The way advisors communicate with their clients changes constantly. Which areas financial professionals and influencers will be seizing in 2021? Samantha Russell, the chief marketing and business development officer at Twenty Over Ten and Chief Evangelist at FMG Suite, answers.
Samantha graduated during the 2008 financial crisis and landed a job in alumni relations and development at Penn State University, where she met her future husband. Ryan Russell, a co-founder of Twenty Over Ten, had just become a tenured associate professor teaching graphic design. Ryan and co-founder Nick DiMatteo launched Twenty Over Ten with a beta version in 2015. Samantha was their first hire. She oversaw sales and marketing and played an integral part in communicating the company’s vision into its rapidly evolving product site.
Samantha Russell, Ryan Russell, and their kids
Today Samantha’s educational how-to blogs, social media posts, email newsletters and YouTube videos have been empowering advisors to take digital marketing by the horns. That’s why we’ve reached her to ask about what trends in wealth management marketing she observes this year.
Subscription-based services
A large portion of the American population cannot be served by the traditional AUM model most advisory firms offer. So in order to cater to a larger portion of American households, I think we’ll start to see a shift in how RIAs build the pricing and structure for their services in the new year. For advisors interested in making this model switch in 2021, Michael Kitces offers some great tips on how to best use subscription-based services in a way to increase profits for your business.
Video
I’ve been bullish on video for a long time and that sentiment isn’t going anywhere in 2021. Video is a great way for advisory businesses to connect with all their audiences – both current clients and prospects – in a quick, informative and more personal way. Video is here to stay and has become increasingly popular, especially as we have spent most of 2020 social distancing and will continue to do so in 2021.
Targeting millennials
Millennials want to connect digitally and they want to receive answers quickly. That’s the world we’re living in right now – digital. And according to the Pew Research Center, millennials also make up 35% of the labor force. That’s over one-third of the working population, and that number is only growing, so I think this is a newer, untapped generation that we’ll start to see advisory businesses begin to target more in the new year.
