The Importance of PR in Wealth Management

The financial services industry has become crowded and competitive over the last decade. Ensuring your brand stands out to potential customers requires more than just great advisors and products. You need a public relations strategy alongside a marketing program to get your brand in front of prospective customers. 

Below, we outline the five reasons why public relations (PR) is necessary for wealth management firms.

Demonstrating client-centric focus

You’ve done the work of building a personalized portfolio strategy for your clients and you’re regularly innovating the ways you enable clients to make smart investment decisions. But do your clients know about the work you’re doing?

That’s where a public relations campaign comes in. You can demonstrate your client experience in wealth management through targeted media placements in publications that your customers, both prospective and current, will read.

A PR agency can bring their knowhow on messaging to help pitch financial firms to relevant publications. It’s important to remember that PR isn’t like marketing–a hard-sell approach doesn’t work. In fact, it could be detrimental to your business and alienate the media. With the help of a PR organization, you can share your brand story more organically and effectively.

Positioning advisors as thought leaders

For a wealth management company, their advisors are their greatest asset, more so than the products and services they offer. The depth of knowledge that advisors have about the industry and economic impacts on investors is exactly what the media wants to cover.

PR is a great tool sharing that knowledge with the media and, as a result, providing value to clients. In media interviews, advisors can highlight how your brand prioritizes advisor-client relationships, as well as demonstrate the knowledge base of your advisors. 

Working with a PR firm can help you secure interviews where advisors showcase their thought leadership about their field of expertise and the wealth management sector. PR also gives advisors the opportunity to share advice for prospective clients, which encourages them to engage with your business.

Building brand trust and credibility

Brand trust is the key to building brand loyalty. For wealth management firms, acquiring customers is only a small part of growth–it’s necessary to retain those customers over a long period of time, maybe even across generations. That long-term relationship can only come from building brand loyalty.

One of the methods to encourage brand loyalty is through public relations. As mentioned earlier, PR includes sharing thought leadership and advice in relevant publications that new and existing customers read.

One of the biggest benefits of working with a PR team is that they’ve already gone through the media trust building exercise thanks to years of collaboration and relationship-building. Financial firms can outsource PR to an agency that will create insightful pitches to build brand loyalty.

Navigating the maze of digital wealth management

Digital transformation is part and parcel of the wealth management space. Firms that aren’t taking a digital-first communication approach will end up falling behind. Clients now expect their wealth managers and financial advisors to be available across digital channels, and that they respond in real-time. On top of that, personalization is more important than ever for maintaining and improving client relationships.

With so much to do, wealth management firms need some assistance when it comes to brand awareness. That’s where a PR agency can ease the burden. While wealth management companies focus on handling client communications, the PR agency implements a comprehensive plan for showcasing their digital transformation in top tier media.

A PR strategy for wealth firms can educate clients

Public relations for financial services aren’t just a tool for building brand awareness and loyalty. A PR strategy should be focused on educating clients about your firm’s products, services, expertise, and give prospective clients a reason to engage with your business.

Press coverage in finance trades and top tier publications signal to your audience that your advisors have the knowledge base, experience, and expertise to solve their financial and investment problems. When potential clients are searching for a wealth management firm to discuss their investment portfolio with, media appearances can greatly help increase your profile and demonstrate to clients why they should choose your firm instead of a competitor’s.

Why wealth management firms need a PR agency

The media landscape is constantly evolving. It’s too much to ask for a wealth management team to take on PR activities alongside their regular duties. They should be focusing on building client relationships, and increasing their knowledge to give their clients the best investment options. 

That’s why a public relations agency like Magnolia can be such an asset for financial firms. Magnolia’s PR experts already have existing media relationships as well as a diversity of knowledge about financial services. We can do the heavy lifting of crafting press releases, media pitches and securing placements in publications that ensure your business is seen by your core client base.

Author

Ronita Roy Mohan is Magnolia’s Senior Communications Specialist. She is passionate about storytelling and leverages this interest to place her clients in top tier publications.