A new study maintains that, compared with other RIAs, those flagged as “marketing leaders” are seeing 40% more client growth, 23% more asset growth and 20% more revenue growth. So how do they do it?
According to the 2014 Fidelity RIA Benchmarking Study, these leaders are 42% more likely to prioritize growth, dedicating more resources and spending 33% more (2.4% of their revenue) on business development and marketing.
According to the study, marketing leaders are more than twice as likely to have written marketing plans as other RIAs, and are much more likely to have assigned owners and specific deadlines for those plans. They are also twice as likely to meet regularly to discuss business development goals, progress and recent developments.
Seventy percent of marketing leaders use actual results to help drive compensation for business development staff, and they are more than twice as likely to say their business development staff have the right skills and training to succeed.
Communications, Collateral and Events
While communications, collateral and events are the top three activities used by both groups, 58% of marketing leaders are using all three. They are also more likely to use social media tactics, and have been using these channels for 24 months or more, showing a willingness to be early adopters of new techniques.
Roughly three-quarters of marketing leaders have created a clearly defined firm story that explains what differentiates them from other firms, and an even larger percentage of them have tailored this story to the needs of their target client profiles.
Referrals
According to the study, marketing leaders are far more likely than other RIAs to rate their client and COI referral processes as “advanced” or “fairly strong.” They are also three times more likely to say they have a clear plan for proactive outreach for both client and COI referrals.
Marketing leaders are nearly three times as likely to communicate their firms’ target client profiles to clients and COIs and to follow up to stay engaged, and one in three tries to understand the clients of their COIs, while only about one in six other RIAs do so.
