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Delightful + Not So Delightful Learnings: Building and Innovating Author Candice Carlton When you’re innovating and creating something new, you always have to be open to getting it wrong, taking feedback, pivoting quickly + also expanding on what works! Innovate, [...]

Are you Listening? FiComm Shares Voice-First Marketing Tips with WealthManagement.com Author FiComm Team Picture this: you’re working on something important for work, trying to find yet another synonym for “unprecedented.” Without thinking, you shout to Amazon Alexa “synonyms for unprecedented,” she rattles [...]

The Power of PR During the COVID Chaos FiComm Partners on WealthManagement.com's Wealthies Digital Forum Author FiComm Team PR is a critical communications engagement tool that has the power to enhance a brand’s value and bolster its reputation with the [...]

Get to Know: Ryan Neal Technology Editor at Financial Planning. Author Rita McNeil We all know the financial advice circle is small. You often run into a lot of familiar faces each year at Insider's Forum or bump elbows with [...]

Advisor Education: Overview A series of marketing and communication workshops delivered virtually, designed for the modern advisor. Author FiComm Team Click here to download the Advisor Education PDF. Tags Advisors

We Are Here for You Author FiComm Team Please let us know how we can help, by contacting us here Read our crisis comms blog here Tags Reports

Crisis and Continuity in the Age of Corona-Craze Author Kirsten Plonner Crisis and continuity. They’re the devil. They sneak up on you when you least expect it, and they never go smoothly. Ever. In fact, you’ll start to wonder if [...]

The Art of the Soundbite Author Rita McNeil Any good PR firm will conduct an in-depth media training – but only a great PR firm will train you on the art of speaking in soundbites. According to Cambridge Dictionary, a [...]

2019 INVESTMENTNEWS DRIVERS OF GROWTH STUDY Author FiComm Team We are pleased to be a contributing partner of The 2019 InvestmentNews Drivers of Growth Study. Our CEO, Megan Carpenter collaborated with InvestmentNews to create the industry’s only report that provides [...]

Branding A strong brand by definition will always leave a lasting impression on those who interact with it. Branding is the art of managing the impact your service offering has on customers – potential or existing. Branding is also the [...]

Affinity Enhancing your brand's value When most of us think of the term, brand, our minds tend to gravitate toward some of the most prolific brands in history, ones that have become common household names, such as Amazon, Coca-Cola, Apple, [...]

Marketing Automation What it is and why you need it In a world fraught with over-messaging and brand de-personalization, one tool, born of fire and flame, has stood out and given hope to a new generation of marketers: Marketing Automation. [...]

Digital Outreach   Author FiComm Team From lead generation to paid and earned social media campaigns, native advertising to platform management, digital audits to analytics – digital outreach strategically places your brand’s story where people already are. Telling your story [...]

Public Relations   Author FiComm Team Public relations bolsters brands and businesses. Earned third-party credibility has the power to elevate an organization’s story and differentiate it from the masses. From strategic storytelling via media engagement to executive thought leadership development, [...]

Bylined Article   Author Craig Raskin Bylined article may just be another word, or it might be an industry superpower. Understanding how to harness this power could take your business to the next level. We know that the words you [...]

Authenticity Aligning words with values Author Suzanne Joshi In our personal lives, authenticity feels easy to discern. You see it in a genuinely curious person who likes to learn about the human condition, is a little confused by buzzwords, and [...]

MARKETING Innovative ideas, authentic storytelling, targeting marketing, and distribution that aligns with your goals will propel your business forward. Author FiComm Team The strongest marketing efforts are based on the most well supported and relevant data, getting you the results [...]

BUSINESS CONSULTING Make your business strategy stand out from the crowd Author FiComm Team Great businesses are driven by effective branding and strategy. Whether you are starting a new business or looking to level up an existing one, our experienced [...]

Personal Leadership Change the conversation Author Megan Carpenter Personal leadership is the belief that what you do matters. It’s faith in the power of your own hustle, a fire in the belly to achieve big, audacious goals, a willingness to [...]

