After three years of running its GrowthLine marketing program, Cetera Financial Group is backing up its claim that the program leads to faster asset growth by offering a money-back guarantee.
The guarantee allows for a refund of up to $2,400 on the affiliation fee of GrowthLine if advisors who use the program don't achieve at least 38% growth in assets under administration, said Michael Zuna, chief marketing officer at the San Diego-based company. The program is part of Cetera’s Growth360 tool suite and is designed to stimulate organic growth at firms of all sizes.
“We’ve been working on this for over three years now, and we’ve had more than 800 firms and 1,300 advisors participate,” Zuna said. “Across that, we’ve made sure to take a number that we know, no matter whether you’re a large enterprise or a solo practitioner, we can help you achieve those objectives.”
For each firm that goes through the GrowthLine program, a “peer group” to measure against is created. This control group is made up of similar firms that were working with Cetera before 2020 and the launch of GrowthLine.
The guarantee stipulates that if the new affiliate does not grow its assets under administration at least 38% faster than the peer group did in the year following the completion of the six-month program, a refund will be provided.
While the growth rate will vary by size of business and type of business, Zuna said, Cetera picked a percentage it would be confident in achieving.
“We’ve taken Merrill Lynch wirehouse advisors who broke away through the program. We’ve had long-established large enterprises who have been affiliated with us go through the program. We’ve had small ensembles go through it, and solo practitioners,” Zuna said. “We’ve seen triple-digit growth rates and high double-digit growth rates, certainly nothing less than 40% in the control group.”
The six pillars to the GrowthLine program are brand strategy, sales channel optimization, digital marketing design and delivery, sales and marketing effectiveness, customer experience and insight and analytics, according to the company.