AdvizorPro Aims to Raise the Standard for Digital Databases Targeting Financial Advisors
While waves of the pandemic continue to surge and wane, there is one permanent change that has been created in its wake: Financial advisor recruiting, a historically in-person process, has become substantially virtual, and will likely remain so in many respects.
As a heavily digitized approach to identifying the right financial advisors for recruitment becomes the industry standard, a wealth management firm’s ability to capture recruiting leads generated from databases will be a key driver for growth and success.
In this new normal, AdvizorPro’s market-leading solutions in digital databases that target financial advisors could make the difference between success and failure for recruiting campaigns.
Richer Data, Greater Accuracy, Better Results
Since its founding in 2018, Atlanta-based AdvizorPro has tripled its client base through an emphasis on extensive, accurate data, quality targeting and insightful customer service.
The company’s proprietary software builds on foundational RIA, broker-dealer and other financial advisor-related data, fleshing it out with deep and detailed information extracted from over ten million advisor pages.
From there, AdvizorPro updates and curates the data to maintain accuracy, with special attention to ensuring current contact information. At the same time, the company also emphasizes precision targeting so clients can focus on the right advisors from the start, as well as quality advice on strategies to maximize use of the data.
We recently caught up with AdvizorPro’s Founder, Michael Magnan, to hear his thoughts on both the current state and future trends of the financial advisor digital database space as well as his company’s specific capabilities.
WSR: Financial advisor recruiters frequently complain that database marketing is a “high volume, low accuracy” game. What are the top challenges that recruiters face with using paid database solutions, and how can they avoid these pitfalls?
Magnan: We hear this frequently as well. It’s easy to create a list of the entire advisor universe – this is public data via the SEC and FINRA. The challenge is identifying relevant advisors from this huge pool and accessing quality contact data to ensure your message gets through.
Our clients’ experience shows that targeted outreach is more effective than blasting a large group of advisors with the exact same message. Boilerplate emails simply get lost in the noise.
While there is no silver bullet, data is a recruiter’s friend when identifying the needles in the haystack. For example, if a recruiter is looking for retirement plan focused advisors, they can leverage data points like AIF designations or specific titles like “Retirement Plan Advisor.”
There are so many clues that exist across the internet that have historically been unavailable in a single destination – Our database helps recruiters leverage many of these at scale.
When beginning new recruiting efforts, we suggest a focus on both audience and message. Financial advisors are heavily recruited and success depends on cutting through the noise with a clear message that demonstrates tailored value.
It may seem counterintuitive to market to fewer advisors, but a recruiter’s efforts will have a higher probability of capturing an FA’s interest if they employ targeted marketing campaigns or individual outreach.
WSR: What are the top features of financial advisor databases that FA recruiters should be actively looking out for when structuring a database-driven digital recruiting campaign?
Magnan: FA recruiters should ensure that their database provider is able to deliver in three areas to ensure a high ROI: quality contact data, ability to target well and solid customer service.
Curating high-quality contact data is not an easy task, and every database has a different approach – quality is just as important as quantity.
Recruiters should expect their providers to deliver accurate contact data. Leveraging a database with inaccurate contact data leads to missing a significant percentage of your target market, or emails going to spam. We recommend recruiters ask about a database’s process for curating data and ask for an unbiased data sample if they are unsure.
Second, it’s not enough to simply have an FA’s name and email address – context is everything. Recruiters should ensure their database allows them to easily scan through the universe of FAs with relevant filters – both personal and professional.
Furthermore, recruiters should be able to lean on their database provider for guidance on how to best leverage their data. Recruiters aren’t data experts, they’re people experts. Effectively leveraging an FA database is as much an art as it is a science.
WSR: How can you most effectively integrate FA databases with other digital prospecting tools – for example, CRM platforms, email campaigns, paid social media promotion, cold calling, etc. – to get the most out of your database?
Magnan: Having access to accurate, up-to-date FA data is invaluable to a recruiter’s efforts. A firm’s CRM system is its hub for sales, marketing and client success and a crucial piece of coordinated team recruiting efforts.
Currently, the AdvizorPro platform allows native integration into several of the industry-leading CRM products, meaning the client can quickly set up the integration so that the system will seamlessly push data on an automated or manual basis. This enables our clients to keep their data fresh across teams with minimal effort.
For tools or systems where we do not yet have integration capabilities, we offer an API so our clients can build their own integration. Depending on the specific use case, we can also perform custom bulk exports allowing clients to upload bulk data into their tools of choice.
WSR: What does the future of the FA database industry look like, especially with respect to the functionality and features that in-house and third-party recruiters will increasingly demand from database solutions providers?
Magnan: With advisors receiving so much recruiting solicitation, personalization is key to stand out from the crowd. There are immense amounts of data across the Internet that can paint a powerful mosaic of an advisor – both personally and professionally.
However, cutting-edge technology is required to capture and extract useful information from this data. As artificial intelligence continues to advance, the technology for harnessing this data will become increasingly powerful and accessible. Financial advisor-focused database providers must keep up with this technology or get left behind.
Janeesa Hollingshead, Senior Editor of Wealth Solutions Report, can be reached at editor@wealthsolutionsreport.com