PR: It’s Not What You Think!   Author Kirsten Plonner Over the past several months, I’ve had the pleasure of hanging with some of the coolest people in the independent wealth management space. From Pershing INSITE to Joel Bruckenstein’s T3 [...]

What’s in a Partner? The Beginnings of a Beautiful PR Friendship Author Kirsten Plonner Like most things worth doing, choosing the right Public Relations partner can be *hard*. I often hear advisors and wealth managers describe the practice of PR [...]

Final Sneak Peak: Blowing Up—and Blowing Out—Your Marketing Plan Author Megan Carpenter This is my last reminder to sign up for INVINCIBLE: The Most Direct Path to $1 Billion on May 9 in San Francisco and May 10 in Portland, [...]

I really hope you’ll sign up for INVINCIBLE: The Most Direct Path to $1 Billion, the all-day advisor growth workshop we’re hosting with FourPointe Consulting and LiveOak Bank on May 9 in San Francisco and May 10 in Portland, OR.If […]

Want to Become Invincible? Mark Your Calendar for May 9-10 Author Megan Carpenter INVINCIBLE: The Most Direct Path to $1 Billion May 9, San Francisco, CA, The Bridges Golf Club May 10, Portland, OR, Hyatt House  There’s a war coming. [...]

Stake Your Fiduciary Claim   Author Megan Carpenter As you may remember, last year I urged you to plant your flag and establish your claim as a fiduciary in the eyes of the investing public. Thanks to the Fifth Circuit, [...]

What If You Found Out You Were Really Just a Ghost All Along? Author Megan Carpenter Remember The Sixth Sense, where (spoiler alert) Bruce Willis goes through the whole movie not realizing he’s dead? Did you ever see The Others, [...]

Like most people with a social media account, my feed is oversaturated with random acts of content – written pieces without any strategy or value – and so I’ve become very selective about what I allow onto my reading list. […]

One Year Ago I Warned You About a Coming Stock Market Correction. When It Came, Were You Ready? Author Megan Carpenter On February 23, 2017—a year ago, almost to the day—I wrote a post urging advisors to get ready for [...]

And the Winners of 2017 Are… The best-performing blogs of the year Author FiComm Team We are solidly into 2018, and with any luck, you’re a little wiser than you were in 2017. Or at least, by now you should [...]

You Hired Millennial Advisors To Grow Your Business. What Went Wrong? Author Megan Carpenter Something odd is going on. Why are partners at established wealth management sounding so alarmed about their Millennial advisors? Why are they pulling me aside to [...]

For a job that inherently deals with constant change, from fluctuating markets to the unpredictable life events, the role of a financial advisor is one that is often steeped in tradition. Tradition is outdated. As in nearly all other aspects […]

Your Annual Marketing Plan Part IV: Try a New Way to Define Goals and Budgets Author Megan Carpenter In my final post on annual marketing planning, I want to touch on two topics that always seem to generate a lot [...]

Annual Marketing Plans Part III: How to Avoid Sabotaging Your Own Planning Meeting Author Megan Carpenter As I mentioned last time, most advisors start their annual marketing planning meeting by reviewing their progress against the firm’s business plan.I can’t think [...]

Annual Marketing Plans Part II: 6 Tips for Better Planning Meetings Author Megan Carpenter Last time, I told you about the crazy way we run annual planning meetings at FiComm. Now I want you to understand the method behind our [...]

The year is almost over. That means it’s time to write your annual marketing plan. (You do have a plan, right? I hope you aren’t spending money without one!) The next few posts are going to show you how to […]

Vendors Why Aren't You Personalizing Your Marketing to Advisors? Author Megan Carpenter I’ve been writing about Penton’s WealthManagement.com for a few weeks. There’s one final data point you might find interesting. Sixty percent of service providers don’t personalize their marketing [...]

Marketing Support Providers: What Advisors Really Want from You Author Megan Carpenter Last time, I may have given a few people a heart attack. As I mentioned, according to The Penton’s WealthManagement.com surveys, companies that provide value-added marketing support to [...]

