A Social Media Marketing Success Story
This is a guest post from Cathy Curtis, CFP® of Curtis Financial Planning. I have been admiring Cathy as a marketer for several months and especially her use of social media marketing to promote her business. In this post, Cathy shares how she has created a unique brand that has opened up a wide variety of opportunities.
In my first few years as a financial planner, I made do with a template website from Advisor Products, Inc., because I needed to get my website up and because I wanted to save a few dollars. I think Advisor Products is a fantastic resource for financial advisors, but my website was so not me, so boring and dull, I was embarrassed to give out the URL! I had business cards produced in the same color scheme -royal blue and white, and attempted to attract clients – any clients. Being that I decided to be an independent advisor and also that I was a career-changer, I knew my road to riches was going to be a slow one, and I soon realized my boring website and business cards were not helping!
After some soul-searching and research, I knew that I needed to recreate myself as a brand, and decide on a target client. I am a corporate escapee and a nonconformist and saw that when it came to branding, I was trying to conform to the industry standard that had been set by other financial planning firms: serious and corporate. Even though I have a serious side and consider financial planning a very serious subject I thought clients may respond to a less intimidating image – especially when I chose my target client – women.
I signed up for a branding seminar and decided I would use the ten weekly meetings to develop a brand image and redesign and rewrite my website. I enlisted a web designer at the same time to help me develop the creative side of my website. Jim (www.jameswilsondesign.com) and I quickly decided to ditch the template site and go custom. As a first step, Jim advised me to look at lots of websites – industry and others and find out what I liked – look and feel, color and design. I discovered that I prefer websites with simple but bold designs, few colors, and graphic images instead of photos. After the look and feel was decided upon, Jim sent me to www.istockphoto.com to find images that I liked. In the meantime, back in the branding seminar, branding expert, Ellen Looyen (www.ellen4marketing.com) was helping me hone in on my brand. One meeting she asked me to explain “What do you really want your clients to know about money management and financial planning?”, and I said ,”I think women don’t realize how simple financial planning can be, that if they learned certain principles it would be less intimidating”, or something similar.
Thus, the “10 Simple Truths About Money” concept was born. After that I spent most nights at my computer writing the copy for my website. Jim was back at his office designing it. I was able to stay on track because Jim was encouraging me to finish the copy to go with the design and the weekly branding class was helping me to stay focused on my brand. By the time the branding seminar was over, my website was ready to be launched!
After that, things got easier. Because I had a website and business cards that were more in sync with who I am and the image I want to present to potential clients, it was much easier for me to go out and market myself. I also knew where to spend my time and dollars. I joined several women’s networking groups including, National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), Ladies Who Launch, eWomen Network, and I kept up my long term involvement with the Commonwealth Club of California as a volunteer leader. My elevator pitch was fine tuned and I was ready to go!
The networking groups I joined all sponsored educational seminars as part of their outreach to members. This is where I first started to realize the power of Social Media Marketing. I met Hazel Grace Dircksen of Socialbees (www.facebook.com/socialbees) who taught me about Facebook business pages, and Adryenn Ashley of Wowisme (www.wowisme.net) who taught me to embrace self promotion, and Jennifer Lee of Ladies Who Launch and Artizen Coaching (www.artizencoaching.com) who organized seminars on website optimization, branding and Social Media marketing: Twitter, Ning, Facebook, LinkedIn, and You Tube.
In the fall of 2008 I opened a personal Facebook account and a business Facebook page that named “Women and Money” http://companies.to/womenandmoney/. A couple of months later I opened a Twitter account www.twitter.com/curtisfinancial. Prior to getting tuned into all the different Social Media opportunities, my website had started to attract media attention. For example, a Dow Jones News Wire reporter found me on LinkedIn, she said she “scrolled for financial planning contacts” using LinkedIn, and when she came upon me and read my website, she loved it and decided to call. She has since quoted me in two stories in the Wall Street Journal. So I am a fan of LinkedIn, but Facebook and Twitter have opened up whole new worlds. I recently started experimenting with educational videos to post on my Women and Money Facebook page. Personal coach and videographer, Wanda Hennig (www.wandahennig.com) is working with me on this project. It is not only lots of fun, I am getting great feedback.
