How to make sure your marketing is supporting—not stalling—growth

When advisers feel their businesses have stopped growing, the answer is typically to focus more intently on business development. For advisers who have done that and still haven’t achieved sustained growth, it’s probably time to take a close look at their current marketing support.

Insufficient marketing support and brand development are among the top reasons why advisers begin to think about making a move. The first step in assessing advisers’ current, as well as prospective marketing support, is to gain more clarity over their own needs.

One group, typically wirehouse advisers, often sees their firms’ efforts as effective in building brand recognition, but not targeted enough to help them succeed personally. Other advisers, typically those affiliated with smaller independent broker-dealers, believe the plateauing of their own business is due, at least in part, to a lack of brand awareness.

Some independent broker-dealer reps often look to their broker-dealer for marketing support because they spend little on their own marketing and business development.
The average hybrid adviser, in fact, allocated $82,000 to marketing activities in 2015, according to the InvestmentNews Adviser Compensation & Staffing Study, or 2.5% of its overall revenue. Of course, many advisers believe that it is their own efforts, not the marketing prowess of their firms, which built their loyal client base.

They strongly contend that their clients will stick with them regardless of broker-dealer affiliation, and point to examples from peers who have left their firm to go independent and whose clients followed. For them, the marketing efforts of the firm with which they may possibly affiliate is a relative non-issue. When considering a broker-dealer, therefore, the optimal level of marketing support required is a key determination.

When weighing a change with the aim of improving your marketing support to build your business, take the time to answer the following questions.

• What is the current public image — whether positive, negative or non-existent —of your current firm? What is the image of the broker-dealer with which you are considering to affiliate? What impact will it have on your own success?

• If considering an affiliation with a firm that does little or no marketing, do you have the time and inclination to engage in brand-building and marketing on your own, including website development and promotion, advertising, publicity and content creation?

To learn more about the key considerations advisers should take into account when contemplating a move, download the Charles Schwab Independent Branch Services white paper, “Should I Stay or Should I Grow?”