More than half of 414 advisors surveyed in late 2023 said they were struggling with client acquisition, according to research from Fidelity Institutional. While 42% said marketing and business development were a top priority, there was little agreement about implementing and assessing various strategies.
In response to the data gathered, Fidelity has created a digital “growth hub” available to any advisor interested in learning what techniques and technologies could make prospecting faster and more effective, improve client engagement and scale processes.
Unveiled Monday, the web-based portal offers more than 50 how-to guides, white papers, e-books, digital learning modules, worksheets, videos and more. It includes step-by-step processes for things like increasing referrals, getting actionable feedback and segmenting clients, and information on successful talent strategies and technology tools that can support all stages of the client lifecycle.
Content is grouped into three tiers reflecting different phases of establishing a comprehensive organic growth strategy, according to Rohit Mahna, head of client growth for Fidelity Institutional Wealth Management Services.
“Are you still around the early phases of prospecting? Are you beyond that phase and looking to deepen client relationships? Or are you in a later stage and looking to turn dials up or down, which is our third stage around scale and optimization,” Mahna explained. “The key thing is, we’re trying to go wide and deep.”
“For a firm that may be struggling with building some lead gen and still in the early stages, that prospect pillar is going to be helpful. But once you go into that, we’ve been very thoughtful with how we bring that content together into a cohesive and logical path,” Mahha said. “Advisors can find content to help them find and nurture prospects, brand-build, develop the right PR strategy and be really thoughtful about events, which we all know are really important. There’s also content on referrals, we’ve got tons of best practices on that.”
Mahna said advisors want more than just thought leadership. They’re looking for actionable steps and benchmarks against which they can compare progress. To that end, Fidelity has included action guides, checklists and calculators firms can use to gauge their positioning and progress.
They’re also looking for guidance around marketing and talent strategy, as well as how to think about the role of technology, all of which are included in the materials.
“There’s a lot of great content on ‘growthtech’ in there,” said Mahna. “I think what’s most important for firms that really, really want to hit their growth goals is that they need to have a revenue-generating tech strategy—and that’s about more than just getting more efficient in the middle- and back-office. It’s about doing more digital marketing and helping to drive investment conversations and, ultimately, helping advisors interact with clients in a more personalized way because that’s an upside force on the revenue side.”
According to Fidelity's research, 64% of digitally empowered advisors agree they are able to grow their book of business faster due to marketing and business development tools and processes at their firm when compared to their non-digital peers (28%).
Mahna said the hub will evolve with the industry landscape and advisor feedback. He acknowledged the freely offered service could have the added benefit of attracting new clients but insisted that it had little to do with its development.
“We went into this with the intention of supporting the larger community by taking these best practices and sharing them out,” he said. “The hub isn’t gated; it’s really meant to provide a one-stop shop for anyone to access this kind of information, whether it’s a Fidelity client, an RIA or even individual investors that want to.”