An RIA Marketing Guide

If your brand was a house, consider its structural elements as the internal framework upon which the externally expressed brand elements “hang.”  Without its structure, the rest of the “house” collapses. With it, you’ll easily communicate your value at every touch point in your ideal client’s journey.  

Similar to a house’s internal framework, your brand’s structural elements are not meant to be “seen”—or communicated—externally.  They are meant to be navigational "plot points" against which you can make any organizational decision. 

Added Bonus: When the support structures of your brand are in alignment with your principles, beliefs, and ideals, you will find great joy and “never work a day in your life,” as Confucius so pointedly said.

1. Niche = Your “What”

It’s a drum we beat often and shamelessly at XYPN—but our Benchmarking Studies provide data-backed proof that riches are in the niches.  

So what is a niche, why is it one of the most effective levers for connecting you with ideal clients, and how does it lead to greater job satisfaction?  

At XYPN, we follow the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) business model.  Central to the model is getting everyone in the organization on the same page when it comes to its vision in order to gain the most traction as a business.  

There are three components to establishing that vision: 

1. Niche, or your “What”
2. Mission, or your “Why”
3. Core Target, or your target audience

As defined by EOS, your Niche is the thing you “can be truly great at and enjoy doing.”  

For XYPN, it’s “supporting fee-for-service financial planners with the autonomy to live their great lives.” Note it has three components: 

1. Fee-for-service financial planners (who we support)
2. Support with autonomy (what we do)
3. To live their great lives (why we do it—spoiler alert: this is also part of our mission or “purpose”)

Also note the first component identifies whom we support.  Because brands live in the mind of the consumer, it's very important to begin with your target audience when identifying and defining your niche. If you want to occupy the position you prefer in their minds (as opposed to one they make up for you—trust us, that's what happens if you don't clearly define it) it is critical to:

• Know who the ideal customers are that benefit from your product 
• Outline what they value
• Be relevant and meaningful 
• Deliver on a promise 

If you would like a deeper understanding of why niches work, how they can lead to more fulfilling work, or how you can identify and define yours:

2. Ideal Client = Your best match

Your ideal client can not only help you identify your niche like it did for Jay Zigmont and his childfree couples, they are also your best match when it comes to qualifying leads, converting them to clients and engaging with them in the most effective way.

To determine your Ideal Client, describe a client that’s a perfect fit for the services or products you provide. Imagine it like adding filters on a dating site to help your most compatible matches find you so you don’t waste valuable time (theirs or yours) having fruitless conversations.

After identifying your best match, drill down on their psychographic, demographic, and other traits to create a crystal clear picture of who you want to “court.” 

3. Mission = Your “Why” 

Your mission is why you exist or your purpose.  Your mission statement captures it.  Some examples of concise, impactful mission statements: 

So why does your firm exist?  What’s its purpose?  Hint: It's not “to provide helpful financial planning.” Dig deeper.  Is it to “Help married women gain the confidence to find their seat at the financial table”? Or “Make equitable financial advice accessible to <fill in the blank>”? How about “Ease military families’ retirement planning burdens”? 

4. Core Values = Internal drivers

According to EOS, Core Values are “the principles that define your culture, demonstrate what sets you apart as a company, and guide how everyone in your organization is to operate to succeed.” 

In other words, they are the things that excite you and your firm internally, are an expression of what you are passionate about, and what you strive to express. They are a vital element of your identity that defines your daily behavior and helps determine what you will deliver at your “touchpoints”—from your website to client calls, they are the places you interact with your target audience and everyone else. 

They can be one-word values like “open,” “honest,” and “vulnerable,” or phrases like “do the right thing,” “balance is good, harmony is better,” or “knowledge is power.”  If they had a recipe, it would be one part culture, one part differentiator, one part guiding passion.  

No need to define so many you can’t keep track.  Keep it clear and simple.  Choosing three to five Core Values is perfect!

5. Differentiators = How you stand out

Simply put, your Differentiators set your firm apart—or differentiate—you from the rest of the marketplace.  Ideally, their intersection occupies their very own space in the Venn Diagram of what your competitors offer.