If You Provide Marketing Support To Advisors, You May Want to Sit Down for This Author Megan Carpenter I’ve been talking about the Penton’s WealthManagement.com surveys of advisors and their service providers. If you’re a vendor who provides value-added marketing [...]

In my last post, I shared a few data points from the recent Penton and WealthManagement.com surveys of advisors and their service providers. If you remember, the findings showed that the word “marketing” means very different things to advisors and […]

Uh- oh: What a New Survey Reveals About Advisors’ Marketing Plans Author Megan Carpenter Wondering what advisors are really doing for marketing this year? Want to know whether their service providers are in sync with their needs? If so, this [...]

The Beginner’s Guide To Targeted Messaging Author FiComm Team “So, let me ask you this, ‘What persona are you speaking to with your marketing efforts?’” There’s a dead silence on the other end of the line, before, “Well, my clients [...]

Welcome to 90’s Mr. Banks! Inbound Marketing and Why Advisors Must Pay Attention Author Megan Carpenter Last week, the FiComm marketing team traveled to Boston to attend Inbound 2017. This remarkable event brings over 20,000 marketers together from around the [...]

Measuring Success: Speaking Digital with Google Analytics Author Megan Carpenter “What marketer isn’t technical? Who hasn’t entered a tracking code onto a website, or created last-minute tag attributions?” begins today’s session on Google Analytics (GA). What marketer isn’t technical, indeed. [...]

Getting The Most from Your Email Marketing Author FiComm Team The FiComm team is back with your daily update from Inbound17, where marketers are discussing the future of marketing. A common theme, though, is the need to talk about the past [...]

Don’t Let the Truth Get in the Way of a Good Story Author FiComm Team We continue with our rundown of everything marketing happening at the Inbound 2017 conference. Yesterday, I discussed how to prepare your business for marketing trends. [...]

Major Changes in Marketing How Does It Affect You? Author Megan Carpenter Live from Inbound17 If you own a business, you know that you should invest in marketing. That’s how growth happens. But unless you’re a marketer, chances are that [...]

Content Marketing Examples Part IV: Check Out This Checklist Author Megan Carpenter This post wraps up my series on content marketing. The last content type I want to talk about are checklists and FAQs.She can’t be serious, you're probably thinking. [...]

Content Marketing Examples Part III: Grab Them with Infographics Author Megan Carpenter It’s time for more real-world examples of content marketing. In this post, I’m going to talk about infographics.And to be honest, talking about infographics is all most people [...]

The Fiduciary Blues: Notables from Insiders Forum 2017 Author FiComm Team The FiComm team enjoyed some southern comfort in Nashville last week at Insider’s Forum 2017, which kicked off with Founder, Honkytonk Bob "Tex" Veres, serenading the crowd at the [...]

Content Marketing Examples Part II: 5 Ways to Make Social Media Advertising Work for You Author Megan Carpenter I have more real-world content and social media marketing strategiesto share with you. Last time, I showed you how videos and animations could build [...]

Content Marketing Examples Part I: Lessons from La La Land Author Megan Carpenter Or How to Bring Life to Your Story with Videos and Animation To round out our discussion about content marketing, I promised to show you some real-world [...]

Still Feeling Lost? Download this Content Marketing Roadmap Author Megan Carpenter In my last post, I introduced the idea of the Content Strategy Roadmap (please read that post first if you haven’t already). Also called an editorial calendar, it’s a tool [...]

The 7 Secrets Of Content Marketing Author Megan Carpenter Here’s something that happens to me a lot: I finally convince an advisor to try content marketing. Then I have to talk them down off the ledge once they realize the [...]

The Character of Your Content   Author Megan Carpenter Are your ears ringing? They should be. Because right now, someone you don’t know is probably talking about you. Or checking out your profile on LinkedIn. Or reading something you’ve written, [...]

Should You Work with A Marketing or PR Agency, Or Go It Alone? Part V Author Megan Carpenter Still with me? This is the last post in a five-part series—one where I try to help you figure out whether you’re [...]

