Category: Blog

I’ve been hiring marketers for 20 years across brand, product marketing, creative, and demand gen. I’ve never seen an era where it’s harder to separate real skill from a well-rehearsed pitch.

Today’s candidates are polished and well-packaged, but finding someone who can deliver is a different game entirely. Here’s my evolved checklist for cutting through the noise.

Start with the Non-Negotiables

• Hire by referral first. The single best predictor of marketing success is a trusted referral from someone who has watched the candidate do real work. No resume or interview answer comes close as a filter.
• Check real references. Not personal contacts, but people they’ve worked for or alongside. Ask about the quality of their work, their collaboration style, how they left the role, and whether that person would hire them again. Strong marketers leave strong reputations behind.
• Build a hiring SWOT team. Don’t let one person own this decision. Assemble a small internal team with each member evaluating a distinct dimension:
  • Culture: Will they mesh with your values and working style?
  • Skill: Do they have the technical and strategic depth the role demands?
  • Collaboration: Can they work effectively across teams and with clients?
  • Strategy: Can they think at the big-picture level while executing the details?

Define the categories however they make sense for your firm. The principle is checks and balances. Marketers are often charismatic and persuasive by nature. That’s not a flaw, but it means a single interviewer can get swayed in ways a team won’t.

Dig into Skills and Mindset

• Demand results fluency. They should speak specifically about the campaigns they’ve run, the products they’ve launched, and the measurable outcomes at every funnel stage. Vague answers about “driving awareness” or “supporting the team” are red flags.
• Ask to see the work. Live campaigns, strategy decks, messaging frameworks, creative deliverables. Have them walk you through the thinking from brief to execution to outcome. How they narrate their own work tells you as much as the work itself.
• Test MarTech fluency. What platforms have they genuinely mastered? How do they connect tools into a full campaign motion? What are they actively learning right now? Marketers who aren’t building new skills are falling behind.
• Gauge learning appetite. Who do they follow? What do they read? What events or communities are they plugged into? If they can’t answer those questions with any specificity, they’re not keeping pace.

Assess How They’ll Operate in Your Environment

• Give them a live problem. Throw a real challenge at them. Don’t just ask what they’ve done; see how they think when they don’t have a rehearsed answer ready.
• Ask about a fast pivot. Request a specific example of a time they had to change course quickly, whether due to a market shift, a compliance issue, or a campaign that wasn’t performing. How someone handles that moment reveals more than any success story.
• Look for analytical grounding. Can they interpret data and move on it? Ask them to walk through how campaign analytics shaped a specific decision. Marketers who can’t connect numbers to action are a liability.
• Evaluate their writing and presentation directly. Don’t just ask about communication skills. Read their samples. Watch them present. Marketers need to translate complex ideas into clear, persuasive language. 

Hiring is Part Art, Part Science

Even with all of this, I still miss on roughly 20% of hires. But starting with referrals, running down real references, and bringing in a team that covers every angle has moved my batting average considerably.

If you’re struggling to find your next great marketer, tap my network. I’m glad to interview candidates on your behalf or connect you with trusted talent in the space.

It’s one of the most common questions we get from advisors and financial services firms exploring what a branding engagement looks like: do you create brand guidelines?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is that brand guidelines are just one piece of something much bigger and understanding what goes into them helps explain why they matter so much.

What Brand Guidelines Do

Brand guidelines aren’t a deliverable for the sake of having one. They’re the document that makes everything else work.

Without them, every new piece of marketing becomes a guessing game. Does this logo version go on a dark background? Which shade of blue is actually our blue? What’s the approved way to describe what we do? Guidelines answer those questions before they’re asked, ensuring that every touchpoint – from an email signature to a pitch deck to a social post – looks and sounds like it came from the same firm.

For financial services firms in particular, that consistency isn’t just a branding nicety. It’s a trust signal. Clients and prospects notice when things feel cohesive, even if they can’t articulate why.

What We Build

At Intention.ly, brand guidelines are part of our broader Visual Identity services. They’re designed to scale across every application your firm actually needs.

That means logo development and usage guidelines, color systems, typography, imagery direction, and the rules that govern how all of it comes together. We build visual systems that hold up whether you’re presenting to a prospect, posting on LinkedIn, or handing a new team member a set of templates and asking them to run with it.

But visual identity doesn’t exist alone. Our full branding work spans:

• Brand Strategy and Positioning: defining where your firm stands in the market and why it matters
• Messaging Architecture: the language framework that gives your team a consistent, compelling way to talk about what you do
• Website Design and Development: bringing your brand to life in your most important digital asset
• Brand Refresh and Evolution: updating and modernizing brands without losing what’s already working
• Brand Implementation and Activation: ensuring your brand actually gets used, not just delivered

From positioning strategy through visual execution, the goal is a brand that commands attention and creates preference, not just one that looks good in a PDF.

