Recognized by Onalytica as the #1 "Influencer" in wealth management and by IBM as an "Influencer" in wealth management and fintech, Detroit native April Rudin has swiftly proven herself to be a top marketing strategist for the financial services and wealth management sectors. Since founding The Rudin Group in 2008, she has distinguished herself through her ability to forecast and leverage critical trends, such as the growth of AI in wealth management and the rise of millennial investors.
Russ Prince: Please describe the Rudin Group.
April Rudin: The Rudin Group is a global wealth management marketing firm that has designed multi-channel marketing campaigns for some of the world’s leading financial services firms and non-profit organizations. We help our clients turn their strategic objectives into real-world results and specialize in creating actionable plans helping firms to appeal to ultra-high-net-worth, high-net-worth and NextGen clients. In sum, we provide the expertise and know-how to execute plans both online—digital/social media—and offline—media relations, events—to create the visibility and thought leadership, which can lead to engagement and attention from referral sources and end clients.
Prince: How do you work with your clients?
Rudin: To achieve our goal of helping clients turn their strategic objectives into real-world results, we have created a unique “brand ecosystem” approach. The “Rudin Group Brand Ecosystem” consists of four interconnected elements—helping craft (1) thought leadership and (2) meaningful content development; (3) facilitating multi-platform distribution, and (4) using cutting-edge analytics to provide feedback on a marketing campaign. For each of these elements, we often work with our clients’ internal teams to help them better message their core competencies while maintaining a deep understanding of the compliance and risk management challenges facing the wealth management industry today.
This process always starts with at least one—but often many—discovery calls with the firm’s internal team as well as with key stakeholders. These calls enable us to learn more about the client’s business including its audiences, value prop, strengths and success stories. For example, we are currently working on a major rebranding campaign with an asset management company. Our discovery calls for this campaign consisting of multiple multi-hour video chats with the internal team, including the CEO, and a multi-hour video call with several advisors who are satisfied with the firm’s approach and offering. Following these initial discovery calls, we then create initial drafts of foundational content such as key messaging and a refreshed color palette and image library. Since these materials serve as the bedrock for all future content we deliver, we provide multiple drafts to clients and hold meetings with the client on each draft to ensure that we are receiving and incorporating feedback. Only after the client is fully satisfied do we move onto creating and delivering the materials we build from this key content. For example, now that we have the key messaging approved by the aforementioned asset management company, we are currently working on delivering refreshed LinkedIn profiles for key executives and the firm itself, thought leadership, a revamped website for the firm, and a new image library for them, among other materials.
We often advocate for wealth managers to use a customized, rather than a one-sized-fits-all, approach, and we also follow that advice ourselves. As a result we meet firms where they are in terms of their needs. For example, not every client needs or wants a full rebranding; some just want ghostwritten content, such as blogs and bylined articles, or other specific deliverables. We also deliver how much—or how little—content that the client needs. We are fortunate to have a team of expert writers, which can meet even high-volume content demands. For instance, when a global bank needed a firm to provide strategy and tactics on how to directly interact with investors through digital platforms, they turned to us, and we re-created daily content with compelling and compliant headlines, photos, and text five days per week. On the flipside, we also work with clients who have smaller content needs, such as a monthly newsletter or a monthly blog.
Prince: How is digital marketing changing business development for financial services companies?
Rudin: In the past a financial services company’s marketing reach was constrained by the expense of printing and delivering materials and of traveling to conferences. Digital marketing has enabled firms to reach a wider pool of current and prospective clients for less expense. For instance, with a click of a button a firm can post a whitepaper to a social media site and reach a worldwide audience. However, here’s the rub; firms need the expertise to fully utilize new channels such as social media. A boring social media post is almost as bad as no post at all. And so, digital marketing as the potential to serve as an amazing tool, but you need the expertise to use that tool, much as a scalpel can do amazing things but not everyone can or should use one!
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