Should You Work with A Marketing or PR Agency, Or Go It Alone? Part IV Author Megan Carpenter This is a follow-up to my last post about getting ready to meet with an agency. Why don’t advisors do a better job of [...]

Should You Work with A Marketing PR Agency, Or Go It Alone? Part III Author Megan Carpenter You’ve read my other posts (Part I and Part II). And you’re finally ready to talk to a marketing or PR agency. Or are you? [...]

Everybody likes to think they’re open-minded. But what if you’re really not? As I said last time, there’s no point in paying for outside advice if you have no intention of listening to it. But all of us have trouble admitting […]

Have you ever wondered, “Do I really need a Marketing or PR agency? Can’t I just do everything myself?” If so, this posts—and the next four that follow—are for you. Last week, I was on a call with an advisor […]

As I said in an earlier post: when you sell to advisors, you have to be authentic to your own product. If you’re not, you’ll eventually be exposed as a fake. It’s inevitable. Still, people keep trying to fake it […]

How to be an outstanding PR spokesperson Public Relations is challenging.  Because it is by nature unpredictable, with no precise formula for achieving a desired result, it can be particularly stressful both for those who practice it as a profession […]

In my last post, I talked about why your story needs a good villain. About why you need tension, and conflict, and a reason for your clients and prospects to cheer for you. Now I want to share two examples […]

I have a question for you. You won’t understand at first why it’s important. But it goes right to the heart of who you are, and what your business represents. Just bear with me. Who is your favorite movie villain […]

Right this minute, we are watching the collision of two forces that are shaking advisor firms to their foundations. The first is the commoditization of advice, driven in part by technology. Face it: investment performance is no longer a credible […]

This is the story of how we lost an account. It was a painful lesson, but one that’s worth reading whether you’re an agency, vendor or advisor—really, anyone who’s invested in the growth of advisor firms. Of course, I’ve changed […]

These days, every advisor is looking to buy a marketing tool. Which explains why every vendor is trying to sell one—whether they actually have anything to sell or not. As I’ve written before, the whole industry now understands that the […]

Why did you go originally into business with your partners? And as a follow up: how long did it take you to think of an answer to that question? I’ve worked with some advisor teams that seem like a natural […]

If you want to build your business, become a Ghostbuster. I’m not referring to the movie, exactly (I didn’t even see the sequel.) I’m talking about the theme song. If there’s somethin’ strange in your neighborhood  Who ya gonna call? […]

As I said in my earlier post, some advisors are running on empty—and don’t even know it yet. They might be cruising smoothly for now. But if they aren’t adding enough prospects to the top of their sales funnels, they […]

There’s a looming marketing crisis the industry isn’t acknowledging. I encourage you to pay attention to it so that you can maintain sustainable growth for years to come. In February, I attended the 2017 T3 Advisor Conference. As you would […]

The financial industry overcomplicates things. Marketers across the industry will sympathize with me, we’ve all seen firms take more than a year to approve one 12-page brochure. It is not unusual for firms to appoint committees who meet to go […]

In my last post, I urged you to think carefully before launching a book or a podcast—not to discourage you from pursuing your dream to market this way, but to make sure your dream is grounded in reality. If you’ve […]

Developing a Podcast Marketing Strategy Have you ever pictured your name on the cover of a book—or your podcast at the top of the iTunes charts? If so, this two-part post is for you. Years ago, it felt like pulling […]

Do you know how to take a compliment? More importantly, do you know how to use a compliment? Most businesspeople love positive client testimonials. Imagine restaurants without 5-star Yelp reviews, movies without 95% fresh ratings, weight loss clinics without before-and-after pictures. […]

You’ve seen the stats. Women already control most of the wealth in America, and our share is only going up (1). Boomer women have started inheriting their husbands’ assets. Millennial women are outpacing men in academic achievement (2). So, if […]

Do you plan to spend more on marketing this year? Apparently, your peers do. According to the latest TD Ameritrade Institutional RIA Sentiment Survey, RIAs expect to increase their 2017 marketing budgets by 27%. I wonder where all that money […]