Need It Faster? There’s Another Path.

For advisors who are breaking away or launching a new practice, or for enterprise firms looking to offer a turnkey branding solution across their teams, Advisor Brand Builder is a powerful option.

It combines the efficiency of AI with the expertise of our brand consultants to deliver custom visual identities, messaging frameworks, and ready-to-use brand assets in less than 30 days, at a fraction of traditional costs. You still get a real brand built on real strategy. You just get there faster.

The Bottom Line

Whether you’re starting from scratch, refreshing something that’s grown stale, or scaling a brand across a large team, we build what your firm needs to show up consistently, credibly, and differently. Brand guidelines are where that work lives on after we’re done. They’re how a brand stops being a project and starts being a system.

Ready to build a brand that inspires action? Set up some time with our team to see how our strategic approach can become your competitive advantage.

Advisor Brand Builder recently earned the Pinnacle 2026 Generative AI Platform of the Year, and the recognition is worth paying attention to. The platform’s ability to generate visual identities, strategic messaging, and responsive websites in seconds rather than months speaks to something the industry has needed for a long time: speed without sacrificing personalization.

With that being said, the award also raises a more important question for advisors: in a world where AI can generate polished branding almost instantly, what makes a brand stand out?

The Real Problem Isn’t Speed

The financial advisory industry has never lacked for templated websites, stock photography, and cookie-cutter messaging. AI hasn’t solved that problem, it’s only accelerated it. Today, content sounds professional, websites look polished, and almost everything feels exactly the same.

If a firm hasn’t clearly defined who they are, what they stand for, and how they’re different, AI will happily flatten their message into something interchangeable. Speed is only an advantage if what you’re building fast is worth building.

That’s the gap Intention.ly’s Advisor Brand Builder was designed to close.

Personalization That Starts Before the AI Does

Our approach begins with an upfront investment in clarity – pushing advisors to articulate what makes them different, who they serve, and why their approach matters. That work is non-negotiable. It shapes everything that follows: visual identity, messaging, brand assets, and content.

Only then does AI enter the picture, generating a brand, website, and content ecosystem uniquely aligned to each advisor’s positioning, services, and audience. Every output is refined by our team of financial services marketing experts, ensuring the final product is polished, compliant-aware, and strategically sound.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• A Unique Visual Identity: Customized logos, color palettes, typography, brand patterns, and imagery that reflect a firm’s philosophy and audience, not a template. Multiple logo concepts, AI-generated and human-refined.
• Strategic Messaging That Captures Your Value: A complete messaging platform including tagline, boilerplate, value proposition, differentiators, service descriptions, and individual bios. The foundation everything else is built on.
• A Website Built in Seconds, Not Months: Brand messaging and assets come together instantly into a fully responsive, launch-ready website. Our creative specialists then refine it further, compressing what traditionally takes months into a fraction of the time.
• Launch-Ready Brand Assets: Business cards, email signatures, social media graphics, presentation templates, and stationery. All generated from your strategic inputs and ready for real-world use.
• A 12-Month Content Engine: A strategic content calendar mapped to your brand pillars and services, plus channel-optimized monthly content packs delivered to your inbox and ready to deploy.
• Content Optimized for AI Search: Your brand is structured to be cited in AI-generated search answers, with SEO-optimized Q&A pages designed to capture traffic from people seeking authoritative answers in your niche.

Built for Financial Services, Backed by Industry Experts

What separates Intention.ly’s Advisor Brand Builder isn’t just the technology, it’s who built it. The platform is engineered by financial services marketing leaders who understand the language, competitive landscape, and regulatory nuances of the industry. It’s trained on FINRA and SEC rules, which cuts down on revisions and reduces regulatory risk from the start.

Rather than replace human strategy with automation, ABB eliminates friction through AI before our agency team adds a layer of expert refinement. The result is a truly differentiated brand advisors can actually use, without turning marketing into an ongoing burden.

Pinnacle’s recognition is a sign that the industry is waking up to what’s possible. We’ve been building it.

Ready to see what Advisor Brand Builder can do for your firm? Take a closer look here.

Over the past decade, the ownership of the business development funnel in financial services has been fundamentally changing. What was once a sales-dominated process is now an increasingly marketing-led one, and the shift is far from over.

