Wealth Marketing's 'Focus Gap': Firms Can't Stop Serving Boomers

The "great wealth transfer" has been a dominant narrative in wealth management for years, but industry experts say most firms are still stuck serving baby boomers, understandably so.

Boomers still hold roughly $8 trillion more in assets than the Silent Generation, Gen X, and millennials combined, and increased longevity means wealth is being passed down more slowly than the industry expected.

Nick Rice of Brunswick Group and April Rudin of The Rudin Group argue the problem isn't awareness but execution. Most firms understand the demographic shift at a corporate level, but their adviser teams remain focused on existing older client segments because that's where the revenue still sits. Rudin reframes the narrative entirely, arguing this is less a transfer than a gradual transition, particularly toward women, and that the industry has overcomplicated segmentation to the point where audiences don't recognize themselves in the categories firms create.

The parallel challenge is internal. With the average financial adviser now over 55, firms need to recruit the next generation of talent while simultaneously retooling their marketing for the next generation of clients. Both experts point to AI-enabled personalization and structured adviser training as the levers most likely to close what Rice calls the "focus gap" between strategy and execution. For the full conversation, including channel strategy and the evolving role of marketing at the leadership level, the piece is worth reading in full.

Full story: Financial Promoter