When I think about all the marketing efforts I have made – on and off-line, I realize that they are synergistic. I meet people face-to-face, we connect via various social media outlets, and then when I see them again in person, the relationship is that much stronger. Some of the opportunities that have come my way because of Social Media marketing are: speaking engagements; invitations to be a guest-blogger and quoted in magazines; client referrals; and invitations to be on advisory boards. I recently spoke to the Press Club in Sacramento, a woman’s artist group in San Rafael and a crowd of late 20 year olds in San Francisco at “Its Your MoneySF”. I have presented to Ladies Who Launch meetings and NAWBO meetings, and I have been quoted in Working Mother Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and Oakland Magazine. My peers in the financial planning industry are also noticing and admiring my efforts, which is motivating and gratifying.
Because my business is growing, last year I hired personal assistant and this year a paraplanner. I truly believe that the extra exposure that social media has offered me will continue to help grow my business and open up new doors for professional growth. I plan to stay tuned for any and all new opportunities for marketing, and if anything is certain, there will be new opportunities, because nothing stays the same for long!
Cathy Curtis is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) and Investment Advisor. She founded her firm, Curtis Financial Planning in 2001. She specializes in personal budgeting, creating comprehensive financial plans and managing investment portfolios for individuals and small businesses. Cathy is a Fee-Only advisor and a member of The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA). As a NAPFA-Registered Advisor, Cathy is committed to the three primary ideals of NAPFA: The belief that clients are best served by a comprehensive approach to financial planning; 2. The highest levels of competency must be achieved and maintained; and 3. Fee-Only compensation and a fiduciary relationship are vital to placing the interests of the client above all others.
Cathy is a graduate of UC Berkeley and also completed her financial planning curriculum at UC Berkeley Extension. In her free time, Cathy enjoys outdoor sports such as swimming, cycling and hiking; indoor sports such as pilates; reading great fiction and non-fiction; and cooking at home. She is married and lives in the Oakland Hills with her husband of 7 years.
Good to hear a positive story with some substance about social networking. I get a few extra website hits and have had a couple of paying gigs out of my Facebook presence and one has to rely on wile and luck. Good luck with your business.
Great article. Clearly Cathy was able to establish a Web Presence that was unique and went beyond just her own website.
Cathy Curtis has done a fine job of outlining a successful approach to web marketing. She is a star!
Inspirational to those looking to do the same. Good post Cathy.
Thank you Cathy: This article is so inspirational and motivational for so many working women in society today. Being a business person myself, I can appreciate a success story as well as the tips and advice within your article.
Great post. Thanks Kristen for having Cathy write this post. It is further proof that you can use this new medium to better communicate your story and help others in the process. How cool. Further, I give props to Cathy for giving credit to those who collaborated and helped along the way. Thank you. A definite tweet out on this…
I’m glad you think Advisor Products is a fanstastic resource but I wish you had given us a chance to help you get to the next level.
We’ve sold template sites for years but only do it when advisors do not foillow our advice to spend the time and money to create strategic marketing plan and really think through their branding and massage.
We’ve had great success with advisory firms that recognize the value of creating great a compelling marketing message and deisgning a custom website. That’s why we’ve been in business for 13 years and continue toi grow.
You might want to take a look at the future of advisor websites: our client portal system, which you cna read about at http://www.advisorproducts.com/portal.aspx.
Continued good luck!
Hi Cathy, It’s been so inspiring to see the transformation from the old site you had before to the beautiful and authentic brand you’ve created for yourself. I still remember having that meeting with you I think it was in Montclair when you were talking about how your new website was going to be. It really does such an awesome job of attracting the right kind of customers your way. Also, your simple truths booklet is simply gorgeous. Thanks for sharing about your personal branding and networking journey. And thanks for the mention, too! You are doing fantastic work.
Jenn
Great article, thanks for the information.
I’ve been looking for people who have successfully used online social networking to promote their business. Thanks for outlining the process you went through to make it all happen. Loved the look of your Web site too!
Got to love the emerging social networking/media as a means to take back control from days of yore when the media barons controlled the airways, and print medium. Not to get to academic or anything but what would Marshal McCluhan say about this emerging medium?
Allow me to quote Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message:
“The medium is the message” is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964.[1] McLuhan proposes that media themselves, not the content they carry, should be the focus of study; he said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself.
Cheers!
Thank you everyone for your great comments about my guest blog post and to Kristen for inviting me to write it! I am glad that it is serving as a resource and as an inspiration for people!
And, to Andrew Gluck: your team did talk to me about doing a custom website, and I am sure the custom websites produced by Advisor Products are excellent just as the rest of your offerings! It was more timing than anything else and being ready to commit the $$.
Best Regards,
Cathy Curtis