Financial advisors should be among the first to warn people against taking significant actions without establishing a plan -- but marketing professionals often see RIAs trying to gain recognition and clients without establishing their goals or methods for measuring success.

During “Proven Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business,” a panel discussion at TD Ameritrade’s National LINC conference in San Diego, the chief marketing officers of four large RIAs discussed some of the biggest mistakes – and best practices – that they see advisors making in their marketing efforts.

“I see firms falling into the mistake of trying to do it all rather than prioritizing a couple of strategic initiatives that can drive them forward,” said Karen Lee, chief marketing officer at Mercer Advisors. “In marketing there’s lots of pressure to get things done… step back, look at your strategy and create a marketing plan that focuses effort on a couple of things.”

Advisors often fail to establish goals for marketing campaigns like creating more brand awareness or generating more leads, which is why Mercer takes time while developing a marketing program to figure out where the firm can get its highest return on investment, said Lee.

Firms who don’t may end up with an inefficient or ineffective scattershot approach to marketing as they gather information, hire outside agencies and attempt to be opportunistic, warned Allison Hillgren, director of marketing and communications for Beacon Pointe Advisors.

“You have to split the line between being reactionary and sticking to a course,” said Hillgren. “It really depends on resources. You want to react to data and information you can gather and strategically shift, you don’t want to react to every single digital marketing pitch you get out there.”

While the marketing directors on the panel each came from large and influential RIAs, they gave some advice that holds true for firms of any size.

Harness Automation

Jud Mackrill, chief marketing officer for The Carson Group, recommended that advisors automate some of their marketing functions, especially in digital marketing. Yet smaller firms should be careful that they’re not paying exorbitant sums for services that can be found for free.

“Marketing automation software is super helpful,” said Mackrill. “It’s a linchpin for us … it’s important to find a tool that will work for you to actually adopt. Sometimes we see firms paying $2,500 a month for marketing software when they should have been using a free version of MailChimp. Find something you like and put a plan in place before pulling the trigger, and use the data that’s available to you.”

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