Ultra-High-Net-Worth (UHNW) and Family Office clients have complex needs that cut across all facets of wealth management – from financial planning and investment management to wealth transfer and trust and estates services. These same clients also require, and demand, a high degree of service with well-honed, high-touch approaches that address both business and personal issues.
Wealth managers serving this discreet customer set must combine this full array of capabilities and services to deliver a meaningful client experience – the essence of what is termed by industry experts as “relationship alpha.” In doing so, they lay the groundwork to achieve real competitive advantage.
Today’s most successful marketing strategies emphasize this same focus on the customer experience. Highly-focused activities can complement the work of relationship managers to retain clients while more distinguishing and emotionally resonant communications can serve to attract new assets.
Client audits help you ensure “relationship alpha” by gathering critical insights across the broad wealth management spectrum. Working with wealth managers to design questionnaires, we conduct high-touch, one-on-one interviews to give your UHNW clients the opportunity to be completely candid on a wide range of issues.
The findings, delivered in a comprehensive report, offer insights on capabilities clients may want; problems you need to correct; information on competitors; and the preferred ways to reach and marketing to UHNW and Family Office customers. Most important, client audits are not only the perfect complement to the work of relationship managers, but they are a cost-effective way to engender goodwill, as clients typically appreciate the effort and engage in spirited dialogue.
“The new measure of relationship alpha can result in a more profitable wealth management firm with higher client retention and greater success in growing assets.”
- Charlotte B. Beyer, “Relationship Alpha: The Emerging Competitive Advantage in Wealth Management”
In an industry where all players say the same thing, smart wealth managers are looking to articulate their offerings, ensure transparency, and add “personality” to their marketing. This is the fundamental marketing differentiator in the highly personal private client space where character and personal touch should be the hallmark of your efforts.
We conduct a comprehensive analysis of your firm – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats – to not only fine tune your messaging but imbue it with your personality. As part of this analysis, we also identify new marketing opportunities aimed to distinguish your outreach efforts and more successfully engage with clients and prospects.
“Wealth managers need to differentiate their marketing more than ever before. This starts with a focus on enhancing the customer relationship and must include the delivery of clear, transparent messaging, as well as creative outreach strategies to reach clients across multiple generations."
- Steve Prostano, Head of Family Enterprise Strategic Solutions, PKF O’Connor Davies
Building a wealth management firm can be tricky, particularly when balancing the need to deliver fundamental financial and investing capabilities with meeting a client’s service demands. As a result, successful wealth managers build and scale their firms by articulating their ideal “client personas” as a means to leverage their firm’s capabilities and more effectively manage resources.
How do you articulate a client persona? It is a natural by-product of our Private Client Audits and Marketing Differentiation offerings. By taking into account client needs, personalities, service requirements, and other factors, and matching them to the strengths, personalities and character of your firm, we can define your ideal client and his/her persona. This becomes the baseline for creating your client market – the most fundamental element of marketing.
MJ Lilly Associates, LLC is a strategic communications consultancy with a dedicated focus on the wealth management industry.
For more than 25 years, our team of financial marketing professionals has worked with a wide range of financial companies serving UHNW and Family Office clients – from global banks and securities firms to asset managers and hedge funds. We have hands-on experience working with wealth managers to enhance their client relationships and develop new marketing strategies.
Located in Brooklyn Heights, MJ Lilly Associates is certified as a Women-Owned Business (WBE) by both the State of New York and the City of New York.
The mission of the Institute is to bring together private client industry leaders to educate Ultra-High-Net-Worth (UHNW) families and family offices in navigating the wealth-management industry; serve as a resource to advisors and wealth managers in better serving their clients; and support best practices, professional development and positive change for the wealth-management industry as a whole. Click here for more information.
By Charlotte B. Beyer. Adapted from Charlotte Beyer’s 2017 book, Wealth Management Unwrapped, Reviewed and Expanded, comes a new term—relationship alpha, a competitive advantage for firms serving private clients. Click here to access the full brief (PDF) on the CFA Institute site.
In today’s wealth management industry, clients recognize that most firms present themselves in the same way, regardless of what are material differences in their approach. There is a clear solution to this marketing dilemma: a focus on differentiation. This Insight focuses on this very issue as a smart, strategic and competitive opportunity. Click here to download the PDF.
We have experience working with a wide range of firms serving UHNW and Family Office clients.