Right now, you should be running. At top speed. With a flag in your hand, ready to plant it in the ground. Get the reference? It’s from Far and Away, that ‘90s movie where Tom Cruise plays an Irish immigrant […]

Identifying Your Target Market If you’ve ever been to an industry conference or read an advisor trade pub, you’ve heard an expert telling you the “best” way to define a target market is by profession. But is that notion true? […]

What’s your plan for the next stock market crash? I bet that question took you by surprise. Judging by some of the conversations I’ve had recently, it’s probably not something you’ve been thinking about very much. As of this writing, […]

I know, I know. Your integrations are real. Not like those other guys. You integrate with more vendors, or you have more APIs, or you’re the one who’s really seamless. Tough love moment: Integration isn’t a differentiator anymore. It’s just a […]

Some advisors say they want to stand out from the crowd—but they’re fibbing. They really want to look and sound like everybody else. We can help them define their target market, identify clear points of differentiation, and craft a targeted […]

As I’ve already explained, an exceptional service model can take your business quite far. Add a handful of strong Center of Influence (COI) relationships, and you may have everything you need to drive your growth. Here are some center of influence […]

PR Interview Tips from FiComm PR and sports have a lot in common.  In sports, you get out what you put in.  But despite countless hours of practice, studying your opponent, working out, doing everything right – there are no […]

How would you like to get so many referrals that they’re your number one source of inbound leads? You potentially could—if you’re willing to to take an honest assessment of your approach to service models. If you’re like many other […]

If you sell to advisors, you’ve probably experienced at least one deal that seemed like a sure thing—but you just couldn’t make it happen. You hit it off with the advisor. He or she seemed to really get your message. […]

(Note: In this post, I’m speaking directly to all the marketing coordinators, marketing directors and marketing managers ensconced at their lonely posts inside advisor firms. This one’s for you—but it might do some good if your boss reads it, too.) […]

Sometimes, participating in an RFP process is like eavesdropping on an awkward first date. You can tell everybody is trying to say the right thing, but nobody really understands what the other person is talking about. Here are a few […]

You and your vendors come from different worlds. Vendors love to work with large companies that have deep pockets and teams of experts to guide the project along. When they look at financial services, they see a vast opportunity representing […]

I admit it. I didn’t get it for a long time. There I was, working in-house at advisor firms, putting out RFPs to marketing agencies and consultants as part of my daily job responsibilities. The proposals would come back. I’d […]

At FiComm, we attend conferences with a certain passion that can only be explained by our fangirl/fanboy like view of the independent wealth management community. We love the energy, the people, the networking, the content, and the access that we […]

In the Navy, I fixed combat aircraft.  F/A-18’s and F-14’s primarily, with some EA-6B Prowlers and S3 Viking sub-hunters sprinkled in occasionally to keep it interesting.  I spent 9 months at Naval Avionics school and finished 2nd in my class, so […]

I’m just going to get right to it, drones are everywhere. Every agency I know has or rents them, everyone has one on their Christmas list, and let’s face it: they’re pretty damn cool. But are they a valuable marketing […]

This is the second half of a two-part post. In the first, I gave you homework—a few questions to identify what you really need before you hire marketing staff. Now, I’m going to offer a few specific staffing suggestions.

That is the question. You may not need a marketing department at all if your business is cruising along at a good pace and you’re happy with your success. Even if you are trying to grow, you can still choose […]

I take a strong personal interest in the role of interns. That’s because my first job in business was a paid internship at a John Hancock Financial Network career agency. I’ve been a huge advocate ever since. That’s why it […]

I know you love your product. I probably do too. But advisors just don’t. I understand how you feel. It’s frustrating to work day and night to stay on the cutting edge of technology to realize advisors aren’t interested. When […]

Are you an advisor? A vendor? Either way, I think you’ll be interested in the new weekly FiComm blog we’re launching today. We will be covering all things communications including messaging, public relations, content marketing, and creative. My posts will […]