Comprehensive Guide to Branding for New RIAs

Your firm’s brand is its calling card, and making a solid first impression matters when starting a new RIA. Branding communicates who you are, what you do and, perhaps most importantly, what you value in serving your clients. Cultivating your new RIA’s brand image is a multilayered process, and it helps to know what to expect.

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What Is Branding for RIAs?

Building a brand for yourself is the development of a unique image and voice that represents your firm. When you’re up against other RIAs competing for the same clients, the strength of your brand can influence your ability to win them.

A recognizable brand is a valuable asset for building trust and loyalty among prospective and current clients. The most successful RIA branding delivers a clear message about your firm’s unique value proposition and triggers positive associations for the investors who receive that message.

What does an RIA brand encompass? It starts with your name but goes beyond that to include your:

Personal brand statement
Slogan or tagline
Company logo
Website design
Social media presence
Core values and beliefs
Reputation

Brand-building can establish your foundation for growth as a new RIA. You may be starting your firm with dozens of clients or zero assets under management (AUM). Either way, marketing is a top priority.

Your approach to branding influences the way prospective clients perceive your firm. Your brand should build trust and credibility while allowing you to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Those factors are key to attracting clients who need and can benefit from what you have to offer.

How to Brand a New RIA, Step by Step

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your brand won’t be, either. Breaking down the process of branding firm RIAs into specific tasks can make the process feel more manageable.

1. Identify Your Niche

Your niche represents the who, what and why of your business. Specifically, it’s:

Who you serve
What you do for them
Why you do it

For example, you may be a new RIA who helps middle-aged women clarify their retirement needs and develop actionable plans for reaching their goals. You target those clients because you watched your mother struggle financially in retirement and want to help other women avoid the pitfalls of being unprepared.

Identifying your niche sets the stage for how you shape your brand and convey your RIA’s value.

2. Get to Know Your Ideal Client

An ideal client represents the exact person you want to work with. It’s someone whose goals and needs align perfectly with what you bring to the table.

Clarifying who your ideal clients are allows you to shape your brand in a way that’s designed to capture their attention and encourage them to engage. Creating one or more buyer personas can help you flesh out who your ideal clients are on paper.

For example:

How old are they?
Where do they live?
What do they do for work?
Are they married? Do they have kids?
What’s their annual income?
How much experience do they have with investing?
What’s their net worth?
What are their biggest financial concerns, needs and goals?
Where do they spend their time online? Which social media platforms do they use most often?

These kinds of questions can help you get into the minds of your ideal clients and see your brand image through their eyes.

3. Determine What Sets You Apart

What do you value most as an RIA? And what makes your firm different from all the other RIAs that have been in business for years?

Those questions speak to two significant factors in branding: your core values and your unique value proposition.

Core values define your firm and guide the way you steer the ship. The language you use in your branding should reflect those values and tell prospective clients what matters most to you.

For example, your brand statement may read something like this:

“At XYZ Financial, we believe in honesty, transparency and objectivity in the planning process. Our advisors are empathic, compassionate,and understanding, and we rely on a client-first approach to meet your needs. Your financial future matters to you, and we’re committed to being active partners in helping you reach your goals.”

This statement touches on several core values — honesty, transparency, objectivity, empathy, commitment and partnership. It summarizes what you do and why a prospective client should consider working with you.

4. Build Out Your Brand Elements

Your brand elements are the visual markers that identify your firm. It’s your logo, the fonts you use, your color scheme — all the things that work together to make your brand recognizable and cohesive.

In choosing these elements, consider your ideal clients, core values and the story you want your brand to tell. An understanding of color psychology can also be helpful.

Color psychology deals with the relationships between particular colors and the emotional response they trigger. Yellow and blue, for example, are linked to optimism, positivity, calmness and trust. It’s not unusual to see these colors incorporated into financial advisor website designs.

As you create the visual side of your brand, keep consistency in sight. If you’re using a particular logo or color scheme on your website, that should carry over to your social media profiles, for example. Inconsistent branding can be confusing and even off-putting for prospective clients.

5. Promote Your Brand

Once you have the framework of your brand down, it’s time to share it. This is where networking and marketing come into play.

Here are some ideas for how to promote your new RIA’s brand:

Launch your social media profiles on platforms that your ideal clients are most likely actively use
Create a consistent posting schedule and spend time engaging with social media followers daily
Attend RIA conferences and spend time getting to know other advisors in your niche
Develop a high-value lead magnet and use it to begin building your email list
Host an online or in-person seminar on a topic that speaks to a specific pain point your target clients are dealing with
Look for opportunities to collaborate and build partnerships, such as being a guest on a financial podcast or writing a guest post for a financial influencer’s blog
Polish your search engine optimization (SEO) skills to help your website move up in search rankings

You may also consider working with a marketing platform that specializes in helping RIAs build out their client lists. SmartAsset AMP, for instance, pairs you with high-intent investors who are looking for an advisor to work with and equips you with tools to nurture those relationships. It’s a simple and streamlined way to kickstart your new firm’s lead generation strategy.

With a subscription, advisors can receive up to 540 validated leads per year and build customized nurture campaigns using automated email and text messaging. Designed to help you target up to 15 new clients annually, AMP streamlines your outreach and supports your growth goals. Explore how SmartAsset AMP can elevate your marketing strategy today.

Should You Hire a Branding Firm?

A financial advisor considering whether they should hire a branding firm.

Branding firms or agencies work with new RIAs to develop their brand strategy. You offer insight into what your firm does and what you value, and the agency helps you craft a brand image that reflects that.

Before working with a branding firm RIAs should ask some questions to determine if it’s a good investment of their time and money. For instance, you might ask the following:

Are your clients exclusively in the financial services space?
Do you primarily work with new RIAs, or do you also assist with branding for established firms?
How do you approach branding strategy, and what input will you need from me to help develop my brand?
Do you offer content creation and SEO services for RIAs?
Can you help with website building or redesigning an existing site?
Which digital tools or resources do you utilize in crafting brand strategies?
How will you test the results? Specifically, what metrics will you use to determine if the brand strategy you’ve created for me is working?
Will I work with a team, or do you handle branding one-on-one?
How do you charge for your services, and what will I pay?
Do you require clients to sign a contract for services?

Reading client testimonials or reviews can shed light on how a branding firm for RIAs operates and its positives or negatives. You may also reach out to other advisors in your network to ask about their experiences with using an RIA branding agency. That type of feedback can help you decide if this is the right path to pursue.

Bottom Line

Branding a new RIA is an opportunity to clarify who your ideal clients are and what you want to deliver to them. Whether you decide to hire an RIA branding agency or go it alone, tackling this marketing task can help set your new business up for long-term success.

Tips for Growing Your Advisory Business

Marketing can feel overwhelming when you’re building an RIA from scratch. You have to figure out which channels or platforms to promote your business on and craft content for those platforms that will resonate with your target audience. If you’re looking for a simpler way to increase your brand’s visibility, consider how SmartAsset AMP may be able to help. SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) is a holistic marketing service that financial advisors can use for client lead generation and automated marketing. Sign up for a free demo to explore how SmartAsset AMP can help you expand your practice’s marketing operation. Get started today.
If your firm changes directions with the services it offers or the clients it serves, you may need to revisit your branding strategy. Rebranding can be time-consuming, but it’s sometimes necessary to more accurately convey the message you want to send. It could be worth talking to a branding firm for RIAs if you’d like some expert help with navigating a brand makeover.