For example, no one else occupies the space—in the minds or market—at the intersection of XYPN’s three differentiators:

6. What business you are in? 

Knowledge of what business you are in enables you to organize all of your resources to engage in that business. 

In general, most organizations confuse the business they are in with the products and services they provide. For example, many assume McDonald's is in the food or quick service business.  But they are actually in the convenience business—and the products it provides are a range of fast foods. 

Because it is in the convenience business, McDonald's focuses on buying real estate that is easy to access as well as other elements of convenience such as quick service, play areas for children, clean restrooms, and a pleasant family environment.  Once you take the “red pill” and see brands by the business they are in, you can suddenly understand how that decision gives structure and shape to the entire rest of its “house.” 

So, what business are you in?  The relationship business?  Or how about the empowerment business? You can see how this choice can drive many organizational and communication decisions. 

1. Q Factors = Reasons to like your brand

That’s powerful amplification, right?!  Imagine having all that working in your favor without you doing anything! Neuroscience explains why: once someone likes a brand, the “decider” part of the brain is activated, opening the gate for the next two essential dominoes—trust and believe—to fall so messages can be heard and acted upon.  

In other words, once the brain likes a brand, it “decides” to trust and eventually believe whatever is being communicated.  Conversely, if it doesn’t like the brand, the gatekeeper portion of our brain locks down, and the message—no matter how it’s positioned, value propositioned, or explained—does not advance to being heard or acted upon.  It’s dismissed with the other 1000 messages our brains receive daily.  

To better understand why your  Q or "Likability" Factors are so important, a quick lesson in neuroscience—

Everyone’s brain is divided into three regions and activated in the same order every single time, no matter what the stimulus (person/place/thing/idea/message/brand etc.) or who/what provides it: 

So, why should anyone like you?  Make a list.  Then choose the top three reasons. Those are your Q Factors.

2. Brand Attributes = What “sticks” about your brand

Core values motivate us internally. The things that engage externally—and which stick to us—we call “attributes”—kind of like the Post-it notes of the brand world.  

Not to be confused with the benefits your products and services offer, attributes are the things that you want to "stick" to your firm and that you want people to think of and tell others when they think of your firm or hear your name.

Think Volvo and “safety” or Apple and “cool, rebel, innovator.”  Attributes are developed through actions at our touch points that give rise to impressions and perceptions that people have about us.  

3. Brand Pyramid = Visual Framework that frames and positions your brand

Many financial planning firms compete on product attributes that resemble pillars of financial advice: Financial Planning, Investment Planning, Retirement Savings and Income Planning, Tax Planning, Estate Planning, etc.—but these offer little to no differentiation. Differentiation begins when you uniquely offer your services.  Start at the bottom of your Brand Pyramid by thinking of your services as unique offerings that solve for your ideal clients’ problems. 

The bottom of the pyramid lists your product attributes.  These are features that makes your financial services unique such as “tax planning for traveling nurses,” “financial wealth education” or “shame-free safe space.” 

The next level of differentiation is known as a “functional benefit.” This is the simplest expression of what your brand does and offers to its customers.  In the car industry, BMW’s functional benefit is “the experience of driving” and is expressed in their tagline, or brand promise, “The Ultimate Driving Machine.”

XYPN’s functional benefit—that is, the composite expression of all of our products and services—is: Your business, your way.

Our functional benefit gives rise to an emotional experience or benefit that is highly differentiated and ideally only experienced when interacting with us.  This is a feeling experienced only when interacting with our brand—and no other. 

When you can make someone feel a way that no one else can, it becomes your greatest value benefit—that no one else can duplicate.  Trust us on the importance of this one. Especially in the field of financial advice.  Your value is established, communicated and maintained if you help them feel <fill in the blank with what’s most important to your ideal client> on an ongoing basis.  (Recall Neuroscience 101). 

XYPN’s emotional benefit/how we make those who interact with us feel: Empowered.

Here's our brand pyramid to help you create yours: 

4. Brand Essence = The heart of your brand

Your brand essence is the heart from which everything flows and brings your brand to life.  It is the simplest expression of your brand and explicitly dramatizes what business you are in. Your values, attributes, and emotional benefit flow from it. 

