Swift Chat with Marie Swift and Jonny Swift: Integrating AI with Your Marketing Efforts

In this unique Swift Chat, recorded live in the Social/Digital Hub at the 2023 Morningstar Investment Conference (MICUS) in Chicago, honorary “Hubster” Shawna Ohm of Content 151 flips the script as she interviews Marie Swift and Jonny Swift of Impact Communications.

The trio shares some of their marketing and PR insights in relation to some of the hot topic items at #MICUS 2023 like AI. They share how firms both large and small can integrate AI in their marketing efforts to help create content, generate leads, and even help with client retention. Marie and Jonny also share some actionable takeaways for firms looking to up their PR and marketing game.

Learn more about Shawna Ohm and Content 151 here: www.Content151.com 

Find more great content from the Social/Digital Hub here: www.SocialDigitalHub.com

Listen to Podcast/Audio version

    I think that it [AI] is a useful, effective way for advisors to be more efficient in certain elements, but you have to be careful. Obviously, programs like Chat GPT are not perfect yet, and so you still have to monitor the content that it spits out."

​~ Jonny Swift, Vice President of Impact Communications, Inc.

Transcript of the Conversation

​Shawna Ohm: Hi, everyone. This is a Swift Chats takeover here at the Morningstar Investment Conference at the Social/Digital Hub. I'm Shawna Ohm at Content 151. I was an honorary Hubster this year and I wanted to flip the script and put the Swifts in the hot seat and get their take on some of the great content that they've presented here at the Social/Digital Hub, and share some of these actionable takeaways with anyone listening to the podcast. So, welcome guys. We've got Marie Swift and Jonny Swift. So, first question, we've talked a lot about technology and marketing and how different firms and advisors can use technology to make their marketing better. For big firms, they have a lot of in-house tech. For smaller firms, they might be looking elsewhere, AI, different solutions. What tech can you recommend?

Jonny Swift: Well, for big firms, I think that doing some kind of surveying software or technology can be really useful for marketing. NEXA Insights is one of our favorites, Absolute Engagement is also really good. It allows firms to get client sentiment, get client feedback, it allows their clients to feel heard. It helps with client retention. It allows them to see potential issues with clients and also potential opportunities, and find additional ways to serve clients. It also can help with referrals, which is really big with marketing, and a lot of those surveys have the ability for the clients and respondents to put in potential referrals in that way. It's a great way to increase new business and also help with client retention.

Marie Swift: I would just add too, for big firms, having the executives at the top level buy in, like, why is this making a difference? How is it paying off? Metrics are going to be really important. Having a more sophisticated email program and some retargeting, just the metrics that you could get from something like Eloqua or Marketo versus a smaller solution like a Mailchimp or a Constant Contact, which would be more price appropriate and probably robust enough for smaller firms. For audio video, I would say everybody needs to be producing some kind of audio and video. For video, we like hosting on Vimeo, which is a great platform. Wistia is another one. I've used a simple editing creation program called Animoto, which is a drag and drop. You can drag video, you can drag still shots and motion graphics in, easy, affordable. Canva, you can actually do graphics and video in Canva. Then for podcasts, we love hosting on Libsyn. It stands for Liberated Syndication and it's a great way to get your podcast content out there.

Shawna: There was a lot of conversation too here about AI, and being both excited about it and cautionary. I have to ask; can you give a quick recap on the AI conversation here?

Jonny: I think that it's a useful, effective way for advisors to be more efficient in certain elements. But you have to be careful. Obviously, programs like ChatGPT are not perfect yet, and so you still have to monitor the content that it spits out. I think it's good for if you want to use it to create a first draft of a blog post, or create an SEO-optimized title for your blog post, or maybe a news summary, or social media post. But no matter what you do, make sure you monitor that closely. Make sure you take that as a first draft. You tweak it, you make it your own, you customize it at least 30% to 50% and just use that as idea generation more than anything else.

Marie: I would also add, be careful what you feed into something like ChatGPT because then it becomes the training ground and content for others to use. Make sure that there's nothing confidential or proprietary. You don't want to give away your IP.

Jonny: There are some other additional tools, specifically within our financial services space, that AI utilizes. A couple of good tools are Catalyze AI, that is a lead generation program based on catalyst events. Right now, the catalyst events are inheritors, people who received an inheritance, new movers, and divorcees. Every month you can subscribe and get a list of people that fall within those categories within your area, 50-mile radius from your zip code. The AI platform pretty much scrubs the web and is able to get high quality contact information, email addresses and mailing addresses, so that's been really interesting. You can create personalized content around those catalyst events and reach out to those high-quality contacts.
 
The other one is Catchlight, which is an AI software where you can upload a list of contacts, clients or prospects, even better if it's prospects, and then it goes out and scrubs the web and is able to get quality information in terms of their demographics, their interests, their behaviors. Then you have more intelligence when you reach out to them and know what they're interested in, what their ideal client profile might look like.

