What the Hyper Boutique RIA Does Not Do - Part 4 and 5.

Part 4: Leave Offices and Advisors to Their Own Devices, or Performance to Chance

Generating and capturing demand is difficult. The world of digital marketing is full of noise, and distilling a "signal" is difficult. There are so many "schemes", "silver bullets", and "quick fixes" marketed to advisors and offices these days, that without a proactive and protective RIA, stumbling terribly is all but guaranteed.

And yet still, most RIAs leave all the heavy lifting up to their advisors and offices. Many claim to assist with digital marketing and technology support, but then do not:

• assist in nailing fundamentals like digital listings and compliant reviews and testimonials
• help improve core web vitals (e.g. load times) on website properties
• help with modern offer building and conversion rate optimization
• help with funnel building and ad spend
• help with nurture sequences and marketing automation
• help with tagging/tracking/remarketing technology
• help with demand generation and capture
• help screen and qualify leads (i.e. do not build a "RevOps" engine)
• assist with conversational intelligence and shared knowledge of what is working to nurture and close deals

So what does the Hyper Boutique RIA do?

A Hyper Boutique RIA does not believe in "if we build it, they will come".

Instead, a Hyper Boutique RIA is obsessed with modern demand generation and performance strategy. It does not take a passive approach to the marketing portfolio.

Instead, it knows that the purpose of its digital marketing strategy is to build a robust and comprehensive machine. A machine with many parts, all working hand-in-glove, towards a single unified goal.

That goal is to take cold, targeted audiences in on one end, and crank out valuable, good-fit clients, that stick around for the long haul, out the other.

It is possible.

Part 5: Convince Advisors and Offices to Dump Resources Into Advanced Digital Marketing Tactics, Without Having Online Fundamentals Nailed, a Performance Strategy, and a Digital Marketing Growth Engine

Buckle up, this is a sensitive one!

Being an advisor is hard. Running an advisory office is hard. Managing teams is hard. Recording and producing podcasts, and building and nurturing audiences for them is SUPER HARD!

Now, Auxesys is here for it. We are SO EXCITED that the RIA space has fallen in love with podcasts and other forms of "shared media" like blogging, social media, YouTube channels and more.

But there are four MASSIVE issues that must be mitigated here:

1. Inadequate digital marketing fundamentals are stifling performance. Most shared media strategies are actually examples of advanced digital marketing. We know they are advanced because of how few podcasts actually deliver serious performance. When an RIA or advisory practice gets into these advanced strategies, without nailing the fundamentals, this approach can actually have a subtractive effect. If your RIA hasn't also helped with excellent listings, online reputation (reviews and testimonials), great core web vitals, and offers and funnels that continually convert and nurture audiences, then you will forever have a limit placed on the performance of your podcasts and other shared media.
2. Performance strategy is an afterthought. If your firm hasn't nailed the fundamentals, it's also likely there is no serious performance strategy in place. A performance strategy takes digital offers, conversion events, high-converting landing pages, nurture sequences, and much more. An engine that supports the modern client journey is CRITICAL. If you don't have the fundamentals nailed, and you have no performance strategy (and no assets and activities to support the performance strategy), then your firm may have inadvertently adopted an "if you build it, they will come mentality". And in digital marketing, these approaches DO NOT WORK. Without a performance strategy, audiences can watch and love your podcast all they want. Without offers, calls-to-action, "value carrots", and somewhere for audiences to go and something for them to do next, your team is destined to wonder if podcast and other earned media is actually moving the needle. And earned media is so difficult and resource intensive, those involved need all the confidence and encouragement they can muster.
3. Shared and earned media is volatile. Earned media goes by this moniker because those that partake must EARN performance. Shared media is incredibly fickle (if you’ve ever tried to develop a LinkedIn presence, you know this well). Your team and advisors can produce an incredible earned and shared media showing, but there is no guarantee that the "lead measures" will impress (i.e. impressions, reach, engagement, comments, views, etc.). What's more, is that your earned and shared media performance is dictated by the algorithms of the platforms on which it appears, and by the SEO efforts behind your approach. You do not own industry rags, LinkedIn, YouTube, search results, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify - because of this, your performance on these channels is subject to the whims of the platform - and these platforms change their algorithms and objectives OFTEN.
4. Opportunity cost is overlooked. If your team and advisors are dumping 5-15 hours a week into podcast and earned media, that's a big chunk of time that is NOT spent:

The cost of running a podcast IS NOT just the fees that go towards production and publication, along with the prorated time spent by advisors involved. You must also subtract the value lost by spending less time on other operational and strategic initiatives.

Shared media is fantastic. Rich media is fantastic. Podcasts and YouTube videos - Auxesys LOVES these. But these are the cart, not the horse. Auxesys LOVES to provide these services to clients - but to lead by convincing clients to invest in them first is an abdication of our fiduciary duty (yes, as a true agency, we hold one, and take it very seriously!).

What’s more, FOMO drives this risk ever higher. You are likely looking at other RIAs that are convincing every one of their offices to start a podcast. You are likely looking at industry leaders who have hundreds of thousands of YouTube followers. And you might even be thinking to yourself, “if we want to grow, we have to do it to!”

Auxesys is here to tell you, you don’t. The harsh truth is that firms and advisors that see success here are:

1. Extreme outliers; and,
2. Built of a special and rare fabric (personality type, experience, media skills, etc.)

Now, that’s not to say your firm and advisors shouldn't eventually try. But to attempt podcast, YouTube, heavy PR, or other more advanced digital marketing, without the FUNDAMENTALS like listings, reputation management, basic SEO, high-converting pages, offers that work, performant nurture sequences, etc??

This is a fool’s errand.?

And it’s a lesson that many other industries have learned. It is the lesson of growth and hyper growth industries. For example, SaaS and D2C eCommerce realized this over a decade ago. Then volatility struck them and they realized: We have to think about our media mix like investors, diversify, and chase a “digital marketing efficient frontier”.

Without the fundamentals nailed and a solid performance strategy, most shared and earned media plays experience a ceiling on performance at best, and drive awareness for competitors at worst. This is the most unfortunate pitfall, and what so many fail to realize.

Yes, you might spend a year getting that podcast off the ground. Yes at the end of the year you might average out 50 to 100 views on each episode on YouTube.

But those 50-100 views? Those are people that YOU have just helped the PLATFORM identify as in-market for their services.?

And the next day? They open up their feeds, and see content like this:

OUCH.

If you want to ensure your digital marketing drives business impact for YOU, as opposed to building awareness for your services, your competitors, your indirect competitors, and substitutes.

Then you MUST start with the fundamentals, and build from the bottom up. It’s not sexy like podcasts and YouTube. And there may be a right time for these. But it’s the right thing to do.

The best part? You already know it, because you already think like an investor.