Trending
Written by: Michelle Winkles, MBA
Every month (or so), I host a virtual gathering I like to call my "RIA Marketing Meet-Up"—an opportunity for marketing leaders across the independent RIA industry to step away from their day-to-day work, exchange ideas, and openly discuss what's working, what's changing, and where our profession is headed.
There are no presentations or sales pitches. Just honest conversations between peers.
This month's discussion may have been one of the smallest we've had (thank you, summer schedules!), but it was also one of the richest.
I was joined by two marketing leaders I greatly admire:
- Stacey McKinnon, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Morton Wealth
- Kirsten Ly, Chief Marketing Officer at Modera Wealth Management
Although our firms differ in size, structure, geography, and strategy, I was struck by how closely our conversations aligned.
Across branding, advisor marketing, client experience, AI, and content strategy, six themes emerged that I believe will shape the future of wealth management marketing over the next several years.
In This Article
You'll learn:
- Some of the biggest wealth management marketing trends shaping RIAs today
- Why advisor marketing is becoming a dedicated growth function
- How AI is changing client experience and content strategy
- Why StoryBrand principles still matter in financial services
- What leading RIA marketing teams are investing in today
- Practical ideas you can apply within your own firm
1. Wealth Management Branding Is Becoming a Client Experience
The strongest brands in our industry are no longer defined by logos or color palettes.
They're defined by how clients feel.
That experience begins long before someone becomes a client and continues through every interaction they have with a firm.
We discussed how branding now extends across:
- Office environments
- Advisor photography
- Websites
- Client presentations
- Video
- Events
- Print materials
- Digital communications
Stacey shared Morton's recent brand evolution, which intentionally creates a calm, luxury-hotel feel in an increasingly noisy financial world. Every detail—from magazine-quality brochures to advisor photography captured exclusively in their own offices—supports one consistent client experience.
One idea I particularly loved was Morton's approach to advisor branding. Rather than scheduling large production shoots every few years, Stacey's team conducts smaller in-house branding sessions that provide advisors with years' worth of authentic marketing assets.
At Mission Wealth, we've also been intentionally evolving our written and visual identity. We have been working hard on a brand and messaging refresh, including building a new website.
Our (soon-to-be-launched) refreshed StoryBrand embraces warmer, more natural colors inspired by the communities we serve, creating consistency across our offices, website, presentations, photography, in-person, and digital experiences.
The takeaway?
Clients don't experience your brand one touchpoint at a time. They experience it as one continuous story.
2. The Best Financial Advisor Marketing Makes the Client the Hero
Every marketing leader has experienced it.
The temptation to make the firm's story the center of every message.
During our discussion, story and brand came up repeatedly—not necessarily as a framework to follow word-for-word, but as a reminder that clients care far more about solving their own challenges than learning about ours.
Prospective clients are asking questions like:
- Am I financially prepared for retirement?
- Can I confidently navigate a liquidity event?
- Will my family be taken care of?
- Who can help simplify increasingly complex financial decisions?
When our marketing begins with those questions, trust follows.
Stacey also raised an important point that resonated with all of us:
Modern SEO, AEO, and StoryBrand messaging aren't competing strategies—they're complementary ones.
Today's best content is both:
- Searchable enough for Google and AI answer engines to discover.
- Human enough for prospective clients to feel understood.
That balance may become one of the defining characteristics of successful wealth management marketing over the next decade.
3. Advisor Marketing Is Becoming One of the Highest-ROI Investments for RIAs
One trend we've all been watching is the continued growth of dedicated advisor marketing.
As firms expand, advisors increasingly need personalized support for local marketing, events, thought leadership, digital content, and relationship building.
Kirsten shared that Modera recently expanded its advisor marketing team after advisor growth plans generated more opportunities than the existing marketing organization could support.
At Mission Wealth, we're seeing many of the same dynamics.
Advisor marketing is evolving from a shared responsibility into a specialized discipline.
Stacey shared one of the most compelling ROI examples I've heard. A single marketing professional can support approximately fifteen advisor brands.
She stated, "If stronger advisor marketing helps each advisor attract just one additional ideal client, the recurring revenue often exceeds the investment many times over."
That's a very different conversation from measuring the success of a single webinar or event.
The firms investing in advisor marketing today aren't simply creating more content. They're creating more opportunities for advisors to build trust before the first meeting ever happens.
4. Educational Content Is Shifting from Market Commentary to Life Conversations
Another clear theme emerged around content strategy. The highest-performing content isn't always investment-related. Often, it's deeply human.
Kirsten shared Modera's Live Well with Modera webinar series, which covers topics such as decluttering, brain health, family relationships, and purposeful living. These educational events consistently generate meaningful engagement because they address clients' broader lives—not just their portfolios.
Stacey shared similar success through Morton's Couch Side Conversations podcast strategy.
Episodes exploring gifting, family dynamics, overspending, and "how much is enough?" continue to outperform traditional market commentary.
One episode alone prompted numerous clients to proactively schedule conversations with advisors. That reinforces something many of us are observing:
People don't wake up hoping to consume more market updates. They wake up trying to make better decisions about their lives. Financial advice simply happens to be part of that journey.
5. AI Is Transforming Wealth Management Marketing by Helping Us Listen Better
Artificial intelligence naturally became part of our discussion.
Interestingly, however, we spent very little time discussing how to create content faster.
Instead, we focused on listening better.
At Mission Wealth, our marketing team has been exploring how meeting intelligence platforms like Jump reveal patterns across advisor conversations.
Those insights help us identify:
- Frequently asked client questions
- Emerging planning topics
- Future podcast ideas
- Blog opportunities
- Educational content priorities
- Advisors uncovering exceptional client stories
Rather than guessing what clients care about, AI increasingly allows us to build content directly from conversation intelligence.
Stacey shared how her team uses AI to strengthen messaging while maintaining a relationship-centered, StoryBrand approach.
She also discussed exciting developments with Fynancial (an app designed to engage clients, integrate technology, and grow organically), which aims to consolidate client information across multiple systems and enable more proactive advisor workflows.
We learned that all three of our firms have jumped on the Fynancial app bandwagon to better serve our clients.
For marketers, this shift is significant.
The future of AI isn't replacing creativity. It's giving us better data so we can create more relevant, timely, and genuinely helpful experiences.
6. Client Experience Is Everyone's Responsibility
One of the most thoughtful conversations centered around client experience ownership.
Should Marketing own it? Should Advisory? Operations? A dedicated Client Experience team?
Each of our firms structures this differently. But we all arrived at the same conclusion.
Exceptional client experience doesn't belong to one department. It belongs to the entire organization.
Marketing shapes expectations. Advisors build relationships. Operations create consistency. Leadership reinforces culture.
The firms that excel in client experience don't spend time debating ownership. They focus on alignment.
Final Thoughts
Every time I host one of these meetups, I'm reminded that one of the greatest strengths of the independent RIA community is our willingness to learn from one another.
Marketing leaders face many of the same challenges:
How do we build stronger brands? How do we better support advisors? How do we create remarkable client experiences? How do we embrace AI without losing the human connection that defines great advice?
While there isn't one perfect answer, conversations like these help us move the profession forward together.
A sincere thank you to Stacey McKinnon and Kirsten Ly for sharing your experiences, your successes, and your perspectives so openly. I always leave our conversations with fresh ideas, new inspiration, and a notebook full of practical takeaways.
Related: The Confidence Gap Your Female Clients Won’t Mention