Boston-based Catchlight Insights announced that it has incorporated data available through Wealthbox, a customer relationship management software platform, into Catchlight, its growth engine, to help financial advisors find, target, and correspond with leads more effectively.

Catchlight is a data-driven system that was incubated within Fidelity Labs and rolled out to the public earlier this year. It had undergone a one-year pilot program prior to going live.

“Our intent is really helping advisors solve the growth challenge and doing so efficiently,” said Yelena Melamed, co-founder of Catchlight Insight and head of product. “Our intent is to really be that data engine that fuels that growth.”

Fidelity Labs fall under the Fidelity Investments umbrella and while Catchlight is a fully owned subsidiary of Fidelity, the firm remains independent in terms of its brand, custody, and asset management, according to Melamed. The main goal is to help advisors determine who is the best person or group to approach as well as help them personalize their pitch. 

“Advisors are doing a lot to fill the top of their funnel and the more we talked with advisors the more diverse ways we came across,” Melamed said. “The challenge they are consistently having is how to organize their thinking about the individuals that they have as leads.”

Catchlight has been growing steadily since it rolled out to the public earlier this year. It is working with more than 150 advisory firms of various sizes. The system can work with advisors of small shops as well as larger firms, Melamed said.

As a way to enhance the experience for advisors, without having to shift systems, Catchlight announced its partnership with Wealthbox earlier this month. This integration eliminate any redundant data entry on potential clients for the advisor and adds Catchlight data and insight into Wealthbox, which establishes a more complete picture of the lead. An advisor can sharpen their segmentation and target with information such as estimated investable assets, income range, age range, and financial interests.  

Data can also transfer into Wealthbox as well including a potential lead’s Catchlight Score. This number is determined through a sophisticated AI program that has been trained by more than 100,000 conversions from lead to client and a significant amount of data. The score determines the likelihood that a person will seek a financial advisor. The higher the score, the more likely they will engage, according to Melamed.

Not only does the system help clients target the leads that they are looking for or who will be the most receptive to their pitch, Catchlight also helps advisors craft that pitch.

“We try to give them insights into how they might fine tune whatever engagement method they already use,” Melamed said. 

Catchlight provides a series of topics a lead might be interested in talking about. These topics are generated based on the data that has already been gathered. Catchlight also has an interaction with FMG Suite, which is a digital marketing service. 

Catchlight also provides recommendations on how best to interact with leads from topics, to content, to integrations into digital marketing provider content libraries, like FMG Suite. Through this partnership with FMG Suite, an advisor receives a recommendation of three key matched pieces of content from FMG’s library, that they can then personalize and send directly to their lead.

Those who are clients of FMG Suite will have access to headlines and short descriptions of Catchlight content, however to fully use the content they must have an account with FMG Suite, according to Melamed.

“We aspire to make this as usable by advisors as possible and to create efficiency as opposed to inefficiency with the data that we provide,” she said. “If we are going to shortcut their research and their insights, we don’t want to have them moving between various pieces of software which creates inefficiency.”

The working relationship between Catchlight and Wealthbox has been a seamless one with both sides praising each other’s work with their respective clients and how working together will help their own client base.

“Catchlight sees the value of technology that meets advisors where they’re at, and we’re excited to bring the potential of their lead insights to our platform,” said John Rourke, CEO of Wealthbox. “This two-way integration will eliminate redundant, manual data entry and open the way for even more advisors to adopt a tool that can accelerate their business development efforts.”

The potential for the technology can expand, Melamed said adding that it does not have to just help advisors with the marketing aspects of their interactions with clients. It can be incorporated throughout the sales process up until the point when a lead becomes a client, she said.  

In general, the firm is considering a number of options that will help make the data it provides more effective. The firm will continue to find new ways to use the data collected to determine what leads will become clients, Melamed said.

“We have a ton of opportunity because of the insights we continue to get by looking at the data and understanding how folks are evolving and it keeps evolving,” she said.

Catchlight is also looking to expand its relationship with Wealthbox to offer more efficient data. It will forge new relationships with other digital marketing providers including those that create webinars.

Melamed said whatever steps the firm takes will be dictated by what clients want with the goal of making Catchlight an efficient system advisors can use. 

“Catchlight is aspiring to create efficiencies for advisors is getting from no process to a repeatable easy and focused growth insight that goes from data shortcuts all the way to engagement,” she said.