Choose one kind of client, write the content that answers that client's questions, make your Google Business Profile and website plain and correct, send a consented newsletter, and let advisors post on LinkedIn under your firm's review process. Route every piece through compliance before it is used.
Which rule applies depends on how you are registered: the SEC Marketing Rule for investment advisers registered, or required to be registered, with the SEC; FINRA Rule 2210 for FINRA member firms and their registered representatives. State-registered advisers should check their state regulator's rules.
Start with one kind of client
An advisor who serves everyone is hard to find and hard to choose. Pick the clients you serve best (physicians nearing retirement, small business owners selling their firm, families with a member who has a disability) and build your marketing around their questions. Specific content is easier to rank, easier to share and easier for a prospect to recognize themselves in. It is also easier for compliance to review, because it explains a process and makes no broad promise.
What the SEC Marketing Rule says, in short
The SEC's Marketing Rule-1) (17 CFR 275.206(4)-1) covers advertisements by advisers registered, or required to be registered, with the SEC. Four parts matter most for marketing:
- General prohibitions: no untrue or unsubstantiated material statement, no benefits without fair and balanced treatment of material risks, and no performance presented in a way that is not fair and balanced.
- Testimonials and endorsements: clear and prominent disclosure of whether the person is a client, whether they were paid, and any material conflict; a written agreement and oversight when paid above the de minimis level of $1,000 in 12 months.
- Third-party ratings: a survey that is equally easy to answer favorably or not, and disclosure of the date, the period covered, who made the rating and whether the adviser paid for it.
- Performance: net performance alongside any gross figure with at least equal prominence, 1-, 5- and 10-year periods for portfolios other than private funds, and no statement that the SEC approved or reviewed it.
What FINRA Rule 2210 adds for broker-dealers
FINRA Rule 2210 sorts communications by audience: a retail communication goes to more than 25 retail investors within 30 days, and a registered principal must approve it before use. Its content standards bar false, exaggerated, unwarranted, promissory or misleading claims and require a fair balance of risks and benefits. A testimonial about investment advice or performance must say it may not represent other customers' experience and is no assurance of future success, and must say it was paid for if more than $100 was paid. Member websites must link to BrokerCheck on the home page meant for retail investors. Our FINRA advertising rules guide goes through the rule section by section.
Content that answers your clients' questions
Educational content is the core of advisor marketing: explain how a process works, what a decision involves and what questions to ask, with no recommendation of a security and no forecast. Google's helpful content guidance asks whether content shows first-hand expertise and who wrote it, so name the advisor, state their credentials and keep a date on each piece. Write one strong article a month, keep the sources you used, and send each piece to compliance with its sources attached; it saves a review round. Our content marketing service writes this way.
Local search: profile, website and reviews
Most advisor searches have local intent. Google's Business Profile guidelines treat financial planners as individual practitioners: a practitioner in a public-facing role may have a profile, a sole practitioner at a branded office shares the firm's profile, and no one may have several profiles for different specialties. Google's local ranking tips name relevance, distance and prominence, and say reviews count toward prominence. Whether you may display or invite client reviews, and how, depends on the testimonial conditions in your rule, so agree the approach with compliance before asking anyone. Our local SEO service sets the profile and local pages up, and our SEO for financial advisors guide covers the search side in depth.
Email and LinkedIn
A monthly newsletter to people who asked for it keeps you in mind between meetings; in the USA, the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide requires accurate headers, a postal address and an opt-out honored within 10 business days. On LinkedIn, posts from advisors themselves usually reach further than a firm page, and LinkedIn's ad targeting can reach roles such as business owners and executives in a region. Under FINRA 2210, a post on an online interactive forum is a retail communication, though it does not need pre-approval if the firm supervises it like correspondence; agree the review process before advisors start posting.
How to measure advisor marketing
Count first meetings booked, where each came from, meetings that became clients, and the cost per new client by channel. Track profile calls and direction requests, newsletter replies, and search queries that reach your pages in Search Console. Followers and page views are context. Review the numbers each quarter and put more time into the channels that produce meetings.
What we do and do not do
PromotEdge International is an international strategy, technology, marketing and design company, and our delivery team is in India. We plan, write and build the marketing: content, pages, profiles, email and campaigns. We give no investment advice and no legal advice, and we make no claims about anyone's investment results. Your compliance team approves every piece before it is used. Our finance marketing service page describes the work. This guide is general information, not legal advice; the rule texts and your compliance officer decide what you may publish.
Facts we rely on: see our company facts for what we state about ourselves and where each fact comes from.