Marketing has never been independent advisors' strong suit. Some even claim they don't do it or need it.

As in other professions, many believe reputation among peers and top clients should supercede sizzle. Everyone knows there's no better marketing tool than word of mouth, but sometimes that word of mouth needs a little push. So a number of referral networks are springing up to help advisors market themselves.

Earlier this year, Steven Lockshin and Charles Goldman, a veteran independent investment advisor and a former head of Schwab and Fidelity's custodial operations, launched Advizent-a venture to identify the best registered investment advisors and brand them so consumers can readily find them. So far, 122 firms with about $135 billion in assets have signed up to participate.

"An independent board of well-respected, high-profile experts is compiling [our] Standards of Excellence," explains Lockshin, whose career has included launching RIA-giant Convergent Wealth Advisors and Fortigent, an alternative investment platform sold to LPL Financial earlier this year. Advizent's board of experts is headed by Jack Bogle.

Membership on the Advizent list isn't free, although no firm will be billed until next year. RIAs will be charged annual fees ranging from $25,000 to $100,000, and those who sign up this year may receive discounts. In return, they will get branding and marketing support and there is talk that Advizent will try to extract volume discounts from custodians and other vendors that big advisory firms rely on.

When published in February 2013, those standards will herald professionalism and experience without conflicts of interest-attributes that consumers might assume their fiduciaries already hold, but in fact have never been codified or tested. Advisory practices will have to apply for this certification and allow Advizent to examine their operations. If all goes well, they can be verified as adhering to those standards within a matter of weeks. All those that pass muster will be listed on a Web site, where new clients can easily locate them and get referrals. It's a sort of Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

Putting Clients First
Many professional fiduciaries do have inherent conflicts, Lockshin maintains, that a lot of people don't know about, and he says consumers deserve better. "The industry tends to take care of itself before taking care of the consumer, and we need to put the consumer first."

Advizent's ultimate goal is to improve the industry's credibility and value to consumers, but it also wants to help advisors get the word out. Certainly for the practices themselves, the seal of approval could prove a valuable marketing tool.

"When consumers start hearing about this and asking for it, that will drive demand," says Lockshin. "We expect more advisors will seek us out."

Lockshin has enjoyed repeated success and has indicated he is willing to invest what it takes to make Advizent work. When it comes to promoting the advisory business, he isn't alone. The CFP Board of Standards currently is in the early stages of a multi-year, $40 million advertising campaign designed to enhance the value of the CFP brand.

Referral Networks
Though Advizent's strict vetting and accreditation may be something new, it is far from the only marketing-referral network going. The Schwab Advisor Network, based in San Francisco, comprises some 200 pre-screened, independent, fee-based investment advisors who work in partnership with Schwab branches.

"Having worked with RIAs for over 25 years, we know there are many channels that advisors may use to grow their businesses," says Anita Fox, Schwab's director of corporate public relations. "Schwab offers ongoing marketing best practices, support and guidance."

That support includes educational and marketing brochures, advertising materials and public Web space. "We know that there are high-net-worth investors with complex financial needs who don't yet know about the benefits of working with an RIA," says Fox.

In addition, Schwab serves another 7,000 registered independent advisors through its Schwab Advisor Services, a separate business unit within Schwab Institutional Services.

Branding
Media-savvy branding is another key marketing tool on the rise. Back in 2009, LPL Financial, a subsidiary of LPL Investment Holdings, the broker-dealer and consultant headquartered in Boston, San Diego and Charlotte, N.C., saw "a need among our advisor practices for services and material to help build marketing and brand identity," says Joan Khoury, LPL's chief marketing officer.

The problem was twofold: Younger practices needed an organized, effective, inexpensive way to grow their customer base. More established firms needed to solidify their expertise in particular niches, burnish their reputation and hold on to long-term clients and their descendants.

"You may be the best financial advisor in the world-as good as Warren Buffett-but if nobody knows you exist, you're going to go out of business," says Winnie Sun, founder and managing director of Sun Group Wealth Partners, an Irvine, Calif.-based practice. "You have to stay dynamic to keep up with trends and go the distance, which ultimately better serves your clients, too."

Sun joined LPL in March 2010, largely because of its rapidly evolving in-house marketing platform, called BrandPartners. This effort started with "core pieces of communications, such as redesigning business cards and Web sites," says Marissa Fox-Foley, LPL's executive vice president of marketing.

Soon, however, it became just as important to LPL to help advisors create their brands-to make them answer questions about their specialties and the kinds of clients they served best. "Then it's a matter of communicating that brand proposition visually, verbally and in every other way ... incorporating social media and other tools that are relevant for today's world," says Khoury.

Think Like An Ad Agency
Raymond James Financial also has its own in-house marketing support for member advisors. "We modeled it after a best-in-practice ad agency," says Michael White, Raymond James's director of marketing, in St. Petersburg, Fla. "We assign an account manager to create and execute each marketing plan, and custom services range from developing personalized Web-based solutions and interactive communications to designing traditional print materials and seminars."

By helping individual advisors grow their businesses, he says, the firm helps itself and simultaneously lures top advisors.

White tells advisors that marketing is simply an extension of their own sales and client relationships. "Your brand represents the essence of your practice-your values and personality, what you stand for," he says. "It should be reflected in every referral you get from an attorney or CPA or client word of mouth. If you've done a good job at building your brand, those referrals will be much more impactful."

