The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards plans to launch a marketing campaign this year to increase the number of financial advisors who become a CFP certificant.
CFP has earmarked roughly $1 million in 2013 to increase its CFP credential holder count by 5 percent this year. Currently, 67,300 financial advisors in the U.S. are CFP certificant holders.
The campaign will be paid out of the CFP Board’s $29 million operating budget for 2013, says Kevin Keller, chief executive of the CFP Board.
To target existing financial advisors, the campaign is tentatively scheduled to launch sometime in the second quarter. “We’re well into the development and research phase,” Keller says.
Tom Crowder, CFP Board’s managingd director for marketing and business development and head of CFP’s in-house marketing team, will oversee the marketing campaign.
The CFP has also hired Alexandria, Va.-based Marketing General Inc., a firm that specializes in company membership growth, to execute the campaign. Specific details on what media will be used for the campaign are still being worked out, Keller says.
In the past, the CFP Board’s efforts to draw new advisor certificants mainly came through CFP courses offered through over 200 colleges, universities and other educational institutions nationwide.
The advisor marketing program comes nearly two years after a four-year $40 million public awareness campaign to raise the board’s name recognition among consumers. That campaign is being financed by an increase in CFP fees.