Digital Marketing is Key to Growth for Advisory Firms

The financial advisory world has always been heavily relationship-based; new business is largely brought in through word of mouth and personal relationships.

But all of that is starting to change as digital interactions become more commonplace. This trend began long before the Covid-19 pandemic, but it certainly has been exacerbated in recent months as even the tech-averse have adopted digital channels en masse.

In-person activities and events that have traditionally produced word-of-mouth referrals have fallen off dramatically, changing the way consumers search for an advisor, notes ThinkAdvisor. As people rely less on referrals from family and friends and are turning to search engines instead.

The article further notes that forty-two percent of respondents to a September survey of 2,000 U.S. adults said they started the process of finding an advisor with an online search, while “Ninety-eight percent of respondents said a financial advisor’s website was important to them.”

This is what many younger clients that financial advisors compete over were already doing, and for many older clients, habits that started during the pandemic won’t be easily forgotten. That means digital marketing is more important than ever for financial advisors in attracting new clients of all demographics.