9 Financial Advisor Marketing Ideas to Grow Your AUM

Want to reach new prospects but don’t have space in your calendar to brainstorm marketing ideas? 

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. 

86% of financial advisors lack time to focus on marketing, leading them to the same old methods that have been used for decades – which never quite deliver the results their practice deserves. 

This article helps you buck that trend and approach marketing differently this year. With a range of tactics to improve client service, generate new prospects and turn more leads into customers, we’ve leveraged our collective experience in helping financial advisors thrive to include only the tactics that will truly deliver ROI. 

Expect to learn: 

• How to make your SEO strategy finally pay off 
• How to build a LinkedIn audience faster 
• How to save hours of effort on email marketing 

Growth Strategies: How Financial Advisors Grow in 2025 

Just 23% of financial advisors have a defined marketing strategy, leaving the majority unable to consistently generate new leads or turn them into clients. But it doesn’t have to be so complicated: your basic marketing strategy is relatively simple to identify.  

Here are three common and highly effective strategies: 

1. Referral Marketing 

The Strategy: Focus your efforts on encouraging existing clients and centers of influence (COIs) to refer new clients to your practice. 

Why it Works: Referral marketing leverages your existing relationships and essentially outsources the work of finding new clients. You focus on connecting with COIs (such as CPAs and real estate agents) to deliver best-in-class client service – the rest takes care of itself.  

2. Inbound Marketing

The Strategy: Develop high-quality digital content that prospects find so valuable they reach out to connect with you. 

Why it Works: Demand for financial advice online is massive, with people looking for everything from investment advice to tax support. In many cases, these are people who don’t even realize they need an advisor – but they may eventually decide it's worthwhile if your content provides enough value. 

3. Social Media Marketing

Why it Works: Social media has become a vital source of financial information for many Americans: 

• About half of all affluent and high-net-worth investors report they are more likely to engage with advisors who use social media. 
• Roughly 20% of investors across age, income and asset levels say that an advisor’s social media was the sole factor by which they evaluated advisors. 
• 79% of Millennials and Gen Z adults have accessed financial advice on social media. 

As a result, advisors who are highly visible on these platforms attract a lot of interest. While not all of this turns into business for your practice, it is valuable because it improves your reputation. Plus, 37% of advisors have obtained a prospect who became a client through social media. 

These trends will only continue in 2025 – and advisors that leverage platforms like LinkedIn effectively will see a large influx of new leads. But how exactly should they turn their strategy into concrete action? 

9 Financial Advisor Marketing Ideas to Grow Your AUM 

There is no “correct” marketing strategy for financial advisors; they all can work if you action them with the right tactics. The problem is most advisors don’t have time to spend hours planning ways to nurture leads or drive referrals and end up mimicking every other advisor. 

We’ve put together a list of ways of more unique (but still reliable) ways you can achieve your marketing goals in 2025: 

How to Build an Audience 

Most advisors take a scattershot approach to audience building: post whatever you can think of and hope someone likes it. But you could produce better results with less effort by pinpointing a specific tactic and putting it into action consistently over a short period of time: 

Video content is far more popular than written content, which makes it the perfect way to appeal to a wider audience. Plenty of people search for information about savings, pensions, taxes or compliance issues – only to be overwhelmed with walls of dense text. 

Identify the topics your ideal audience needs help understanding and create short, clear explainer videos for YouTube shorts, Facebook and LinkedIn. Maximize how far they spread by: 

• Using the right hashtags, ideally at least 3 
• Asking friends and colleagues to “like” the videos as soon as they are posted 

This will give them the best chance of landing in strangers’ feeds – which is the real key to building your audience. 

Advisors often assume they need to post lots of original content to build an audience on LinkedIn. But it's often easier to reach your target audience by posting on pre-existing, highly visible posts from other accounts: 

• Search LinkedIn for relevant keywords like “growing wealth” 
• Identify posts that are gaining a lot of traction – usually indicated by the number of comments and likes 
• Post a detailed comment that adds value or challenges the original post 

This is a great way to build confidence on the platform, as well as drive new followers. 

The internet is awash with controversial (and often inaccurate) financial advice. Many people are desperate for an authoritative figure to help them sort through that noise and avoid being led astray by gurus and snake oil salesmen. You can provide that service – and develop a loyal following in the process.  

• Search social media and YouTube for popular financial advice content 
• Create “reaction” or “response” content that debunks it 
• Link to your website for more reliable information 

This not only helps redirect traffic to your business – it ensures ordinary people are less likely to be misled. 

How to Generate Inbound Leads 

Most advisors would love to have new clients come to them – and simply decide who to work with. But how do you create content people will actually seek out?  

Here are three ways to stand out from other advisors and attract a reliable flow of new leads: 

Many people feel anxious about their finances and want to benchmark their current wealth or financial habits against their peers. Create a short “quiz” on your website that allows people to share a few key details and get an automatic analysis of their situation – then ask them to share their email to access the results.  

