Cetera Financial Group is preparing to launch a Web portal that offers its advisors a compliance-ready platform for reaching out to clients and other professionals.
The Connect2Clients (C2C) platform will start rolling out in February and will be offered to all 9,700 advisors in its network of independent broker-dealers over the course of three months, said Susan Theder, Cetera's chief marketing officer.
The Web-based platform, available to advisors for a flat monthly fee that was not made available by the company at press time, allows advisors to build relationships with clients and other professionals through automated e-mail and social media contacts, she said. It even includes a tool for sending out electronic greeting cards, economic updates and market commentaries.
“Behind all of this is a really sophisticated CRM system,” she said. “There are so many studies that show the correlation between revenues and [client] communications.”
Cetera CEO Larry Roth said the platform is the newest item in the company's arsenal as it resets its plan to grow business in 2015. “This is something that will help advisors keep their clients happy, as well as run better businesses.”
The platform includes a mobile app that allows advisors to access C2C through a smartphone; content for the site, includes articles and videos that have been provided through a partnership with digital marketer FMG Suite. Reporting capabilities are also integrated into the tools, according to Cetera.
Advisors will be able to send content to clients and centers of influence through automated mailings that target either his or her entire mailing list or subgroups selected by assorted criteria, she said. In just one example, she said, an advisor could limit a mailing to clients who have a history of opening 50 percent or more of their e-mails.
“One of the key features simply is marketing automation,” she said.
Cetera Financial is a network of independent broker-dealers Cetera Advisors, Cetera Advisor Networks, Cetera Investment Services (marketed as Cetera Financial Institutions), Cetera Financial Specialists, First Allied Securities, Investors Capital, J.P. Turner and Company, The Legend Group and Summit Brokerage. Cetera's parent company, RCS Capital, expects to close soon on acquisitions that will also bring VSR Financial and Girard Securities into the network.