The advice side of financial services is largely a sales profession. To grow, you need a steady influx of new clients. Back in simpler times, marketing meant putting your name in the phone book and cold calling until the numbers wore off on your phone. But people don’t shop in the phone book anymore, and cold calling isn’t efficient.

For today’s financial advisors , marketing means going digital. It means producing content that will bring clients to you rather than you hunting them down one phone call at a time.

Companies like Sondhelm Partners help asset managers and financial advisors strengthen their brand and message through digital marketing, timely articles and videos and news coverage.

Below are edited excerpts from an interview with Dan Sondhelm, CEO of Sondhelm Partners in Alexandria, Virginia, where he shares some of the biggest marketing challenges advisors face and how his company can help.

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What are some of the challenges financial advisors face that you help address?

It’s tough to be a financial advisor these days. There are so many, what makes a financial advisor stand out from the crowd? Many financial advisors are strong money managers, but marketing is an afterthought.

Sondhelm helps advisors overcome challenges such as when they’re not getting as many qualified leads as they want or aren’t converting leads to clients. We can help if their sales process takes too long or if they don’t have a process in place to attract leads using current best practices. More junior advisors making cold calls isn’t the best way anymore.

We also help when they aren’t keeping the next generations' accounts once the current clients pass on, or if they aren’t keeping existing clients as long as they would like. Sometimes the challenge is that they just don’t look like a firm that wants to compete with the bigger players.

Once a financial advisor commits to growing beyond existing clients and referrals, he or she often needs some outside help.

How do you help them overcome these challenges?

Once we determine what the challenges and goals are, we can develop a strategy for growth.

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Their website may be holding them back. It’s not enough to check off the box with a website. It’s important to have a website that’s designed for generating leads and engaging prospects. It should emphasize timely content such as commentaries and educational articles and videos. It should also be able to provide excellent analytics to tell you who is visiting. Some of your visitors may be ready for a phone call. Websites shouldn’t be "set it and forget it."

Beyond a lackluster website, what are other areas of marketing where advisors often struggle?

We can develop articles, white papers and videos about topics that are important to the advisor. Content shouldn’t be generic. It should be based on the point of view of the advisor. Let your audiences know what you stand for. For videos, we have a unique process to produce them remotely. With our virtual producer, we don’t need to let a videographer in your house or office. We can capture video remotely, which is faster and less costly, especially during these challenging times.

Some advisors blast emails periodically to clients and prospects. Today’s digital strategies, though, can go beyond that to attract and nurture qualified leads. Marketing automation allows you to send emails to the right prospects at the right time.

Behavior-based emails and enhanced analytics allow you to learn who your most engaged prospects are. You can also attract leads by helping drive prospects to your website. Search engine optimization and paid Google ads can help your website be found during searches, for example.

Using LinkedIn is also important: Most advisors are on it, but they don’t use it beyond scrolling the news feed. You can post your content, engage with clients, prospects and "centers of influences" and position yourself as an expert in targeted groups such as local business owners. You can also use paid LinkedIn strategies to target prospects that meet specific criteria.

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What sets you apart from your competitors?

We work exclusively with asset and wealth managers looking to attract investors and build brands. We understand the industry and the jargon, and the best practices to meet their goals.

In addition, some advisors have marketing capabilities in-house. These advisors are looking for a strategic road map that they can implement or ongoing coaching to support their internal resources. To these financial advisors, we play the role of a strategist, coach and advisor to provide our support where clients need it most.

How much does your service cost?

We work with large firms and boutiques. For larger firms, we often complement their existing marketing activities . For smaller firms, we may be the primary engine for growth. The investment depends on our clients' goals, the scope of work it will take to reach them and their budgets.

What is the most important trend influencing your business right now?

Communications with clients and prospects are always important, but the pandemic has caused a massive shift in how wealth managers and asset managers are telling their story to clients and prospects. Especially now, without in-person meetings, it’s important to have an infrastructure to engage and nurture using content, digital and news media strategies to get your story to those who may be interested.

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