Novel marketing techniques are emerging all the time. It’s easy for financial firms to fall behind.

This checklist covers the latest marketing tactics and trends you need to know about now and explains how asset and wealth managers can use them to attract new investors.

1. Autonomous Agents

Cutting-edge financial firms are moving from generative artificial intelligence (AI), which has proven somewhat helpful in creating images and text, into agentic AI. Agentic AI can be thought of as autonomous digital agents capable of handling complex, multi-step workflows, from assigning prospects content they will be interested in, all the way through to seamlessly onboarding them as clients. Agentic AI can remove a lot of the friction from the marketing and sales processes that often keep people from investing with financial firms.

2. Serving Investors THEIR Way

Many people prefer not to interact with others and are completely happy with chatbots and other automated sales and service options. However, in areas as personal and sensitive as wealth and asset management, a significant percentage prefer to rely on humans for advice and support. What’s critical is to ensure you have convenient options for both. Offer chatbots and other automated options for people who want fast answers to their investing and financial planning questions and easy access to humans, for instance, through an appointment plug-in or client service line, when needed.

3. AI-Powered Personalization

Financial firms should use AI to deliver personalized content, offers, and advice that adapt in real time to prospect and client behavior. For instance, if a financial planning client has been focusing on retirement planning but starts exploring information about caring for aging parents, AI could start serving up content on the topic or on personal long-term care protection, which they may be more interested in.

4. Generate AI Videos

Many people today prefer to receive financial information via video. Videos make challenging investing and financial planning topics easier to understand for many. The issue: Many wealth and asset managers find that producing professional videos is too costly, and cheap smartphone videos can harm brand perception. Leverage AI video generation software to produce professional-quality videos for your organization. While the apps can be challenging to use sometimes, time and a little patience should get you to a place where you are pleased with your videos. Or get coaching and support from an AI video expert to jump-start your production capabilities.

5. Content Repurposing

AI for original content development has proven problematic. The quality is often not up to par, and it is penalized by Google (and disliked by readers) for not offering unique insights. However, AI can be a powerful tool for extending the reach of your content through repurposing. For example, you could use AI to break an original white paper about an investing concept into smaller blog posts, checklists, and social media posts. Just double-check that the AI reinterprets your content correctly and doesn’t introduce errors. Using AI this way can make your marketing more efficient by allowing you to produce less original material while extending its reach and influence.

6. Podcasts

Many financial professionals dismiss the impact podcasts can have on investors, especially when compared with exposure in traditional financial media outlets like Bloomberg. The truth is that many investors are deeply connected to podcasts and base many of their decisions on them. If your organization is large enough, consider producing your own podcast. If it’s smaller, seek out guest opportunities related to your financial niche or local area. For instance, if you offer a gold ETF, become a guest on podcasts related to alternative investments. Your expertise will connect with investors who care about the topic. Or, if you offer financial planning related to retirement in the Cleveland area, you could appear on a Cleveland lifestyle podcast to discuss the topic.

7. AI Resources Exclusive to Your Firm

Many financial companies are concerned about using AI in their marketing and sales efforts because it could introduce errors that, at least, harm brand trust and, at worst, cost the firm fines and penalties. One way to limit the possibility of errors is to only use AI with material you supply it with. In short, instruct it not to leverage external information in the material it generates. If it only uses internal assets to generate chat responses and other marketing content, it will be less likely to bring in bad information from outside your firm.

8. Transparency as a Virtue, Not a Defense

People are more and more concerned about the security of their personal data and financial information. That’s why financial firms are promoting their security protocols in their marketing, not just inserting it as an afterthought or legal requirement. Data encryption and privacy policies are becoming a core part of their brand messaging.

9. Compliance Second Look

Of course, nothing compares with human expertise when it comes to ensuring marketing and sales content is legal and compliant. However, it can be a smart move to get a compliance “second look” using AI. Use one of the many systems developed exclusively for the financial industry or simply use a standard platform to gain insights. It will help you have smarter conversations with the people on your compliance team and serve as a double-check that they are doing their jobs.

10. Omnichannel Marketing

Marketing is moving toward smaller, more frequent touchpoints (app notifications, social posts, SMS) rather than infrequent, large-scale promotional efforts. Leverage tools like HubSpot to coordinate these complex campaigns. It makes it possible to automate workflows across all channels, including social media, paid ads, email, and more. It is more effective to reach people more often in different ways to build awareness, rather than gamble that your firm will break through in a single major touchpoint.

11. Client Generated Content

Financial firms are expanding the use of client-generated content to seem more relatable and transparent, shifting away from heavily polished corporate advertising. Examples of client-created content include testimonials, success stories, and ratings and reviews. They are successful at attracting new investors because it is more powerful for someone else to say your firm is great than for you to say it yourself.

12. Partnership Marketing

More and more firms with complementary financial products — for instance, life insurance and retirement planning — are partnering to market them. The key benefit is to gain easy access to a competitor’s clients who might also need your offering. Plus, the endorsement of a solution or provider by someone trusted makes it more likely people will purchase services or invest.

13. Educational Content

This is a long-term trend, but one that is only accelerating. Financial firms have been shifting from sales- and product-focused advertising to educational pieces. People today have limitless choices of what to watch, read, and listen to, making them less likely to respond to a pure sales pitch. If your firm hasn’t already embraced this trend, it is time for you to focus more on financial literacy and less on product and service pitches.

14. Flexible Offers

People today are used to choices when it comes to all aspects of their lives. The same is true of finance. That’s why it’s critical to find ways to make your solutions as flexible as possible. For instance, if you focus on retirement planning, find ways to package it so it is meaningful to people far from, approaching, or in retirement. Investors are more likely to respond to offers tailored to people just like them.

15. Extreme Personalization

If you have a lot of data about your clients and prospects, use it to personalize their interactions with your firm. For people that have invested half a million dollars in one of your exchange-traded funds, acknowledge it and explain the benefits of investing more. If you want them to diversify across more of your solutions, make the specific case for it. A simple sales pitch will likely fall on deaf ears. A solution tailored just for them will bring in more dollars.

16. Employee-Authored Content

It’s one thing to receive thought leadership from a company. It is more meaningful if it comes from an investment manager or financial planner. Repackage your firm’s content so it is in the voice of the people investors or clients actually do business with. It makes it more likely it will be engaged with and acted on. There is a big difference between a piece that comes from Mega Financial Corporation and one from Julie Smith, a financial professional.

Current Financial Industry Promotional Trends: The Final Word

How many of the tactics outlined in this article is your firm taking advantage of? How many would you like to use? Contact the experts at Sondhelm Partners to get the help and support you need to enter the brave new world of asset and wealth manager marketing.