Marie: I heard that Catchlight just made an announcement that now you can tell their AI inside of Catchlight that you'd like help creating a customized email for someone who's identified as, by the software, 60 years old, a grandchild, loves to garden. I know that they also integrate with something, I think it is FMG, but maybe some others as well where you can tap into those content libraries if you're a subscriber.

Shawna: I think that's where your point about making sure you review the content becomes really helpful as well because it can be a little bit creepy if you have all that information. You're getting the email, and you don't know how someone's figured that out about you, or maybe there's an error in it. Having that human touch is still very important, which is something we talked about a lot here at the Social/Digital Hub, that technology can aid you but shouldn't replace you.
 
Let's talk about public relations. For folks at a big firm who want to maybe start writing blogs or who want to do television media appearances, who want to get their name out there in a big organization, what are the first steps that they can take to kind of get their feet wet?

Marie: Sure, I'll take that one first. Getting with the corporate communications team, making sure that you're approved, you might need some media training. You might need to start slow, walk before you run, but then, of course, go through the usual corporate compliance checks, what are you permitted to say, and then just get out there and start doing it. Try some safe opportunities at conferences, for instance, before you go on broadcast television.
 
Shawna: Well, on the small firm side too, we talked about reaching out to maybe your local newspaper publication. How do you go about doing that? How do you find the right contact at the local paper? How do you take that first step if you're maybe on the smaller side and aren't ready to bring in a PR firm?

Jonny: Well, we always preach utilizing what we call the “read and feed” method. Follow your local publications, follow the journalists at those publications; local, industry, even national publications. Watch out for the type of content that they're creating and the type of stories that they're writing. Read that content, and then once you have a good feel for who they are, what kind of journalists they are, what kind of content they're covering, go ahead and feed them story ideas. You can say, hey, I saw you cover this topic. Here's a great follow up topic that I think your readers would really enjoy, and I'd be happy to speak on this and this, and position yourself as the expert source on that topic. Journalists always really appreciate when they can tell you've taken an interest in their work and you follow them before you reach out with a pitch or a story idea. And if you don't pay attention that way, and you reach out with something that's completely off base, that's a really good way to alienate them. So “read and feed”. Oftentimes journalists’ contact information is publicly available on the contact page of the online publication, so check it out there, and you can find their email address. You can follow them on social, reach out via social media direct messaging or something like that.

Marie: I would also add that there are a couple of email programs where you're able to get a lot of emails that you might not think you could get. One I use is an app, it plugs into chrome. It's called GetEmail.io and Dory, if she were here, would tell us another one, Revolve something. But just Google how to get emails and you can get a certain amount free every month.

Shawna: Well, we're at a financial services conference so we have to talk about money and the money of marketing. We hear a lot that small businesses should be spending maybe 5-10% of their budget on marketing. A lot of advisors don't do that. When we talk to advisors, they tend to have one focus. They want to do PR, they want to do ads, something. How should you think about budgeting in terms of those things? What percentage should you be spending on PR versus spending on paid advertisements? How do you guys frame that up?

Marie: We don't advocate for breaking that out. We advocate for an integrated approach and an integrated marketing communications budget. PR should certainly play a big part of that. When we talk to advisors and we do marketing plans for firms, we embrace something called the Peso model, like the Mexican Peso. Each of those letters stands for something: paid, earned, shared and owned.
 
We actually like to flip that on its head because we believe that paid advertising is the least important component for smaller firms or for any firm where you're a trust-based business and you're talking about money and life and the things that everything that money touches. We like to flip it around and it's OESP: owned, earned, shared and paid. Paid at the very back end, for the things that you own and you produce, becoming your own publication company, if you will, or production company. And then earned, which is your PR. That should be a big halo effect, and harness that back through the S, which is social media and shared. That's where tribes of people, individuals will help promote your content and your causes and your brand. It's difficult to break out how much of each of those components should be spent, but I would say the lion's share on owned and earned, and then a little bit on shared and even less on paid.

Jonny: Yeah, there's still a place for paid components. Advertising campaigns, social media, boosted posts, things like that. But at Impact, we're not just a PR firm, we're a full-service marketing communications firm. PR is a big part of the strategy for most of our clients. But PR makes all of the rest of your marketing easier and just kind of makes everything run easier and more smoothly. So again, that integrated approach is most important. I do think there is a place for the paid component in terms of advertising campaigns. But overall, I think we say about 10% of revenue towards the marketing budget. Obviously, it all comes together there.
 
Marie: If you're hungry to grow 10%, but the Schwab study shows that most advisors, the best run RIA firms, are spending about 2.5% of their gross revenue, or 2.8%. Shawna, you were making a point earlier that time is also something that should be factored in, because time is money.

