Journal of Financial Planning: August 2025
NOTE: Please be aware that the audio version, created with Amazon Polly, may contain mispronunciations.
Kristy Gusick is the founder of Align Marketing Group (https://alignmarketinggroup.com), where she leads a team dedicated to helping financial advisory firms strengthen their brand presence, grow their client base, and achieve sustainable growth. A former adviser herself, Kristy brings a blend of strategic insight, creativity, and practical experience to every engagement. She serves on the board of directors for the Financial Planning Association of Minnesota and is chairperson of the chapter’s Communication Committee.
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In today’s highly saturated financial services marketplace, being a skilled financial planner isn’t enough to stand out. With over 300,000 advisers in the United States alone, differentiation is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s essential. Clients have more choices, more access to information, and higher expectations than ever before. And in an increasingly relationship-driven profession, success hinges not only on technical skills but on trust, visibility, and perceived value.
To compete at the highest levels, experienced advisers must evolve from service providers to recognized thought leaders. This transformation not only elevates your brand but also enhances your credibility, attracts ideal clients, and opens the door to long-term, sustainable growth. The good news? It doesn’t require a celebrity-level following or a massive marketing budget. It requires clarity, consistency, and strategy.
Start With a Defined Niche and Audience
Trying to speak to everyone is the fastest way to be ignored. The advisers who stand out in today’s marketplace know exactly who they serve and what problems they solve.
Take time to reflect on your most engaged clients. What do they have in common? Are they business owners preparing for exit? Retirees looking for predictable income? Dual-career professionals in their 40s trying to balance college savings and retirement? The clearer you are, the easier it is to position yourself as the expert in their world.
When you specialize, you signal confidence. You show that you understand your audience deeply—not just their financial goals, but their values, their challenges, and their pain points. That’s what builds trust (Beyond AUM 2022).
For established firms and experienced advisers in particular, a broad approach can become a barrier to growth. Narrowing your focus allows you to craft more tailored offerings, deliver greater value, and deepen your appeal within your target market. A refined niche strategy not only creates operational efficiency, it positions your firm as an indispensable partner to those you serve best.
In fact, the value of visibility is far greater when it is concentrated on a specific, well-defined audience rather than scattered across a wide, national platform. Visibility with the right people—your ideal clients and referral partners—leads to deeper engagement and a more trustworthy brand. A national voice may be impressive, but it is the consistent, relevant voice within your niche that drives conversion and long-term loyalty.
Develop and Communicate a Clear UVP
Your unique value proposition (UVP) should answer this question: Why should your ideal client choose you over another adviser?
This is not the place for generic statements like “we provide personalized service.” Instead, think specific, compelling, and benefit-driven. A strong UVP ties together who you serve, what problem you solve, and how you make life better for your client.
Here are a few examples of effective UVPs:
- “I help tech professionals in their 30s and 40s maximize stock options and plan for early retirement while reducing tax surprises.”
- “We specialize in guiding family-owned agricultural businesses through multi-generational succession planning so their legacy stays intact.”
- “I work with women navigating life after divorce to rebuild financial confidence and create sustainable long-term plans.”
- “We help dentists in private practice manage cash flow, plan for practice expansion, and build personal wealth outside the business.”
- “We work with high-income millennial couples to align their money with their values and make decisions about housing, travel, and family.”
A strong UVP doesn’t just describe what you do—it reflects empathy, clarity, and results. It should immediately resonate with your niche audience and set you apart from more generalist advisers.
Once developed, your UVP should be woven consistently into all aspects of your marketing and communication—from your website and LinkedIn profile to your voicemail greeting and email signature. Your team should also be trained to understand and use this messaging consistently.
A clear UVP anchors your brand and helps clients and referral sources quickly understand how you add value.
Create a Brand Communication Plan
Once you’ve clarified your UVP, the next critical step is to ensure that message is consistently communicated across every touchpoint of your business. A communication plan serves as the blueprint for how your brand voice, tone, and key messages are carried throughout all marketing and sales channels—both written and verbal.
