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.