There is no lack of marketing services for advisors. The hard part is knowing which one is for you.
You’ve probably seen the Kitces Advisor Services Map, so you know how overwhelming it is. Just the marketing and business development section alone covers all-in-one marketing, brand design, website design, SEO, content marketing, social media, video, events, and seminar planning. Then there’s the business and practice improvement section with business coaches, sales and marketing coaches, and practice management consultants. There are a lot of options.
For advisors looking at this map, the sheer number of options can create analysis paralysis. You interview several vendors, most of them sound great, and you end up stuck trying to figure out which one is actually the right fit.
The problem is picking vendors before you have a strategy. It’s like hiring a contractor before you have blueprints.
A marketing strategy answers the foundational questions that make vendor decisions easy:
• What are your one to three priorities for the year?
• What channels make sense for those priorities?
• What do you already have in place to implement the strategy?
Once those answers are in place, you can evaluate the gaps in your implementation, and the right vendors become obvious.
Consider hiring a marketing strategist like ours at OnNiche® to help you define what you actually need. We build your strategy and your plan, and because we’ve analyzed the vendors, we can make recommendations to help you fill the gaps so you don’t have to do the research yourself.
The takeaway: The Kitces Advisor Services Map is a great resource, but it’s a menu, not a plan. Build the strategy first, then shop for vendors. Schedule a call if you want help with both.