This includes not just your website and LinkedIn profile, but also your email templates, client onboarding materials, blog content, social media captions, presentations, voicemail greetings, and everyday conversations with prospects and clients.
Without a communication plan, even the most compelling UVP can get lost or distorted. A clearly articulated message must be repeated frequently and reinforced consistently to build trust and brand recognition.
Consider the following elements in your communication plan:
- Identify the core brand messages that reflect your UVP.
- Standardize key talking points that everyone on your team can confidently share.
- Audit your current marketing materials to ensure consistency of language and tone.
- Develop a guide for email and client communications that aligns with your brand personality.
- Train your team on how to naturally integrate these messages into conversations, presentations, and introductions.
The goal is to create a seamless brand experience. Whether someone is reading your blog, meeting you for coffee, or receiving a quarterly update, they should come away with a clear sense of who you are, what you stand for, and how you help.
Create Content That Speaks to Client Concerns
To make your efforts more efficient and strategic, start by identifying three to five core pillars of thought leadership—topics that reflect your unique value and deeply matter to your target audience. For example, you might focus on retirement readiness, business owner succession planning, women navigating wealth transitions, or charitable giving strategies. These become your signature themes.
From there, repurpose each topic in multiple formats: turn a single blog post into a video, a podcast episode, an infographic, and a series of LinkedIn posts. Break longer pieces into shorter insights for email campaigns or social snippets. Repurposing multiplies your reach and reinforces your message without requiring new content every time.
When it comes to visibility, repetition matters. The long-standing “Rule of Seven” suggests a prospect must see your brand at least seven times before taking action. But in today’s digital world—where attention is fragmented and competition is fierce—modern research suggests it may take eight to 20 or more high-quality brand interactions to build enough familiarity and trust for a conversion, particularly in professional services (Bump 2023; Salesforce 2023).
Google’s Messy Middle research highlights how consumers cycle non-linearly between exploration and evaluation, meaning consistent visibility across multiple platforms is essential (Dirceu Jr. 2020). Similarly, data from Salesforce shows that multichannel engagement combined with emotional relevance and authenticity yields better conversion rates.
So, while the Rule of Seven still holds directional value, advisers should embrace a modernized version: frequency plus relevance, credibility, and platform diversity. It’s not just about how often people see you—it’s about being seen as consistently valuable, trustworthy, and aligned with what they care about.
Optimize Your Digital Presence
Your website and online profiles are often a prospect’s first impression. Are they doing you justice?
A high-performing website clearly communicates:
- Who you serve
- What you do
- How you help
- What makes you different
- What to do next (call-to-action)
Include updated bios with professional photos, highlight your UVP, and make sure your site is mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. Include a dedicated process page and multiple, strategically placed CTAs (Bruce 2025). Provide downloadable resources that serve as lead magnets to capture email addresses and initiate nurturing sequences.
Crucially, your website should also demonstrate what your onboarding process looks like—not just in words, but in visuals. Infographics, timelines, short videos, and clearly labeled phases of engagement (e.g., “Discovery, Plan, Implement, Review”) help prospects know what to expect, alleviating uncertainty and positioning you as a confident guide. Prospects want to feel reassured that your process is clear, proven, and tailored to their needs.
Don’t overlook LinkedIn. A well-optimized profile, regular posting, and thoughtful engagement with others’ content can dramatically expand your reach—especially within your defined niche.
Remember, visibility without clarity is just noise. Your digital presence should reinforce your expertise, not dilute it.
Attracting the Right People to Fuel Growth
When your niche, UVP, process, and communication strategy are all firmly in place, something powerful happens: your business becomes magnetic. It becomes significantly easier to attract not just ideal clients, but also the right talent to join your advisory team.
