The financial services industry doesn’t need to embrace AI the way other industries are. While other sectors use it to increase velocity, wealth advisory firms should use it to unearth the data they already own.
By Erik Garcia
Marketing Specialist, Screenfire
The financial services industry is warming up to AI. It’s quite possible that it is in the wrong ways though.
It’s being used to increase content production, automate outreach, and essentially spam their own websites and social channels. What does that turn into? A flood of generic material that sounds like every other firm they are competing. It’s the same topics. They all write in the same recognizable tone. Each piece of content gives the same forgettable advice.
The interesting aspect of this is financial services marketing has become less distinctive since AI shook the business world. The real opportunity isn’t using AI to say and distribute more. It’s using AI to say something that’s actually relevant and helpful to your specific list of clients.
The wealth advisory firms winning with AI aren’t publishing more. They’re communicating more effectively.
They’re utilizing it to identify what their clients are actually asking, recognize gaps in the expertise they’re sharing, and extract more of their advisers’ real knowledge to create uniquely new content.
Here’s how that looks if you put this into practice:
1. Source your own expertise first.
It’s highly likely that your firm’s advisors field the same client questions on a daily basis. What’s your clients’ biggest worries? What objections come up in every first meeting? What do prospects consistently misunderstand about your firm?
You can apply AI to organize and identify patterns across that knowledge. This includes everything from client emails to notes from prospect pitches to advisor Q&As. Once AI helps silo, organize, and assess that knowledge base, you can now create content that reflects your firm’s actual point of view. That means you are publishing a blog or email marketing campaign that is full of insights from your employees and clients to those potential and current clients.
2. Find the gaps in your current content.
Ask your AI tools to cross-reference the questions your prospects and clients are asking against what currently exists on your website. Make sure to check out our blog about optimizing your website for an AIO world. Then compare it to current market content in newsletters, podcasts, and online forums. You’ll likely find legitimate gaps in topics that your employees could easily address and respond to.
Identifying those gaps and then closing them builds credibility and trust in a way that mundane thought leadership content never will.
3. Use AI to draft. Use your voice to write.
Let AI draft initial versions of any content. However, don’t ever post it after first generations. Rewrite, insert your company’s voice, and refine for your specific audience. Put your fingerprints all over it.
Every piece of content that goes out under your firm’s name needs to reflect your advisors’ actual expertise, adhere to all compliance protocols, and hold up to scrutiny from sophisticated clients.
4. Be wary of chatbots.
AI-powered chatbots can be a useful tool for handling basic informational questions on your website. Financial services must follow strict government-enforced rules and protocols to what information can be distributed. If you let your website’s chatbot have the ability to distill complex financial guidance, even unintentionally, you are exposing your firm to serious compliance issues and reputational risk.
Be cautious about what your bot can and can’t answer. Clients want accurate, trustworthy responses. So give them that. Just make sure they call their advisor when they want to talk about strategic moves to make with their portfolios.
5. Test enough, not everything.
As is done by most marketers these days, enact AI to test blog titles, email subject lines, and ad headlines more efficiently. That’s genuinely useful. Just keep your expectations grounded. Because of your industry, your firm probably does not have the website traffic or volume of leads required to scale statistically meaningful A/B testing.
Use AI to generate smart variations. You then coordinate the experiments worth deploying.
The Bottom Line
AI won’t grow your client list all on its own. Let that be clear. What it can do is help your firm disperse your expertise more clearly, answer your clients’ real concerns more consistently, and free up your advisors to focus on the human work that actually builds relationships.
The wealth advisory firms benefiting the most from AI will not be the ones publishing the most AI-generated content. They’ll be the ones using AI to seek, capture, and share the information and data that makes them worth hiring to secure a client’s financial future.
The technology is ready. The question is whether you’re using it to say something worth reading.
Reach out to Screenfire if you want to see how we can help your financial services company with its marketing needs.
