Client Acquisition Strategies for Financial Advisors

Growing an advisory firm requires a deliberate and effective approach to client acquisition. Fifty-five percent of advisors say acquiring new clients is a significant challenge due to a demanding and competitive advisory landscape, according to a 2025 Cerulli report. ¹ From automated marketing to personal referrals, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach for building client relationships. Knowing which tactics align with your goals, target audience and budget is key to effective execution.

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How to Get Clients as a Financial Advisor

Acquiring new clients requires a commitment to identifying tactics and strategies that produce results. This helps you avoid wasting time and resources, which is especially useful for lead acquisition and sales.

A 2024 financial advisor marketing study by Broadridge found that advisors who implement targeted client acquisition and marketing strategies: ²

• Generate 168% more leads each month
• Onboard 50% more clients every year
• Are 42% more likely to convert a social media lead into a client
• Are 34% more confident in their business growth

There are many ways to find new clients. Often, the right strategy depends on what type of clients you’re targeting and how much money you have in your marketing budget.

Additionally, there are ways to automate and outsource these services. For instance, the SmartAsset Advisor Marketing Platform (AMP) may help you expand your firm’s AUM by automating lead generation. It’s an end-to-end marketing solution for advisors that delivers prospects based on asset levels and geographic location. With one subscription, you gain live connections to validated referrals. You also get automated text outreach, email nurture campaigns and more.

Here are some client acquisition strategies that can lead to positive growth for your advisory business.

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We have seen a remarkable return on investment and comparatively low client acquisition costs even as we’ve multiplied our spend over the years.

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1. Build Relationships

Relationships lie at the heart of what you do as an advisor and the stronger they are, the better. If you want to acquire new clients, it’s important to first attend to the ones you already have.

Spending more time with existing clients can help you nurture your connection while gaining a better understanding of their needs and goals. When clients trust you, they’re more likely to refer friends and family. These stronger relationships often lead to more referrals.

Once you get those referrals, you can apply the same strategy to prospects. For example, if you typically offer a 60-minute initial consultation, you might decide to extend that to 90 minutes. Or you might offer one to two 30-minute follow-up meetings.

The more time you’re able to spend with a prospect, the more opportunity you have to convey your value. You may also have a stronger starting point for building trust and keeping clients engaged.

Building relationships doesn’t end with clients, however. It also extends to expanding your professional network. According to Cerulli, 69% of new clients come through referrals from existing clients, friends, family members and centers of influence (COIs). ³ Centers of influence include professionals adjacent to the financial services industry, such as insurance agents or attorneys, who may be willing to refer new clients to you.

You may leverage lead generation services to free up time to focus on current relationships while finding new clients to work with. SmartAsset AMP, a lead generation and marketing platform, helps you streamline your outreach efforts using automated text messaging and email campaigns.

Meanwhile, AMP’s Next Call feature creates a call list that updates automatically as you contact leads. This aims to help you keep track of whom to call and when, potentially saving you time and energy. Advisors now have the ability to automate the creation of their email newsletter campaigns within AMP, as well.

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2. Increase Your Site’s Search Visibility

The internet has made it incredibly easy for prospects to seek out and compare advisors online. If you don’t have an online presence, you could be missing a huge opportunity to acquire clients. At a minimum, it’s wise to have an advisor website that showcases your background, education and experience. Your website may be the first contact a prospect has with you, so it’s important for your site to be visually appealing and easy to navigate.

If you just have a website, consider how you can expand your reach to increase visibility. That might include:

• Creating email marketing campaigns
• Launching a blog or podcast
• Becoming more active on social media
• Contributing to other financial blogs, websites or podcasts
• Hosting virtual seminars and webinars

Every piece you add to your digital footprint is a chance to connect with prospective clients.

One important way in which advisors can build an online presence is through SEO. This involves optimizing their firm’s website to meet the technical and content requirements that search engines like Google use to rank sites. Following SEO best practices can also help advisors improve their visibility in local markets or other areas where they want to attract clients.

That includes writing with Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) in mind. AEO is a strategy that emphasizes content that’s likely to appeal to AI-powered search engines. For example, typing the phrase ‘how to find a financial advisor’ into Google produces an AI overview of bulleted tips for finding an advisor from several linked websites. Writing for AI overviews and following SEO core principles may help push your site higher in the rankings. More clicks to your site could help you get more prospects into your sales funnel if you’re offering an enticing lead magnet in exchange for their email address.

3. Invest in Local Search

Local search can be a powerful client acquisition method if you’d like to target prospective clients in your geographic area. For example, if someone searches for ‘financial advisor near me,’ you’d like your website to be at the top of the list.

Improving your firm’s presence in local search involves a combination of locally targeted SEO keywords and a Google Business profile built to attract clients. It’s free to claim a Google Business profile and add details about your business location and services. You can add photos and include a Q&A section, which is another opportunity to inject some useful keywords that local prospects might be searching for.

