In the 1960s, psychologist Robert Zajonc ran a simple experiment. He showed people a series of Chinese-style characters and made-up syllables they couldn’t read — meaningless to them, in every sense. Some characters appeared once. Others appeared two, five, ten, twenty-five times. Then he asked his participants which ones they liked.
They preferred the ones they’d seen most often.
He called it the mere-exposure effect.1
Here’s what it means for you as a financial advisor. When a prospect calls, the decision is often made slowly, over months or even years. An office sign they passed. A video they watched. A sponsorship at a charity event. Every little bit of exposure gave them more familiarity with your brand.
1. Differentiate your branding.
I’ve designed hundreds of financial advisor brands over the past few years. That’s not a brag, just a fact. And being heavily involved in advisor branding, I tend to notice one thing…most of them look alike.
Do you know how many logos are navy blue? Do you know how many lighthouses there are? Or compasses? Or mountain peaks? Too many. I’m not saying this symbolism can’t work, but if you’re going to use it, do something interesting with it. Take it somewhere unexpected.
Exposure only compounds if there’s something to remember. A forgettable brand seen a thousand times is still forgettable. Don’t be afraid to reinvent your brand if things are feeling stale.
2. Become a familiar voice.
Two hundred times. That’s how many times the average American checks their phone every day. Once every five waking minutes. Your prospects are scrolling somewhere right now, and the question isn’t whether they’re on their phone, it’s whether your name is on the screen when they look.
I know a financial advisor in a small town in North Carolina who produces ongoing video content. The production value is strong and he’s thoughtful about the topics covered. A prospect recently asked for a meeting and said, “I don’t actually know you. But I’ve seen a number of your videos. I figured it was time we met.”
The advisors who stay top of mind today are the ones who embrace this type of thought leadership, working to scale their reach through digital marketing. This often means:
- Short videos
- LinkedIn posts
- Podcasts
- Email newsletters
A prospect who has seen your content already feels like they know you before the first meeting. That’s the power of thought leadership.
3. Pay for distribution.
Organic is slow. Paid is fast. It’s the nature of today’s social networks. They want you to pay for distribution. The good thing is that it isn’t overly expensive and the targeting options are remarkable.
Take the single best piece of content you’ve made in the last year, the one most clearly stamped with your brand. Put a decent budget behind it on your preferred platform (Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.) and target people who look like your clients. Run it for a month. Then run a similar strategy again next month. And the month after. By showing it to the same audience over and over, they’ll begin to recognize you and associate you with strong financial advice.
Building familiarity takes years of showing up in ways that don’t pay off immediately. Until one day, a moment arrives in someone’s life, whether it be a retirement, a business sale, or the loss of a loved one, when they reach for the phone and call the name they already know.
Source
1https://www.psy.lmu.de/allg2/download/audriemmo/ws1011/mere_exposure_effect.pdf
