How to Leverage OSJ Marketing Support to Grow Your Business in 2024

Here are some ways that OSJs provide marketing support to independent financial professionals.

Marketing Materials

OSJs can provide you with access to various marketing materials that are approved by their broker-dealers’ compliance departments. Examples of marketing resources include brochures, flyers, pitchbooks, and newsletters, which can help you create a professional and compliant way to market your advice and services to leads and prospects.

Compliance Assistance

Your OSJ can help ensure that your firm’s marketing materials comply with industry regulations. They guide what can and cannot be included in marketing materials to avoid compliance issues. They may regularly review your marketing materials to ensure they comply with all industry regulations and OSJ guidelines.

Digital Marketing 

OSJs can help you formulate digital marketing strategies for social media, email marketing, and website development platforms. Having a strong online presence is becoming increasingly important as more investors use the Internet to search for and vet financial advisors. For example, 82% of investors will visit your website, and 64% will Google search your name when they are seeking financial advisors. This is their anonymous way of conducting online due diligence. What they see determines who they contact. 

Branding Support 

You can discuss your branding concepts with OSJs. While they often won’t be involved with the actual creation of logo designs, they can assist you in creating consistent brand messaging so all of your various forms of communications are clear and on-point with your brand.

Branding is critical when it is the basis for an investor’s first impression of your firm. 

Client Acquisition Strategies 

OSJs can coach you as you look to expand and grow your firm. This can include best practices and strategies for acquiring new clients targeting specific demographics and niches.

Training and Education 

Some OSJs offer training sessions and webinars on marketing techniques and tactics to help you improve your marketing skills.

Customized Marketing Plans 

OSJs can provide consulting services to help you develop and refine a custom strategy that works in your marketplace. Our experience shows niche marketing works the best. Investors prefer advisors who work with people just like themselves. They believe this specialized knowledge will benefit them.

An OSJ brings a highly experienced perspective to your marketing efforts, helping you identify mistakes and uncover growth opportunities.

By thoroughly examining your current marketing strategies, including channels, campaigns, and messaging, an OSJ can offer suggestions and guidance on what's working and what needs to be adjusted based on data and best practices by other financial advisors.

They may also assist you in conducting a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to gain insights into your marketing practices and sales funnel. This will help identify internal strengths and weaknesses including external opportunities and threats.

In addition to a SWOT analysis, an OSJ can help you pinpoint gaps or areas where your current marketing strategies fall short. They can help you look for opportunities that capitalize on your strengths and address weaknesses that undermine your results. 

OSJs also have access to sophisticated technology platforms that can analyze and research the behaviors of your target audience(s), which can help you refine your marketing messages and campaigns.

Integrating the client experience into your marketing plan ensures that your promotional efforts are about highlighting products or services and building and maintaining strong relationships with your clients. 

While it’s important to communicate your services to prospective clients, you must also help them understand how your services can help them solve problems and pursue goals. After all, their biggest financial risk is not a volatile stock market. It is a failure to achieve their long-term financial goals.  

Begin by defining who your ideal clients are. This should include understanding their needs, preferences, and behaviors that impact their financial decisions.   

Once you have clearly defined your target audience, you want to ensure that all of your marketing efforts focus on their motivations and characteristics. For example, if you target pre-retirees, the images you use on your website and other marketing channels should be consistent with this demographic. Pictures of young families may not communicate the right message to your intended audience.   

With today’s technology platforms, it’s very easy to personalize your communications.  Personalized emails, targeted social media content, and customized offers can make potential clients feel valued and understood. One of their top priorities is selecting financial advisors that understand them.

You can also build funnels that lead prospective clients through your desired buyer’s journey.  This involves creating a campaign that helps them understand how your services can assist them through their learning and decision-making processes. Educational blogs, webinars, and short videos can help build credibility (you are the expert) and trust.  

Pending compliance approval, you can also use social media channels to market to prospective clients. You can post blog content, videos, free offers, and other materials that position you as a subject matter expert they can rely on (building trust). 

Read our newest Quick Guide: Building, Growing, and Exiting: How Financial Professionals Leverage OSJs.

Here are some 2024 marketing trends for independent financial advisors that OSJs can help implement:

• Embrace video marketing to reach a wider audience. Video content can also improve your firm’s Google SEO rankings.  An OSJ can guide video scripting and compliance. 

• Talk with your OSJ about how to implement a content marketing strategy. Find out if there is pre-approved content you can use in your marketing efforts. Also, explore creating your own blog and social media content and what compliance requirements are needed to implement a more custom solution that can impact online visibility, credibility, trust, and website traffic.

• Ask your OSJ if it is utilizing AI-driven tools that you can access. These can be used for predictive analytics and the automation of routine tasks. This can enhance efficiency and allow you to focus more time on strategic financial planning and investment management.

• Many clients are interested in boosting the focus of their investments by implementing impact investing. This can include ESG Investing or biblically responsible investment strategies. Talk with your OSJ about providing oversight and options that could assist your clients in the implementation of these investment strategies.

Predictive analytic software and technology platforms can be important in refining your firm’s marketing campaigns. These tools analyze historical data and identify patterns, enabling marketers to target potential customers with tailored messaging.

By leveraging data, these platforms provide deeper insights into investor behaviors, preferences, pain points, and needs, enabling you to develop more personalized and effective marketing strategies.

Predictive analytics can forecast the success of various marketing campaigns, guiding you to which strategies will produce the best results. With more targeted and efficient marketing efforts, advisors can experience an improved return on their marketing investments.

You can also predict market trends and consumer shifts, giving more “techy” marketers a definite head start in implementing the most productive strategies. These platforms can also assist in identifying potential risks in various marketing campaigns, enabling advisors to avoid wasting time and money on strategies that don’t work.

With the introduction of AI technology, these platforms can learn from new data, which can offer even more refined insights for future campaign strategies.

To future-proof your practice and plan for sustainable growth, aligning with the right Office of Supervisory Jurisdiction (OSJ) can be a smart strategic move, especially if you are an independent financial professional.

An OSJ offers comprehensive support that helps independent financial advisors prepare for multiple marketing opportunities and changes in industry regulations. This partnership lets you focus on your core competencies while outsourcing other work to the OSJ.

By leveraging OSJ resources and expertise, you increase your capacity to respond to various marketing opportunities that make you more scalable and successful. This approach can streamline operations and position your practice to focus on your strengths and outsource other work to the OSJ. 

Want to learn more about our OSJ services for independent financial professionals? Contact us to schedule an introductory call.