Fintech and financial services marketing has always been Kelly Waltrich’s playground. 

From her days as a CMO at major players eMoney and Orion to her new role as co-founder and CEO of the marketing and growth engine design firm, Intention.ly, Kelly has not only seen the evolution of marketing in the financial services space, she’s helped to drive it. 

And what she’s seeing now, working with over 35 financial services and financial technology firms to transform the role of marketing in their organizations, is that the miseducation about marketing in our industry is slowly being corrected.

Advisors, who have long been taught that marketing could be cookie-cutter or set it and forget it in order to be scalable, are learning that personalization is the key to success.

During her conversation with Beacon Strategies’ Managing Partner Chip Kispert on a recent Beacon Flash podcast episode, Kelly laid out the five non-negotiables for advisors and firms looking to leverage marketing to grow their businesses in the new year:

1. The appropriate resources and budget. The highest-functioning businesses think about marketing as a revenue-generating program, and allocate resources to it accordingly. 

2. A differentiated point of view. Whether firms are interested in attracting investors or recruiting advisors to their firms, one of the most important things they can do is develop and communicate a unique point of view. People want to work with people they relate to, and unfortunately, so much of the messaging we see today is too generic to be relatable.

3. An understanding of how people want to consume content. Especially when it comes to client experience, Kelly points out, advisors need to take the time to learn how to communicate with the investors they serve. Do they prefer video to the written word? Are they looking for weekly outreach, or is once a month perfectly sufficient? 

4. The marriage of personalization and automation. And when it comes to communication, Kelly says, firms can’t rely exclusively on automation. Setting up onboarding email workflows, for example, doesn’t relieve the advisor of the task of personalizing those emails for each new client.

5. A realistic view of the competitive landscape. Finally, firms need an understanding of what’s around them. Kelly points out that almost daily, she talks with the leadership team of a firm building what they believe is the next best thing in fintech – when in fact, that next best thing already exists and has captured the majority of market share.

Kelly’s best advice for firms looking to grow in 2023 is to take a fresh look at everything out in the market that represents them, from their website to Linkedin to blog articles to advertisements. Ask: “Does this truly represent who I am, or is there an opportunity for transformation?”

Overview
How us Advisor Marketing Evolving (02:05)
Personalized Marketing (05:55)
Recruitment Marketing (10:13)
Automation (15:18)

Resources
WealthManagement.com and FMG Study
Kelly Waltrich's LinkedIn
Intention.ly's Website
Chip Kispert's LinkedIn
Beacon Strategies' Website