After reading about a new digital platform for financial advisors that builds traffic on the other company's website I thought, 'This is not a good way for advisors to build their digital presence.' So, in today's podcast, I'm going to walk you through a three-step digital marketing strategy for building a digital presence that drives traffic to YOUR website, that builds YOUR leads pipeline, and that builds YOUR brand, not somebody else's(See my podcast: How to Build a Brand That Connects With Your Clients and Prospects).

There are so many platforms out there that rely on you to create content for them--for free--in order to build THEIR business. I'm thinking of Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Medium, Advisor Insights from Investopedia, and many others. The trick is you have to be very careful with these other sites to make sure that you get a positive ROI on the time and intellectual capital you spend populating these other sites.

I'm not kidding when I say if you pay scant attention to your digital marketing and digital presence strategy, you're going to be history before you know it. All these platforms that have popped up in recent years are trying to grow by getting free content from you and then selling advertising to the platform user base. It's a great business because their cost of goods is like--zero. These platforms know the value of attracting lots of people to their system. You need to do the same.

Now, there is a time and a place for you to use these third-party platforms to grow your business. But, you have to be smart about how you do it. You have to carefully choose the third-party places where you post your intellectual capital and devote your time. And the ultimate goal of doing this is simple--you want to drive traffic back to your website, capture the leads, and start nurturing them to become clients.

Today, I discuss how to create a digital strategy that drives traffic to your website and builds your brand, not somebody else's.