Advisors thinking about breaking away from a wirehouse may need to have technology front-of-mind.

Breaking away from a wirehouse requires having a digital strategy already in place—particularly for marketing, according to TruClarity Management Solutions, a practice management firm and one of a number of businesses focused on helping advisors go independent.

For one thing, having an online presence now is more important than ever in the industry, said Maggie Hudspeth, TruClarity's director of marketing services.

“Your digital presence is the impression you’re making when you’re not sitting down with clients person to person,” said Hudspeth. “The elements of having a digital presence, like maintaining a website and social media accounts, should make a large impression on your process when you launch your firm. Especially with what we’re going through right now with the pandemic, there’s less of a person-to-person connection.”

More advisors are playing a day-to-day, direct role in their ongoing marketing during the pandemic, said Hudspeth.

A digital presence is anything in relation to an advisor’s persona or brand that is present online for their prospects, said Hudspeth. This includes not just a website and social media presence, but any online advertising, presence on search engines like Google, email, and other digital marketing efforts.

A digital presence also includes an advisor’s personal accounts, especially if they’re visible and findable for the general public. The combined professional and personal social media accounts give advisors an opportunity to tell personalized stories, said Hudspeth.

“It’s your chance to differentiate yourself and tell a unique story about your brand,” she said. “This is your opportunity to individualize who you are as an advisor and to showcase that to your prospects. It makes all the difference in the world when it comes to the level of trust that someone feels when they first encounter your new, independent brand. You don’t want any of these online presence items to ever appear thrown together.”

Ideally, advisors would start thinking about this digital strategy as early as possible, said Hudspeth, because it isn’t sufficient to just have a website and social media presence. “She added that advisors need to use these resources strategically, and it helps to have a digital strategy in place that aligns with the laws, regulations and rules surrounding transitioning from a wirehouse to independence.”

At its core, a digital presence is the first step towards digital marketing for advisors, said Hudspeth.

“People need to think about ensuring that their plan is cohesive and thoughtful,” said Hudspeth. “They need a plan for how they’re going to launch their brand and consider social media integration into that brand. They need to think about how clients, and prospective clients, will find them once they go independent.”

Creating a digital strategy for breaking away usually requires working with a professional agency or group, said Hudspeth, and should involve an evaluation of their competitors and the overall market combined with consideration for what kind of identity and presence was already established at the advisor’s current wirehouse employer.

Then, the professional team can lead the advisor through a discovery process involving specific and customized content, said Hudspeth, allowing the advisor to articulate their mission and their vision for their new practice.

“Again, this can’t be thrown together, you’re going to want it to appear thoughtful and planned, and for it to be right in line with compliance,” she said. “This is going to help you hit the ground running and move forward with your goals and allow you to start operating your new business immediately. If you’re doing this in the middle of opening a new business, you’re not going to have time to develop a website and all the necessary strategy pieces—it will almost certainly end up a missed opportunity.”

Having a digital strategy in place enables advisors to explore expanding their client base by looking into other sectors of the marketplace by using technology to reach clients down market or into other niches.

As they grow and mature their businesses, few advisors will stick with the current conventional wisdom to focus on an individual niche, Hudspeth posited.

“It’s important to not only think about your current client base, but also how you might want to broaden that client base and what you’re passionate about broadening it into,” said Hudspeth. “There’s been an uptick in advisors interested in expanding their client base and thinking not only about what they’re accustomed to marketing to now, but also what kind of new clients they may want in the future. That’s what will take your digital strategy forward over time.”

Doing so requires advisors to not only have a digital strategy in place for breaking away, but at the very least one that will cover the initial years of their independent practice, she said.

According to Hudspeth, the biggest mistake advisors make in their digital strategies is ignoring the need for customization and for remaining attentive to the strategy.

“Marketing shouldn’t be an afterthought if you’re passionate about starting a firm," she said. "It’s incredibly important and it lays the foundation for future prospecting,” 

According to Hudspeth, TruClarity has launched two new independent teams during the pandemic, and plans to launch a third team soon.

“For the most part, we’re still working on our products and making sure we’re able to work behind the scenes for our clients,” she said. “Covid-19 hasn’t affected the cadence of what we’re doing.”