Building A Web Presence
When a potential client is referred to you, chances are he or she will look you up online. "It's increasingly important to have a strong online brand presence," White says. "A lot of advisors have what I call an online business card-a Web site that's basically a summary of the advisor's bio." Better, he says, is an interactive site or one with different media that gives "a sense of the advisor's personality, what it would be like to work with him or her, what special services or niches the advisor serves."

Ideally, a Web site can provide account access and links to articles, videos or newsletters that can be downloaded on demand. When a new newsletter or white paper comes out, the advisor can send a link to it by blast e-mail or Twitter.

Twitter and other social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn can help extend a practice's brand, but White cautions that these only go so far. "They have a high potential as a communications tool, but only in the context of a larger plan," he says. "Most of the time, social media is just a supplementary way to communicate, not a stand-alone method."

Dedicating Adequate Resources
To be sure, setting up your Web site and social media takes time and planning. "Better not to do it at all than slap up a cheap Web site," says David Adams, who is both vice president of Southwestern Investment Group in Nashville, Tenn., and president of Adams Consulting, an independent branding firm for financial advisors. "You need a full system where you're posting on social media every day or two and updating your Web site so people have something to keep up with. It's the difference between a static and a dynamic presence."

Adams says it can take six months to get up to speed, including training staff to maintain your online platform. "After that, you can probably manage it in 20 minutes a week," he adds.

Many advisors do end up hiring someone just to maintain the Web site and social media activities. "You have to have a good staff and a process-driven business so you can step back," says Adams. "Too many advisors are letting their business run them, instead of the other way around."

For some firms, the ideal candidate is a young techie. "I'm a late adopter; computers weren't part of my childhood," says Sacha Millstone, senior vice president at the Millstone Evans Group of Raymond James & Associates, based in Denver and Boulder, Colo., and Washington, D.C.

So Millstone hired a public relations student who was already a big user of social media. "In the financial industry, it can be difficult to attract new clients through social media because not everybody is using it," concedes Patty Grabiec, Millstone's marketing assistant. For her, one of its chief uses is to court media coverage.

The Payoff
What's the return on this expenditure? That's nearly impossible to calculate. "Fifty percent of marketing works and 50% doesn't, and nobody knows which one is which," says Van Pearcy, a branch manager and financial advisor at Van Pearcy's Wealth Services Team in Midland, Texas.

Yet that uncertainty doesn't make the effort worthless. "It's hard to track how much it brings in," says Adams, "but I've definitely got a couple big cases just from people finding me through the Internet, liking our content and thinking we were a step above the rest."

Compliance
Before you publish that content-whether it's a blog about a financial topic or a simple Twitter tweet-you need to ensure your message won't run afoul of the regulators. For Raymond James affiliates, a software package called Socialite, which is made by Actiance, is the solution. "It not only blocks what regulators don't approve of but tracks and maintains the records that are required," says W. Barton Close, a certified financial planner at Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Classic Wealth Advisory.

Clients of LPL BrandPartners have the option of repackaging online content that LPL produces, though many prefer to supplement that with their own material. "BrandPartners produced material for our brand, including a logo that represents forward and upward movement, and a tag phrase-'Experience, Trust, Commitment'-that highlights our clients' and firm's values," says Mark Shepherd, founder and registered principal of Winchester, Mass.-based Shepherd Financial Partners. "BrandPartners even came up with the color scheme, a valuable add, as I'm color-blind!"

Shepherd hired a dedicated staffer to run the ongoing marketing effort. "Our marketing effort includes production of weekly blogs, quarterly newsletters, presentations, events and publicity," says Patricia Manko, Shepherd's chief marketing officer. To be most effective, she says, "one must initiate and join conversations about the topics you've blogged about, and this activity in and of itself could constitute a full-time job."

Social Media's Many Uses
How advisors express their brand identities can vary greatly. For some, it's just another way to keep in touch with clients. "I'm comfortable posting a picture on Facebook of the waffle I made for breakfast," says Sun, the wealth manager in Irvine, Calif. "I'm committed to keeping my clients up to date not only on the business aspects of our practice but also on who we are as people. It helps clients feel we're aligned."

Similarly, Close in Chattanooga likes to share with clients his passion for classic cars. "I wanted to tie in my passion, my hobby, with my firm's identity," he explains. "I wanted to appeal to people with whom I have something in common."

The Personal Touch
Nevertheless, despite the benefits of high-tech communications, there are some advisors who insist that the best marketing is the old-fashioned kind. "We spend three or four days a month calling high-net-worth individuals in our area who aren't doing business with us, just to ask if we can come by and give them a chance to get to know us better," says Pearcy, who only takes clients with at least $1.5 million to invest.

Early on, he advertised in local papers and billboards and hosted monthly educational seminars. But in 2003, all that changed. "To be honest with you, high-net-worth individuals are not interested in working with people who advertise the way we did," he says. A subtler approach was needed.

Raymond James helped Pearcy not only design a quality Web site but realize that, after more than 20 years in business, he no longer had to take all comers as clients. "At this point, we can be picky about who we're going to do business with," says Pearcy. "It's a great position to be in."

Besides recruiting new clients personally, his firm still hosts monthly "white glove dinners" where current clients can bring a friend or business associate to hear a guest speaker discuss a financial topic. After all, a referral from a satisfied client may still be the best marketing tool.