This is just one example of “gated content:” a form of content that prospects deem so valuable they will give you their contact details in exchange for it. More common examples include: 

• eBooks and Guides: Produce longer-form content that goes into more detail on a subject. 
• Infographics: Distill lots of important data on a given topic into a visually appealing digital asset. 
• Webinars: Deliver hour-long lessons or discussions online via Zoom and require all attendees to share their names and email. 
  

Advisors often spend a lot of time and money taking clients golfing or hosting community events – both of which produce decent results. But you can generate more inbound leads by running virtual personal finance classes that showcase your expertise and help you build a strong relationship with prospects. 

There are a few ways to maximize your returns: 

• Identify a specific topic: Generic advice is fine, but your classes will be more popular if they are tailored to a specific audience or area of personal finance. For example, “Personal finance for parents” or “How to manage your first million” are more likely to speak directly to the audience – and ensure only qualified leads sign up. 
• Market Heavily: Personal finance classes have a very high conversion rate compared with most other marketing channels, which means you can afford to push your marketing budget. Use mailouts, social media ads and direct outreach to maximize attendance. 
• Create a takeaway: Give attendees something to keep after the class, such as a textbook or a summary. This not only adds value but also means they will continue thinking about you after the event.

More financial advisors are waking up to the power of SEO. Appearing at the top of key searches related to financial advice is guaranteed to generate traffic and land you lots of leads. But there are a finite number of keywords your audience searches – and a finite number of spaces at the top of a Google search results page. 

Shift your focus to local SEO, emphasizing terms related to your location so that when someone searches “Financial advisor in [Your Location],” your website appears. There are several easy wins here: 

• Update Your Information: Ensure your Google My Business page is up-to-date and features clear information about your location. 
• Revise Website Copy: Add local language to your website copy. “I help {XYZ people} do {XYZ}” should become “I help {XYZ people} in and around {Your Location}...” Also be sure to add your business address to your footer so it appears on every page, helping boost your local SEO. 

These small steps give you a massive advantage over 90% of advisors who still think they’re about to crack the top ten for “Financial advisor for married couples.” 

How to Nurture Leads 

Lead nurture is essential to earn prospects’ trust, but many advisors are unsure how to engage with their leads. There are two aspects to this challenge: 

• Content: How should you communicate with clients, and what kind of content will build their trust? 
• Delivery: How can you scale lead nurture efforts with a large (and hopefully ever-growing) database of leads? 

There are proven methods for each – starting with the kind of content you focus on: 

Send your entire email database a regular newsletter, ideally at a regular cadence (we recommend monthly!). Include high-value information and insights that are relevant to your specialism – and showcase your expertise. 

We’ve observed a few important factors that distinguish the most successful advisor newsletters: 

• Share Links: Save links to useful articles and information your clients and leads might find interesting. Including these links will reduce the effort required to fill a biweekly newsletter. 
• Remove Uncertainty: Include a clear breakdown of what is included and how long the newsletter will take to read at the very top of your email. Many people will simply not read something if they fear it’s going to waste their time and energy – so make clear why your newsletter is a valuable use of their next few minutes. 
• Include CTAs: Make sure every newsletter has a clear CTA that directs readers to book a meeting. Place it at a strategic point in the newsletter; for example, if you share information about an upcoming regulation, place a CTA immediately after offering a consultation about the specific consultation. But never get too “salesy:” this undermines trust and could lead you to lose subscribers. 

Now let’s look at how you send your newsletters: 

Most advisors now understand the value of emails, but many still don’t make full use of the channel - because it just takes too much work. That’s why we include automating your emails as a specific tactic: it enables advisors to expand their use of emails and increase the consistency of their email campaigns 

• Use a customer relationship management (CRM) platform like HubSpot to create audience lists 
• Create email workflows for specific moments in your lead nurture process, such as when you first connect with a lead or when they first book a call 
• Configure the system to send your email sequence when a specific event is triggered 

This is a simple process that has a wildly disproportionate effect: we’ve seen advisors transform their marketing funnels while spending less time on marketing through this simple method.  

How to Get More Referrals 

Referrals are a huge part of most advisors’ marketing strategy, but many overlook one very simple tactic that has a massive impact on referrals – and a lot more besides: 

The simplest way to encourage clients to make referrals is simply to ask them for feedback. Research shows that asking clients if they are happy with your service – and what exactly they liked – increases the likelihood they will make a referral. There are two potential explanations for this: 

• Increased Mindfulness: Providing feedback makes your clients think about the value you offered – and, therefore, want to help their friends and family get similar results. 
• Building a Narrative: Clients need a reason to make a referral; their friends or family may ask “why” they recommend your services. Giving feedback means the client is already primed with a ready-made story to tell, which helps them feel more confident making a referral. 

Asking for feedback also provides you with a larger set of testimonials to share on your website and social media – building your reputation and perceived trustworthiness. 

Make 2025 Your Biggest Growth Year with ProperExpression 

ProperExpression is a full-stack digital marketing agency that helps financial advisors finally make marketing work for them. From CRM optimization to content production, we identify the best tactical approach to reach your ideal clients – and implement those tactics with precision expertise. 

Book a meeting to explore how we could help increase your AUM this year – or send us a quick message, and we’ll give you three free pieces of tactical advice based on your specific market niche and growth goals.