Personalized communication with prospective wealth management clients increases the chances of converting them, a fact that also holds true for retirement plan participants, according to Kevin Darlington, general manager and head of Broadridge Advisor Solutions.

“Consumers expect more personalized experiences and are very used to highly curated content,” he says, speaking in relation to research from the firm’s fifth annual financial adviser marketing survey. “Those expectations are going to go up.”

Broadridge’s survey focused on individual financial advisers, with responses from 403 in the U.S., including registered investment advisers and independent broker/dealers.

Darlington notes that savvy retirement plan advisories seek to personalize their communications to participants if they are also offering individual financial advisement.

“The smart ones are finding ways to build a bridge to the participants,” he says. “They are doing things like offering events that participants can opt into; if it helps [those participants] solve a need, then the good advisers are doing that to nurture and cultivate those prospects. … If it’s done right, it’s a win-win for the sponsor and the participant and the advisers.”

Darlington clarifies that communicating with participants must, of course, run through the plan sponsor and be done properly. But Broadridge’s findings showed a clear benefit to personalized marketing for retail financial planning clients. The research, fielded in October and November 2023 and released on February 7, showed that advisers who personalize their content marketing are more likely to:

• Feel more confident in reaching their practice goals (71%, compared with 62%);
• Feel “very confident” in reaching practice goals next year (30% vs. 18%);
• Convert social media leads to clients (45% vs. 34%); and
• Generate more website leads (an average of 3.3 leads per month vs. 1.9).

Get Specific

Personalization, at a broad level, comes from going beyond generic, home office-made messaging in emails, blog posts and newsletters to focusing on issues specific to clients’ core areas, says Darlington.

“Instead of trying to have very generic language for a broad base, you want to focus on much more specific needs of an audience that is much more likely to hopefully yield results,” he says. “Prospects may be asking questions like, ‘How do I think about tax liability after an inheritance?’ When that question is asked and there are answers on an adviser’s website or blog, there’s a better chance they will find them and reach out.”

Artificial intelligence may also be a helpful tool in crafting messages by taking known data about a prospective client and helping advisers quickly cater their outreach. AI, however, is still not being put into practice by many advisers: Only about 8% said they are currently using it, and another 35% reported they plan to use it, according to Darlington, who believes those numbers will increase in the near term.

“We do think AI can be a great enabler,” Darlington says. “It can perform algorithms that look at patterns of what different consumers are engaging in to help the adviser scale that one-to-one automated outreach. [The industry is] naturally progressing to more and more sophisticated levels of that recipe.”

Lacking Confidence

While personalized educational content is of interest to advisers, many are still unsure how to implement it, according to the survey. Surveyed U.S. advisers reported they do not share education content with clients because they:

• Are not sure how to best go about it (49%);
• Do not find enough time (46%);
• Perceive a lack of interest from clients (44%); and
• Run into compliance issues (34%).

Darlington notes that, along with embracing personalized content and outreach, advisers should hone their continued communication once a prospective client shows interest.

“We see a pretty serious deficit in terms of how well advisers respond after people raise their hand,” he says. “Advisers spend all this time and energy and money trying to generate those leads, but when they actually get those raised hands, many advisers and firms don’t convert those prospects to clients—they sort of just fall on the floor. That is where real personalization can help.”

Darlington says Broadridge advises a marketing “drip over time” focused on what the prospects have identified as their interest and needs. Doing that shows the potential client that the adviser is paying attention and really understands what the client is looking for—syncing up with their expectations as consumers.

Darlington also notes that many younger investors are turning to social media for financial planning advice and guidance. While much if it is good, some of it is “bad and potentially harmful,” he notes.

Broadridge’s survey did find that near half (43%) of advisers are looking to ramp up investment in social media digital marketing. Darlington says one adviser he spoke with is focused not just on social media outreach, but on cultivating clients and helping her firm in the long run.

“She is really looking for long term sustainability, not for that prospect to convert in the next six months or a year,” he says. “She has many folks that are a lot younger that probably won’t be full-service clients for years, and that is OK with her; she is finding ways to nurture these prospects.”