Guest: Kendra Wright, owner of Rebel Media Agency, a marketing company specializing in financial professionals. In her prior life, Kendra worked in rock ‘n roll marketing for some of the biggest names in music (Willie Nelson, Motley Crue, Matchbox Twenty, and more).

In a Nutshell: Great copy means you’ll never experience a failure to communicate. Great copy is simple. Great copy is found and it comes from the mouths of your clients and prospects. Your job is to transfer what you find to your website and client communication.

As important as social media, podcasting, YouTube, and email have become, your marketing plan is incomplete if you don’t have a professional homepage that tells prospects who you are, who you serve, and what outcomes people can achieve by working with you.

And let’s not forget, people come to you because they have a problem, a question, and they want help. How clearly does your website show that you know their questions, you know their pain, and you know how to solve their problems?

On today’s show, Kendra Wright and I do a deep dive on finding and communicating great copy and we put several financial advisor websites under the microscope and discuss what they did well and where they could improve.

This one is best watched on the YouTube video.

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Kendra Wright and I discuss:

  • Bringing inspiration and innovation from other industries into the finance space.
  • Copy and messaging essentials and why your communication should “repel” some visitors.
  • Why Kendra says, “Copy isn’t created, it’s found,” and where to find it.
  • Two key questions to add to your prospect forms.
  • Why advisors need a top-notch website even if they’re doing well with referrals.
  • Finding the right ratio between “We,” “I,” and “You” on your front page.
  • Kendra’s constructive feedback on improving sample advisor websites.

Quotes:

Kendra Wright on the one thing that drives great copy:

“A lot of times, the first thing we start with when we think about copy and messaging and marketing is demographics data. What’s somebody’s age? What’s their location? But when I think about copy, I actually think about something very different. I do not need to know their age or their demographics. That information can be helpful, but it’s not necessary for me to write great copy. There’s one thing I need to write great copy: I need to know what problems do you solve for your best clients? I want you to think about those clients that you would love to clone in your firm. And the reason why I want to talk about those clients is because we want to attract great clients to your firm and we want your marketing, your copy, and your messaging to repel people who do not match their problems, their ethos, and those kinds of things. Also, you can have two people who have the same demographics data but the problems are very different. Prince Charles and Ozzy Osbourne have the same demographics data, but their problems when it comes to their finances would be totally different. Prince Charles probably needs a lot more help with estate planning, whereas Ozzy Osbourne probably needs help reeling in his spending. Very similar demographics data, very different people.”

Kendra Wright on the average advisor versus the awesome advisor:

“When I write great copy, the goal is that every person who lands on that website understands the copy. Not that I feel smart. I have a lot of advisors who push back on me when I show them the difference between what I call the ‘average advisor’ and the ‘awesome advisor.’ And I think they feel scared to simplify this in a way that feels easy for your prospect to understand. It almost feels like it degrades their expertise, and that’s not the truth at all. I think you’re actually doing the people who are reading your website a favor. 54% of American adults read at or below a sixth grade reading level. If your only goal was to write so that people understood you, how would you sound differently than you do right now? If I had to explain to my grandpa what a financial advisor does and the transformation that an advisor creates in somebody’s life, the things that people used to stress about before they hired an advisor and what they no longer stress about, how would I explain it to him in a caring but not condescending way? The average advisor says, ‘We’re different because we’re a fiduciary.’ The awesome advisor says ‘Hey, you’re going to feel like you’re our only client, even though you’re not.'”

Kendra Wright on simple ways to catch the referrals you could be missing:

“You don’t know how many referrals you’re missing because of your website. It doesn’t have to be a total shakeup. It doesn’t mean you need to build a new website. The top pages that people typically visit are Home page, About page, and Your Services page. And so those are the pages that people go through when they are trying to decide, does this make sense for me to contact this person to help me solve the financial needs I have? So know that if you’re going to revamp the website, that it doesn’t have to be a full overhaul. I’ve also seen some advisors with great, simple websites. It doesn’t even have to be complex. I’ve seen some advisors with a one-page website. If you’re just going to completely ignore it and let the bushes be overgrown and let it be outdated, at least just turn it into a one-pager you’re proud of. You can really simplify it if you need to. If you’re in that unique space of, we generate all our prospects and clients, that’s fine. But I think it’s unrealistic, given how deeply ingrained we are in the internet and how people research and find things, to think that people aren’t maybe just taking a peek, maybe taking a poke. It doesn’t have to be an overhaul. It could just be a little bit of a refresh.”

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