One of the nation’s premier real estate fund sponsors and their clients faced a year-end tax deadline. The clock was ticking. Only a short time remained for investors to defer, reduce, and potentially eliminate their capital gains taxes by investing in a Qualified Opportunity Zone fund.

The sponsor’s team harnessed educational ads on LinkedIn to reach out to new advisers before the deadline. With LinkedIn, the sponsor was able to raise an additional $40 million to close a fund that exceeded hundreds of millions of AUM. Advisers secured tax benefits and a new investment opportunity to clients, and transformational capital was deployed to create new housing across the US.

Do you want to learn how to harness the power of LinkedIn to reach financial professionals?

Advisors’ Favorite Social Platform 

With 800 million members worldwide and 180+ million members in the US, LinkedIn offers powerful lead generation potential. Users on LinkedIn are highly engaged and use the platform for insight, advice, and new perspectives. In fact, LinkedIn is a favorite of financial advisors, who use it more than the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Barron’s.

Financial Advisors Use LinkedIn More
Than Any Other Online Channel

Source: “FA and Asset Manager Quarterly Update Q3 2020,” LinkedIn

The stats above show why sharing content and advertising on LinkedIn is an important tool for intermediary distribution. LinkedIn is one of the most effective social media platforms for asset managers to generate leads among investment advisors. However, before creating a LinkedIn advertising campaign, it’s essential to understand the process. 

The following six steps will help you create a LinkedIn ad campaign that is highly successful in gathering leads and converting them into prospects. 

1. Select Your Audience

Like many social media platforms, LinkedIn gives you the option to create a target audience for your ads. How do you find the right prospects for your campaign? Take a look at your best advisors and use LinkedIn’s advanced targeting features to build an audience just like them.

Here are just a few of the ways you can reach a carefully selected audience on LinkedIn:

• Contact Targeting: Market directly to your contacts by connecting your CRM to LinkedIn or by securely uploading selected contact info.
• Retargeting: Reconnect with folks who may have visited your website, downloaded your materials, etc.
• Company Targeting: Cross-reference your contacts by company. Did your fund just pass through due diligence and get on a platform? Reach out to company personnel on LinkedIn.
• Demographic Targeting: Target by age, geography, profession, job title, education, skills, or by interest, based on the groups joined. 

And more!

2. Create a Compelling Offer

The internet is full of distractions, so if you want to capture your prospects’ attention and convince them to provide their contact information, you’ll need a compelling offer. Therefore, it’s crucial to provide relevant, timely information that resonates. So, if you are targeting RIAs interested in private real estate investing, you might want to offer a free guide highlighting your thought leadership on inflation and its potential impact on real estate. 

It would be best if you took the time to truly understand your audience, including the problems they’re trying to solve and the concerns that keep them up at night. Your ad copy should quickly explain how your offer benefits them and why they can trust you for advice. Including emotional triggers in your ad copy will also help make it more effective. 

3. Determine Your Call to Action

All your ad copy should ultimately lead the viewer to some action. It’s up to you to tell them what you want them to do next. This is known as a call-to-action (CTA) and is one of the most important elements of a digital advertising campaign. 

Not only does your CTA need to convince the viewer to make the next move, but it should direct them to a compelling landing page where they’ll complete the action by taking advantage of your content offer. 

Here’s an example of a compelling offer and call to action (ours):

4. Create Your Ad

When creating your ad, copy and visuals are both important. You’ll only have a few seconds to capture your reader’s attention, so all elements of your ad must work together. Your ad should reflect your company’s brand, and your offer should show your expertise while avoiding jargon, a turn off.

Images and videos should always be high-quality, and it’s best to work with a professional designer who can optimize the available space.

5. Optimize and Manage Ad Placement and Bidding

Once you’ve created a compelling ad, it’s time to choose the ad placement that will yield the most cost-effective results. Some ad types allow you to display your ads on the LinkedIn Audience Network, which gives you broader reach on partner platforms. You can also choose to exclude specific sites and categories. 

Next, choose your bidding strategy. You can allow LinkedIn to automate your bids for optimal results based on:

• campaign objective
• maximum cost-per-click (CPC), or
• maximum-pay-per-1,000 impressions (CPM).

Once you choose your options, be sure to monitor your results. This will allow you to quickly see what’s working and what isn’t to optimize your budget.

6. Harvest Results

Finally, it’s time to reap the benefits of your hard work. With an effective LinkedIn ad, you’ll start receiving contact information from qualified prospects. Then, it’s time to reach out to them, offer additional value by providing other insights, and begin to build and nurture a relationship. At this point, you’ll also be able to continue moving your new prospects through your sales funnel. 

How to Grow Assets by Advertising on LinkedIn

Following the steps above will help you create engaging, productive LinkedIn ads for your business. To learn more about raising AUM with digital advertising, download our free eBook: “Asset Manager’s Guide to Growing Assets with Digital Advertising.”