There’s a hypothesis I’d like to test: Many Yardstick clients don’t know how to get the best from the guides and e-zines we produce. The same might also be true for advisers/planners who get their guides from alternative sources.
So, in this week’s blog, we’re getting incredibly practical, with eight things you can do to get the best out of your guides and e-zines and enhance the service you offer to clients, prospects and professional connections.
First things first, let’s explain the three ways you can get guides and e-zines from us.
1. Yardstick Membership
This is our newsletter and blogging service with both syndicated and bespoke content packages.
We’ll provide you with blogs, add them to your website and send the content in a newsletter. Both packages include a free guide each month, which we’ll add your branding to, pop it onto your website and send in your newsletter.
Click here if you’d like more details about our membership packages, including the pricing.
2. Buying the guides from our online shop
If you don’t subscribe to one of our Yardstick Membership packages, you can still buy the guides from our online shop.
We’ll add your branding and contact details before sending the finished guide to you. Click here to see our range of over 30 guides. From there, it’s up to you how you use it!
3. Buying e-zines from our online shop
Longer than our guides and in magazine format, our e-zines cover a wide variety of topics. They’re beautifully designed (even if we say so ourselves) with eye-catching colours and featured sections.
Again, we’ll add your branding and contact details. Click here to see our range of e-zines.
A topical e-zine for clients worried about their mortgage
We launched our latest e-zine last week and it couldn’t be more topical – The Essential Homeowner’s Guide To Mortgages And The Property Market. It’s online now and available for you to read (and purchase) by clicking here, before sharing it with your homeowner clients.
Right, now you know how to get your hands on our guides and e-zines, here are eight really easy and practical ways to promote them.
1. Improve your website by creating an electronic library of guides
We recommend putting every guide you get from us on your website to create a library that visitors can browse.
The content will add value and position you as a go-to expert while giving it away for free (without “gating” it by asking for someone’s name/email address) will mean more people will read it.
2. Build relationships with professional connections by dual branding guides
As Johnny Ridd of RQ Ratings discussed last week, it’s not easy to develop meaningful relationships with professional connections.
The first reason Johnny gave was that advisers/planners hadn’t yet earned the professional connection’s trust. Offering value before you expect to receive anything in return helps to solve that problem. Dual branding the guides (with your branding and that of your professional connection) will build trust and set you apart from other advisers/planners knocking at their door.
3. Improve your conversion rates by using them to nurture prospects
You have two choices with prospects who don’t immediately become clients:
- Do nothing to nurture them, which means the money and time you invested in creating the lead are wasted
- Add value and position yourself as an expert, so it’s you they come back to when they are ready to engage.
We’ll let you decide which is the right option.
The guides and e-zines you get from us are perfect for nurturing prospects. And it’s easy to set up an automated nurturing campaign so a new guide lands in their inbox each month. Not sure how? Drop us a line and we’d be happy to help.
4. Add value by promoting your guides and e-zines on social media
There’s no point in having content if you don’t promote it. To put it another way, this isn’t the field of dreams!
Promoting the guides and e-zines on your social media account is a great option. But many advisers/planners don’t do it, preferring instead to post a stream of humblebrags and self-promotion.
Even those who do post about their guides and e-zines, don’t promote them enough. One post isn’t going to cut through, especially when the half-life of a tweet is measured in seconds and only 19% of your connections see each LinkedIn post.
If you don’t have the time, skill or inclination to promote your guides and e-zines on social media, click here to arrange a conversation with Abi Robinson, our head of social media, to learn more about Yardstick Engage, our social media management service.
5. Build a database of prospects by promoting guides in lead magnet campaigns
To build your business and create new enquiries, you need to build an audience of prospective clients. One of the best ways to do that is with a lead magnet campaign, where you offer something of value (in this case the guides and e-zines you get from us) in return for their contact details.
Lead magnet campaigns on social media can produce excellent results. For example, one Yardstick client had 127 people download their guide in June. That’s 127 people to:
- Contact and offer an initial meeting to
- Add to their newsletter database
- Follow up in other ways.
If you’d like to learn more about lead magnet campaigns, click here to contact Chelsea Evans, our head of social media advertising.
6. Impress clients by using guides to answer their questions
Your clients see you as a go-to expert on everything related to their finances. So they’re bound to come to you with questions. When they do, sending a link to one of your blogs, guides or e-zines is a great option:
- “Great question, we’ve got a blog on that, I’ll send it to you.”
- “Good timing! We’ve just added a guide on that topic to our website, I’ll send you a link now.”
- “Here’s our latest e-zine on that, have a read and then I’ll call you to chat it through.”
Not only will this impress your client, but it also makes life easier for you. When you’re busy, having a beautiful, informative, ready-to-go resource at your fingertips is a big win!
7. Make webinars easy by turning your guides into a presentation
Webinars are a great way to communicate efficiently and cost-effectively with a relatively large group of people at the same time.
However, writing the presentation is a significant barrier for many advisers/planners. And if you don’t have that, you don’t have a webinar! The solution is simple – turn our guides or e-zines into a presentation by taking the key points and adding them to your slides.
8. Overcome the inspiration barrier by turning guides into social media posts
Coming up with content for social media isn’t easy. You’ve got to take every opportunity to make life easier. Chopping up the guides and e-zines you get as part of your Yardstick Membership, or you buy from our online shop, is a great way to do just that.
Take a section from the guide or e-zine, edit as necessary and turn it into a post. Then add a link to where your connections can read the whole guide.
Again, if you don’t have the time to do that, click here to arrange an initial discussion with Abi, who can tell you more about Yardstick Engage.
Action = better returns
Content (including your guides and e-zines) should be produced once and promoted forever.
Hopefully, this week’s blog gives you practical ideas you can start implementing (or ask us to!) immediately.
Our advice? Choose one or two tactics from the list and start with those. Once they’re working for you, come back and select a couple more.
In the meantime, if you need our help, you know where we are. Simply email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300. We’re here to help!