Two excellent examples of core essence are Disney’s “Family Magic” and Mayo Clinic’s “Finding Answers.” One can easily understand how each drives their organizations internally, is dramatized at all their touchpoints and ultimately is felt in their emotional benefits: “delight” and “hope.”

When it comes to their positions in the market, no one else dominates the “family magic” and “finding answers” space the way they do. Ask someone why they traveled around the globe to Mayo and they will tell you in some form or another, “To find answers” because the brand's essence is so flawlessly activated at all touchpoints. 

What are two or three words that dramatize the heart of your brand?

5. Brand Promise, Mantra & Tagline

Everything you do to build your brand comes down to making and keeping a single promise. That is known as a “brand promise.” It’s what anyone interacting with your brand any time should expect from you—whether seeing your firm’s name and logo, reading a blog on your website, or feeling when on a call.  It’s also why they choose to engage with you and what they will value most about that engagement.  

This comes directly from your differentiator, or Functional Benefit, which you determined in the Brand Pyramid exercise.  When turned into a promise you can deliver on at all of your touch points—from your website to emails, calls and branded materials—it becomes a very simple, clear way of communicating your value as a financial advisor.   

Think of it as your highly differentiated value proposition, but made as a pinky promise that you and anyone in your firm keeps in word and action no matter the channel, touchpoint or delivery device.    

Recognize these stand-out examples?:

A tagline dramatizes a brand promise. Sometimes, but not always, it is the same or very similar to your brand promise.  As you can see with FedEx and Walmart, their brand promises are directly reflected in their taglines.  They are explicitly communicated across their marketing channels and felt at their touchpoints through implicit actions as the promises are kept. 

Your promise becomes part of your daily life through the repetition of your “brand mantra,” a short phrase that reminds you how you will keep our promise.  It is not explicit, but rather what you are “thinking” and how you act as you communicate on your website, blog, calls or any other touchpoint. 

You can see how it all comes together in an impactful, clear way that your audience will connect with!

6. Positioning Statement = Your place in the mind and the market

The reasoning behind positioning is that we tend to understand things in relationship to other things and this set of relationships occupies both a place in the mind and a place in the market.  So the goal is to articulate the value of your brand in such a way that it describes your unique value to your target market and differentiates you in relationship to your competitors. 

It also provides the foundation for your short-form description (a distillation of what you’ll advertise on your website and other channels to describe your offerings) and boilerplate (what you'll send to publications to describe your firm). 

Key components of your positioning statement include who (target audience), what (you deliver) and how (your differentiation).

7. Short-form description / boilerplate = Your value in a nutshell

Your short-form description or boilerplate is how you describe your firm in the shortest, most simplest terms. Also known as an elevator pitch.  You will use it on your website and short versions of it on other advertising. You’ll send it to publications or other outlets to include when describing your firm. 

It’s either your positioning statement or a shorter, more "market-y" version of it. Continuing on the example above, think along the lines of:

ELI5 Financial makes planning and saving so simple you and your five- year-old can do it

Or

ELI5 Financial teaches your children how to plan and save for their future—so you don’t have to  

8. Brand Personality = Describes the traits your brand uses to attract

Remember that room that ideal clients either did or didn’t cross to engage with the personification of your firm who they felt attracted to, liked, and connected with? This is the section of your branding where you get to describe their personality.  Because brands, like people, have personalities that bring the brand to life and are external expressions of a brand’s internal “character” or values. They are expressed in your visual identity, tone, and voice.

Many look to the 12 Jungian Brand Personality Archetypes to help formulate the basis of their personality: Creator, Caregiver, Innocent, Rebel/Outlaw, Sage, Explorer, Magician, Hero, Jester, Everyman, Ruler and Lover.  There are more definitions, examples, and even quizzes out there than there are archetypes.  Search around for the type and description that fits your brand best.  Then expand on that with examples or further insights.  

For example, perhaps your brand archetype is Everyman.  You are easily approached, make clients feel instantly comfortable and at ease, and provide financial plans that are very easy to understand or interact with.  Describe why and how that is accomplished.  Have fun with it.  You are describing the type of “person” who makes your ideal clients want to cross the room to connect and engage with you!