A fully optimized profile has a better chance of appearing in 3-pack rankings, which is a block of three businesses Google spotlights when someone conducts a local search. In addition to filling in all the relevant details for your firm and adding photos, you can ask your clients to share reviews of their experience working with you. Keep in mind that using client reviews and testimonials to promote your business requires compliance with the SEC’s marketing rule.

4. Showcase Your Expertise

People seek out financial advisors because they need their expertise and knowledge. With so many advisors to choose from, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. That’s where highlighting your specific knowledge and skills comes into play. You can do that by creating content that emphasizes your status as an expert. The type of content you produce and where you share it can depend on what type of prospects you’re hoping to attract.

For example, if you’re interested in acquiring high-net-worth clients in their 50s or 60s, then you might focus on writing long-form articles, white papers or blog content that speaks to their unique financial planning needs. On the other hand, if you cater to 30-something married couples you might build your content marketing strategy around TikTok or YouTube instead.

The goal is to create valuable content that your ideal prospect might be searching for in places where they spend the most time online. But don’t limit yourself to website or social media content. Seminars, webinars, and lunch-and-learn events can bring you together with leads interested in addressing a specific pain point that your content addresses. You can host events virtually or in person and use the time to share your knowledge, answer prospect questions and build a rapport that leads to a longer conversation.

5. Apply a Holistic Planning Approach

Changing the scope of the advice you offer is another way to potentially acquire new clients while retaining existing ones. If you’re currently focused on just one or two planning areas, you may adapt your strategy to go broader and deeper. Rather than concentrating on portfolio management, for instance, you might expand your services to include retirement planning or tax planning.

Offering broader advice encourages more prospects to seek your services. And your existing clients may appreciate being able to come to you for in-depth financial planning as they navigate different life changes.

Some advisors take it a step further, offering complimentary financial planning upfront as a way to demonstrate their value and differentiate themselves from the competition. This can be especially helpful when a lead already has an advisor or is actively interviewing candidates to work with, said TJ Tamura, a financial advisor at Capitol Planning Group in Sacramento, California.

“And a lot of times, I’ll tell people … ‘Just so you know, we do create financial plans complimentary, free of charge, that you can compare with the other advisor,'” Tamura told SmartAsset. “And I have closed some business with people that said, ‘Well, why not? I should get two free financial plans.’ And then after we go through discussions, there’s a lot of different value that we bring compared to other advisors.”

6. Reach Out to the Next Generation

An estimated $124 trillion in wealth is expected to transfer across generations through 2048. ⁴ Surprisingly, Natixis reports that 46% of advisors view the Great Wealth Transfer as an existential threat to the health of their business, as they worry that surviving spouses or heirs may take inherited assets elsewhere. ⁵  

Advisors who are able to bring some of those assets under their management have an advantage in building a more sustainable practice. When serving current clients, consider how you might be able to continue your relationship with them for the long term. If they have children or grandchildren, for example, there may be an opportunity for you to add them to your client roster.

That could mean developing a new service offering to accommodate different age groups. So, if you’re used to focusing on retirement planning for older clients, you might think about offering planning services that address the needs of their older millennial children or Gen Z grandkids.

Again, it all comes back to building trust so that your clients are more likely to continue working with you. If you can do that effectively, that could open the door to working with other family members who could benefit from your services.

7. Consider AI Lead Gen Tools

AI’s use continues to expand in the financial services space and lead generation is one of the latest applications for this technology. AI-powered lead gen tools can perform large-scale data analysis near instantly, scanning prospect behaviors and buying signals across social media, business directories and online databases to help you find the most promising leads for your firm. Some tools go a step further and create personalized content that you can use for marketing outreach.

When comparing AI lead generation tools, consider how the data is sourced and validated. The most effective tools carefully vet leads to weed out incompatible prospects and reduce the amount of inaccurate information advisors have to work with. If you’re using AI-created content for initial outreach or lead follow-ups, remember that human review is still recommended to ensure accuracy and alignment with your brand voice.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Bottom Line

In an ideal world, you’d have a steady stream of clients coming to you all the time, but the reality is that getting new clients takes some work on your part. With so many client acquisition strategies to choose from, figuring out what works best for your business will help you make the most of your time and effort.

Financial Advisor Marketing Tips

• Let us help you grow your business. SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) is a holistic marketing service financial advisors can use for client lead generation and automated marketing. With a single subscription, you can receive high-intent investor leads and get the tools you need to convert them. Sign up for a free demo to explore how SmartAsset AMP can help you expand your practice’s marketing operation. Get started today.
• Increase your visibility online. When people need a financial advisor, they typically go to one of two places: friends and family or an online search engine. If you haven’t searched for yourself, take time to do so and see what comes up. Setting up a website for your firm might not be as hard as you think, and the long-term benefits could be great.

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