Eight examples of RIAs raising visibility upmarket 

Key Takeaways:

• Focus on reaching attorneys, CPAs and other professional advisors to high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients.
• If you serve a niche audience, look for media opportunities in publications that cater to your niche.
• The right awards and speaking engagements can help your firm's credibility with potential clients and COIs.

Wealth management firms seeking to move upmarket—from high-net-worth to ultra-high-net-worth and family office audiences—can raise their visibility by prioritizing focused content, niche events and specialized media outlets.

Here are eight examples drawn from plans we have helped RIAs implement.

Articles for CPAs and attorneys. Attorneys can be great partners for advisors looking to upscale their business, and when an advisor makes connections with the right attorneys, they can serve as a referral network to hard-to-reach HNW clients. Estate planning, trust services, legacy planning, and specialized tax planning are just a few realms where legal and financial advice often overlap. Creating content highlighting the synergies between client services offered by attorneys and financial advisors and placing that content in the publications most likely to be read by that audience is one way to make these connections.

For example, we worked with a wealth management trust specialist to develop an article about digital assets and place it in the state Bar Association magazine where they were located. Though the publication has a smaller reach numbers-wise, the audience for that magazine is the exact right people that our client wanted to read this content.

Podcasts. There is a podcast for practically everything nowadays, and many firms are reallocating a portion of their advertising budgets to reach the ears of clients and potential clients with their own firm-owned podcasts. For example, we’ve helped connect a financial advisor client, who had a focus on exit planning, with a number of entrepreneur and business-owner focused podcasts to talk about the importance of succession and legacy planning for their personal life and the life of their business.

Niche publications. From dentists, to pilots, to physicians, to those with a soft spot for the environment, we’ve worked with clients that have carved out a niche in the HNW space through specialization. One client even relayed to us that because of their niche in sustainable finance, advisors at other firms have referred them business after hearing them speak about their niche at industry events. For these clients, we’ve created and placed content and pitched stories to professional-facing or special-interest publications that are key to their niche.

In-house legal perspective. Some wealth management firms have one or more attorneys on staff who serve as specialized financial-planning resources to the firm’s advisors. Often their work connects with clients’ other professional advisors, such CPAs and estate-planning attorneys. We helped to shape and place an article in Trusts & Estates magazine by an in-house attorney on an estate-planning topic relevant to many clients of all these advisors.

Case studies on complex topics. The most useful case studies are ones that individual wealth managers feel comfortable sharing with COIs as educational material. For example, we wrote a case study about how wealthy families can use private-placement life insurance (PPLI) in combination with generation-skipping trusts to manage the tax impacts of a large inheritance. The case study included comments about how the wealth advisor worked with the client’s attorneys.

Awards. When it comes to high-net worth specific lists, Worth Magazine and InvestmentNews have both released specific rankings related to advisors that specialize in servicing these client groups. Family Wealth Report and Wealth Briefing also have awards that recognize advisors and firms that specialize in family office and HNW services. Similarly, there are several reputable industry-wide awards, that have specific categories for HNW and family offices.

Over the years, we’ve helped clients apply and win a number of these awards and rankings, but we also advise our clients that being shortlisted for an award—or even winning an award—isn’t enough if no one knew about your win. Leveraging the award through social media, a press release and mentions on your website and in marketing materials can help elevate you or your firm’s reputation and status in the industry.

Conferences. Attending—and speaking at—the right conferences can help advisors get in front of COIs and in some cases, HNW individuals themselves. We monitor a number of financial services related conferences and have helped connect our clients with speaking slots at large and small conferences. In one instance, we applied for and earned a speaking slot for a financial advisor with a specialization in estate planning at the largest conference focused on estate planning attorneys in the US.

Mainstream and HNW-focused publications. It’s not just COIs … there are opportunities to reach very wealthy people directly in some mainstream publications. For example, we’ve helped set up interviews in publications like Barron’s Penta and placed content in Worth Magazine, which primarily cater to HNW readers. These publications want content that goes beyond planning and brings some specific new information or value to their readers.

Closing thoughts

Whether through niche publications, technical content, conference speaking, or award leverage, the strategy is consistent—focus on building reputation among the professionals who advise wealthy clients. A communications strategy to accomplish this objective is best paired with a business focus that goes beyond “getting the word out” and focuses on “becoming the firm that COIs will recommend.”