Marketing: Helping a Small Town Financial Advisor Standout

Website: rljwealth.com

Industry: Financial Advising

Duration: 6 weeks

Roles: UX Researcher, Wix Developer, Digital Strategy

• Modernize website via visual elements provided by company's brand style guide, resulting in a consistent appearance on all platforms to ideal prospects

• Provide an experience which builds community trust by showcasing clear financial action steps as well as providing an approachable & local feel

• Provide downloadable educational materials in collaboration with local agency, resulting in increased form submissions and social media engagement

The challenge became how to stand out from the crowd of other financial advisors and larger institutes in the Central Florida area. This involved collaborating with RLJ Wealth's Marketing Consultant to get a clear understanding of who their target audience was while researching where these larger institutes were falling short with their past customers.

While researching competitors in RLJ's local area, we scheduled numerous 1 on 1 calls and direct messages with members of the local community. We also read through numerous financial reports. Here were some discoveries we made...

Individuals preferred a local advisor over larger institutes due to the feeling that a smaller company/local advisor would provide them more 1 on 1 attention and care.

Individuals primarily hired an advisor based on the ability to handle complex financial issues as well as those that provided a clear step by step roadmap so they could see where they were going.

The number of financial advisors have dramatically increased to well over 300k in the U.S. alone, making the field incredibly competitive.

With the information that was discovered, we knew we had to implement a few key but crucial components to the website that would help encourage potential prospects to fill out RLJ's contact form...

Utilize the keyword "roadmap" which was heard frequently among individuals. The goal was to clearly communicate how RLJ's advisors sit down and provide a visual step by step roadmap to the client's goals.

Utilize a monthly blog to showcase educational materials since it was learned that a majority of those seeking advisement purchased services from those that clearly displayed a vast amount of knowledge within the industry.

Develop a digital marketing strategy with a local agency to stay connected to RLJ's local community and drive traffic back to the site while communicating with prospects quarterly via email marketing campaigns.

Develop a user journey that showcased the most important information for prospects while eliminating overwhelming information that most larger institutes provide. The end of the journey would always result in filling out a contact form.

Site visits increased by 73% one quarter after relaunch

Organic traffic increased by 33% two months after relaunch

Upon relaunch, a collaborative digital marketing strategy was developed to increase social media engagement, resulting in a higher percentage of calls compared to the previous year

The primary goal of this project was to develop a brand and a website that helped build rapport within RLJ's local community so prospects that were looking to hire a financial advisor would think of RLJ Wealth before calling one of the larger financial institutes in the area. Lead generation is every service-based business's goal but RLJ was committed to playing the long game, wanting to be the face of their community, filled with a team of advisors that had the education and ability to create a clear roadmap for the prospect. This required more than just a website refresh; this required a collaborative effort between a designer (myself) and professional marketers - all that were locally based to maintain RLJ's core value of community - this ultimately resulted in a brand that RLJ would love and get excited for while checking all the boxes that their ideal client was looking for (education, attention, and a roadmap). I'm incredibly grateful that I was provided this opportunity and I look forward to seeing what the future has in store for RLJ Wealth Management.

Taylor Rodriguez taz.mktg@gmail.com