas of focus, powerful testimonials, referrals.

Footnote: Despite our success the business later stopped the campaign. The industry compliance burden for a small financial planning firm became too onerous and took the principals away from their first love: helping clients. They later sold their practice to another firm and moved into new careers.

If you want help reaching your ideal new clients, call us on 02 4023 5958 for a conversation today.