Shawna: Right, and what do you bill hourly, and then how many hours are you spending trying to do this work? That doesn't usually make it into your balance sheet, but it's important.
 
I do want to talk about, then, how you combine some of this owned and earned coverage with your branding, and the blend between your personal brand, which we all have nowadays because of social media, and the professional branding. I think this can vary a little bit, maybe sometimes based on whether you're at a large firm or whether you're building your own business, where your personal brand is kind of interconnected. We talked a lot about that here, and I wanted to get your take on people who are doing it well, because a lot of folks tend to say, I don't know how personal to be. I don't know what to share. I don't know how to get started. What's too much? So, examples are helpful. Who are examples of folks out there who are blending their professional brand and their personal brand well that people can emulate?

Jonny: Well, obviously there are a lot of good ones within the industry, but outside of the industry, I'll go with a hometown hero, and that is Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs. Obviously he's a consummate professional and everything. He does great with press conferences and with the media. But he's a big part of the community, puts himself out there often and shows the personal side of his brand as well, through the commercials and the brands that he gets involved with, with his public appearances, with his community initiatives and giving back to the community service initiatives. He shows a good part of his personal side, too. He puts his family out there on social media, and it not only helps him be seen as a star athlete, a consummate professional in his profession, but also as a relatable human being in the Kansas City community. I think he's been doing a great job with his propersonal marketing.

Shawna: I finally started following his wife on Instagram, and I don't even think I follow him, but I remember seeing a photo of them trick-or-treating, and it was in the middle of the season, and he's wearing a giant sun costume and going around the neighborhood trick or treating with his kids. I just remember thinking, wow, that is so relatable. I know that she gets some backlash on social media, but I think that's kind of one of the trade-offs of putting yourself out there. Some people are going to love you, some people might not, but they're paying attention. You can also kind of piggyback on the presence of the people around you and who you surround yourself with, as a way of maybe building your personal brand.
 
Marie: I'll jump in with a couple more. I admire Oprah. I think she's done a fabulous job of being professional and personable, personal, sharing just enough for us to feel like we love her. Her personality is a big personality, but she stands for something good: unification, grace, charity. Another one that touches Oprah is the founder of Pax Philomena. It's a clothing line, and Oprah endorsed their captains, one of her favorite things that Oprah loves. I wish I could remember her name, maybe it's Jean Marie Clarke, but you can google Pax Philomena. They have beautiful handmade kaftans.
 
Then in the industry, I would say Carolyn McClanahan is an icon for me, because she's able to go out and use her influence and her stature as a former M.D. and now a CFP and a fiduciary financial planner to say what's on her mind, even if it's around politics.

Shawna: I have to weigh in with mine a little bit, too, because it's someone I love to hate. I have a lot of folks ask me, and something I work with, too, in my business: How do you balance your personal brand with your professional brand? When are you the face of your company versus you yourself? I think Elon Musk does a really good job of this, because he has a very clear personal brand. He's very clearly associated with both SpaceX and Tesla, but SpaceX and Tesla both have independent identities that are separate from Elon Musk, so they can put out a communication blitz, et cetera, and it can be totally separate from him. But he's built in with it, too, and I think for a lot of firms, they hit this breaking point of, when do I change my Twitter handle to not be my company name? When do I create this split? I always use him as an example. I don't necessarily love his personal brand, but I think he's balancing the two very well.
 
I think that was the main stuff I wanted to wrap up. Any other highlights just from your time here at the Social/Digital Hub or the conference in general?

Jonny: We've had a great time at the Social/Digital Hub. Obviously, we've been in the hub most of the conference, so that's been my highlight. I thought both of our panels yesterday were really good. The first one in the morning on modern marketing and personalization at scale, and the one in the afternoon on propersonal marketing. Lots of good takeaways. Those are going to be up on our Vimeo channel if you're interested in watching the replay. We got lots of good content, podcasts and videos, and had a lot of good conversations.

Marie: The Hub Talk that we did the prior day on earned media with Roger Wohlner and Shana Sissel was great. And then Shawna, you added so much to the panels yesterday, and we just have so much fun with you whenever you're in the space.

Shawna: That's the key. You’ve got to have partners that you like. Since I took over, I guess that means I get to have the last word. I love that Morningstar came in and brought finfluencers, or influencers in finance on social media, who maybe don't have a professional background but have really resonated with the world at large. It was great to hear tips on how maybe some of us who naval gaze a bit or are in this financial services industry can remember the we need to connect with real people, how to do that. Yeah.

Marie: Until next year, then. Obviously, we'll be seeing you before then, but we want to see everybody back here at the Social/Digital Hub next year.

Shawna: Yes, and if you're listening, definitely attend next year and come by the Hub. We'd love to see you.

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