Mike Byrnes, who's worked in the financial service marketingspace since 1992, has seen his fair share of marketing mistakesamong financial advisors.

“[Advisors] didn't grow up in the marketing and sometimes salesworld,” he said.

“There's definitely a lot of mistakes in the marketing world,”he said. “[Advisors] need to be very strategic about what they'redoing and be focused. And then just have the right tactics —even if they're a mistake, learn from it. If they're the righttactics, they're going to be really happy and they're going toincrease their business size or whatever goal they're trying toaccomplish.”

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Byrnes founded his own marketing consulting firm, Byrnes Consulting LLC, in April 2008. His servicesinclude business planning, marketing strategy, businessdevelopment, client service and management effectiveness. He spokewith ThinkAdvisor about these five specific mistakes he sees inadvisors' marketing strategies:

1. Not defining their target market.

If advisors narrow their focus and define a target market,they're going to be more successful, according to Byrnes.

“It really is obvious the firms that struggle with marketing ifthey just say 'we want a client to come in that has $500,000 ormore, or a million or more.' To me, that's too broad,” Byrnes toldThinkAdvisor. “They need to get more specific.”

If advisors can visualize the type of client they want to walkin the door — the prospective client — then they're morelikely to be successful with their marketing to get thatclient.

Byrnes used the example of widows versus corporate executives asprospective target markets. And how with target markets, advisorscan be strategic and develop alliances.

Related: How to target 'tribes' of insurance prospects usingsimple strategies

For example, with widows, advisors could market to a griefcounselor to build out a strategic alliance. Meanwhile, withcorporate execs, advisors may want to partner with a business coachor headhunter.

If advisors know their target market, they can also hold targeted events to attract the prospectiveclients they want.

“For widows, you could have a widow's group, a travelclub — because they're really sad because they lost theirsignificant other so they stop traveling — or a Valentine'sDay party — because they're pretty sad on Valentine's Day,”Byrnes explained.

Meanwhile, an advisor could hold an “How to Deal with CorporateRisk” event if he or she is trying to attract corporate execs.

“If you did the Valentine's Day for corporate executives, thatwould seem a little creepy maybe,” Byrnes said.

2. Not having a strategy with specific tactics that willdeliver results.

Advisors need to have a plan and “stick to it,” Byrnes said.

“Too often we see that if things are too generic, [advisors]don't know where to focus their efforts,” he told ThinkAdvisor.“There's a limited amount of resources — which I always say istime and dollars — and if they know what kind of client theywant, their strategy can be … more specific.”

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Their plan should include marketing tactics and tools, likeevent marketing, direct mail, email, online marketing, socialmedia, PR and advertising.

“If they have a really well thought out plan, the marketing isvery trackable so you can see if those tactics are working, andeach year your marketing plan should get that much better andbetter,” Byrnes explained. “You learn and see what worked and whatdidn't work.”

So, how do advisors come up with a strategy with specifictactics?

According to Byrnes, this strategy loops into the largerbusiness plan.

“So if they have a goal to grow, let's say, 20% year after year.How are they going to grow?” he explained. “Are they going to do itfrom client referrals? From strategic alliances?From new business? From mergers and acquisitions? And then theyneed to make a plan specific to all those different buckets.”

Related: 7 phases of the perfect clientfunnel

According to Byrnes, advisors should be asking themselves thefollowing questions to determine what strategies and tactics touse.

“If it's referrals, what are [advisors] doing to get the clientsto introduce them?” he said. “If it's strategic alliances, arethere things like joint mailings or shared PR or events that[advisors] could do together [with these alliances]? And are[advisors] building the right relationships?”

3. Not having a mobile-friendly approach.

The vast majority of advisors have websites. But are theirwebsites mobile-friendly?

“[Advisors] get the importance of online marketing, but there'ssome that still are not realizing the power of the smartphone,”Byrnes said.

Related: Match your marketing goals with the correcttechnology

When Byrnes Consulting reviews advisors marketing programs, itoften sees that advisors are focusing in on the desktop world, akaa bigger screen. Because of this, Byrnes says, their emailmarketing is “terrible.” And, he adds, that email marketing isusually advisors' main way of communicating with prospects.

Because advisors are desktop-focused, they often send out hugechunks of text. Rather, Byrnes says, advisors “need to havedigestible content if you're looking at it on a smartphone.”

He adds that sometimes advisors don't even have mobile-friendlytemplates.

Related: Is a mobile app in your agency'sfuture?

“If anybody has to squeeze or pinch their screen to make surethe website or email or whatever they're looking at fits, [theadvisor] probably lost somebody,” Byrnes said. “Somebody's going toget frustrated in two seconds, so that communication has completelyfailed.”

According to Byrnes, any advisor that's not focused on thesmartphone first needs to tweak or “vastly” improve his or hermarketing strategy.

4. Not having a lead-generating website.

The other common mistake that Byrnes Consulting sees is thatadvisors do not have good lead-generating websites.

“If they have a lead come to their website, they don't do a verygood job of capturing that lead,” Byrnes explained.

To have a good lead-generating website, advisors need to knowtheir target market, in order to offer them something for whichthey're willing to trade their contact information, Byrnessaid.

In the marketing world, they call this a “freemium,” Byrnessays.

Related: Quick tips to capture and keep more onlineinsurance customers

“In a world where nobody wants another email — there aretoo many emails in the world right now — what would someonerisk getting more emails for because they had to have that piece ofcontent?” Byrnes said.

That content can be a book, e-book, white paper or a simpletwo-paged flyer.

These “freemiums” can be placed on the homepage or can bespecific to any page on the website, according to Byrnes.

&ldldquo;If they're on the page where an advisor isdescribing his retirement home services, have a freemium that'srelated to that,” he said. “If they're talking about family wealthand issues with multigenerational families, have a thing that sayssomething like … 'Here's 10 Pieces of Advice for Families andTransferring Wealth.'”

5. Not having a winning content marketing strategy.

“What advisors need to realize is that they're now in thepublishing business,” Byrnes said. “They now need to think aboutsharing content on a regular basis.” It's how they can be found,it's how they can win over a prospect, it's how their clients canshare out to their networks and how advisors can get referrals.

What makes a “winning” content marketing strategy?

Related: 6 important tips for insurance agency contentmarketing

According to Byrnes, advisors' content marketing needs todemonstrate to people what they do, not just tell them what theydo.

For example, if an advisor wants to attract widows, saying“here's five things you need to know if you're about to lose yoursignificant other” means more than saying “this is how we helpwidows.”

Another important aspect of a content marketing strategy,according to Byrnes, is that advisors should show their personalside if they're working with families and individuals.

“We often see that the personal side of the content gets clickedon more than the professional side,” he explained. “If you do aCharity Day, take pictures, do a video, tell a story about it. Andcompare that to your market outlook. See what do clients click onmore?”

Related: The secret to hitting a home run with digitalmarketing

One of the common flaws that Byrnes Consulting sees with manycontent marketing strategies is advisors want their content to beexclusive for their clients.

If it's private, advisors lose out on the search engineoptimization benefits of keeping it public and they lose all kindsof lead potential, according to Byrnes.

Emily Zulz is the staff reporter for our ALMMedia sister-site, ThinkAdvisor. She can be reachedat [email protected].