Recruiting in today’s competitive environment is challenging. Advisers—especially those who are ambitious, growth-oriented, or looking for a more meaningful practice—want to align themselves with firms that are clearly focused, well-run, and strategically positioned in the market. When your website, marketing materials, and internal processes reflect a clear brand and seamless client experience, you send a strong signal to potential hires: we know who we are, who we serve, and how we deliver value. That’s incredibly attractive to high-caliber professionals looking for a long-term home.
Similarly, your ability to attract ideal clients improves when your message and reputation are aligned. People want to work with firms that “get” them—firms that speak their language, understand their challenges, and provide clear, reliable guidance. When you’re visible in a meaningful way, when you regularly produce content that addresses their concerns, and when your process is easy to understand, trust follows. And with trust comes opportunity.
The infrastructure you build to serve your clients well also becomes the foundation for scalability. It allows you to grow without chaos. You can onboard new team members more effectively, delegate with confidence, and maintain quality as your client base expands. A firm with structure and clarity is a firm that can grow intentionally, not reactively.
This type of strategic clarity and professional alignment also supports succession planning. If you’re planning to retire or sell your practice one day, a well-branded, process-driven, niche-focused firm is far more valuable than one built solely on the personality and relationships of a single adviser.
Be Consistent and Patient
Becoming a thought leader doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process built on repetition, relationship-building, and reflection.
Stick to a manageable content schedule. Post on LinkedIn once a week. Send a monthly email newsletter. Speak on panels or local podcasts when the opportunity arises. Promote downloadable guides that demonstrate your knowledge and support SEO and lead capture.
Each touchpoint is a building block. Over time, people will begin to associate you with your area of expertise. Referrals will come more easily. Prospects will feel like they know you before they reach out.
In a marketplace where trust is paramount and competition is fierce, visibility grounded in authenticity is one of the most powerful differentiators you can create.
Final Thoughts
The most successful advisers don’t wait for recognition—they create it. They do this by being intentional, strategic, and persistent in how they position themselves in their marketplace. If you’re serious about evolving from adviser to thought leader, it’s not enough to simply know what to do—you must take the time to map out how and when you’ll do it.
Each of the strategies outlined in this article—from refining your niche and UVP to building a digital presence and publishing relevant content—requires a plan. Without structure, even the best ideas remain unrealized. That’s why creating a strategic marketing and visibility plan is essential. It provides the roadmap for what steps to take, when to take them, and how to measure your progress.
Start by defining your goals: Are you looking to grow your firm within a specific geographic area? Build deeper relationships with a smaller group of high-value clients? Establish yourself as a go-to expert in a specialized niche? Then reverse-engineer your tactics based on those objectives.
This plan doesn’t need to be complex—it just needs to be clear and actionable. Include milestones, assign responsibilities (even if it’s just to yourself), and revisit your strategy regularly. Thought leadership isn’t about doing everything at once—it’s about doing the right things with intention and consistency over time.
Because in a crowded market, being great at what you do isn’t enough. You have to be known for it.
References
Beyond AUM. 2022, August 1. “Less Is More: The Power of the Niche.” https://beyondaum.com/less-is-more-the-power-of-the-niche/.
Bruce, Mikel. 2025, March 11. “Turn Website Visitors into Clients with Content Marketing.” Nerd’s Eye View [blog]. www.kitces.com/blog/mikel-bruce-tinyfrog-financial-advisor-content-aida-social-proof-lead-magnet-content-marketing-website-clients-lead-generation/.
Bump, Pamela. 2023, February 21. “2022 Marketing Benchmarks: Web Traffic and Conversion Trends for 150,000 Businesses.” https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/end-of-year-data-recap.
Jr, Dirceu. 2020, October 31. “Summary: Decoding Decisions —Making Sense of the Messy Middle.” Medium. https://dirceu-jr.medium.com/summary-decoding-decisions-making-sense-of-the-messy-middle-c26e09fc5d93.
Salesforce. 2023. “State of Marketing 8th Edition.” www.salesforce.com/ap/form/pdf/state-of-marketing/.