Even though the majority of RIAs view marketing as critical to their future growth, only 30% have written marketing plans, according to an RIA Benchmarking study conducted by Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services (FIWS). By implication, this means that there may be huge upside potential for RIAs who can conceive and implement effective marketing strategies.

That was one of the paradoxes revealed in the survey, which found that many firms' goals like business development were at odds with their business practice. For example, 81% of the firms in the survey relied primarily on principals to bring in new business. Half of the firms had no succession plan, jeopardizing their source of revenue growth if a partner leaves.

Fully 78% of RIAs surveyed cited client service as the biggest business opportunity and the main driver of business referrals, yet 91% fail to measure client satisfaction annually.

David Canter, executive vice president and head of practice management and consulting at FIWS, says advisors typically approach marketing from a tactical perspective but many "lack an overall plan." They tend to focus on specific details like brochures and other forms of client and prospect communication without focusing on the big picture.

Mathias Hitchcock, vice president of practice management and consulting at FIWS, says he thinks many RIAs' reluctance to embrace marketing can be traced to the fact that many of them "are not comfortable with it."

Another reason may be that many RIA firms are exceedingly profitable despite their  unwillingness or inability to market. Canter says the median non-top-performing firm among the 375 surveyed enjoyed a profit margin of 51% before owners' compensation while the top-performing firms realized profit margins of 71%. "Larger firms are more profitable in terms of dollars but not necessarily in terms of margins," Hitchcock says.

Fidelity's benchmarking system classifies RIAs into two basic categories, wealth managers and asset managers, and permits them to compare themselves to firms of similar strategy and size as well as different firms. Utilizing a dashboard, FIWS clients can customize various tools to analyze how they stack up versus their peers on a variety of criteria.