2015: 75% Sales, 25% Marketing

A decade ago, sales teams owned the lion’s share of the funnel. Marketing focused primarily on the front end: building brand awareness, producing collateral, and creating general market presence. Once a lead entered the funnel, sales took over entirely. Pipeline management, nurturing, and closing were almost exclusively sales’ responsibility.

Marketing’s job was brand, thought leadership, events, and PR. Sales handled prospecting, relationship-building, opportunity creation, and closing. The rough split was 75% sales, 25% marketing.

The practical implication: marketing was a cost center with a support role, while sales headcount drove revenue. Sales leaders held budget authority, and firms built their org structures accordingly.

2022: The 50/50 Inflection Point

Fast-forward to a few years ago when the picture changed considerably. Marketing became responsible not only for brand but for generating qualified opportunities. Digital campaigns, lead scoring, content marketing, and marketing automation meant firms could now nurture prospects to the opportunity stage before handing them to sales.

Marketing’s role expanded into demand generation and MQL-to-SQL conversion. Sales shifted toward opportunity management and closing. 

The split reached rough parity, but most firms didn’t adjust their headcount or budget to match. Sales teams remained better funded, even as marketing took on a significantly larger share of the work, a misalignment that created real organizational strain. Marketing teams doing 50% of the funnel work were often still resourced like they were doing 20%. 

2028: 75% Marketing, 25% Sales

Looking ahead, the trend line points to another major inflection, particularly in technology and service firms. As more touchpoints become digital and buyers conduct more of their research online or via AI before ever speaking to a salesperson, marketing will increasingly take prospects almost all the way to the buy.

This doesn’t mean salespeople will become obsolete, but their role will become more specialized. Marketing owns full-funnel engagement: awareness, consideration, decision-making, and near-purchase. Sales closes high-intent leads, handles complex negotiations, and manages strategic account relationships.

The projected split: 75% marketing, 25% sales.

What This Means for Financial Services Firms

If you’re still operating like it’s 2015, follow these four steps:

1. First, audit your funnel ownership. Map out who is actually responsible for each stage, from initial awareness through close. Many firms discover a significant gap between their formal org chart and the reality of who does the work.
2. Second, align budgets to that reality. Firms that still fund their teams based on a 75/25 split in favor of sales are structurally misaligned with how buyers now make decisions. Resources should follow work.
3. Third, plan for the shift now rather than react to it later. Even if your firm hasn’t fully moved toward marketing-led funnel ownership, the buyer behavior driving this change is already here. The firms building scalable digital touchpoints today will be better positioned when the shift accelerates.
4. Fourth, rethink the sales role itself. The best salespeople in a marketing-led model are relationship specialists and deal closers, not prospectors. Hiring, training, and compensation structures should reflect that.

We’re not here to diminish great salespeople, but we do want to call attention to the reality that the buyer journey has evolved substantially. The roles and budget allocation decisions of 2015 no longer map to 2026 market conditions. The firms that adapt earliest will carry a durable competitive advantage.

SEO isn’t dead. It’s just undergoing a rebrand.

Maybe that’s a bit glib, but it’s not entirely inaccurate. For as long as I’ve been in marketing, clients have been asking about SEO. How do they do it? How do they improve it? How do they win? Very few have a working knowledge of what it entails beyond keywords. What they do know is that, for a long time, when done right, SEO delivered free website traffic. For smaller companies, this made SEO more attractive and realistic than paid campaigns or costly trade show investments.  

In the last year, with the explosion of AI, the conversation has predictably shifted from SEO to AEO. As our search behavior continues to evolve from typing keywords into a search bar to having a dynamic conversation in chat, everyone wants to know the same thing: How do I show up in the answers? The assumption is that the change in acronym means a change in approach. 

Some argue that AEO is its own discipline. At the risk of angering those people, I believe it’s a continuation of modern SEO. Because while our search behavior has changed, SEO and AEO best practices mirror each other. 

A Modern SEO Framework

There are distinctions and nuances, of course. And everything with AI is fluid, including our understanding of why brands are cited or recommended in a chat. But for simplicity, let’s explore a basic framework designed to help implement a solid SEO and AEO foundation. For the sake of not mixing multiple acronyms, we’ll just refer to it as modern SEO. 

A modern SEO framework for financial advisors should include:

1. Clear positioning and brand authority
2. Strong technical foundation and user experience
3. Original expert content
4. Reputation and third-party validation

But before we move forward, let’s take a half step back to understand why the principles of modern AI are still relevant in the AI age. 

SEO Has Been Changing for Years 

When most people think of SEO, they think of keywords and writing blog posts and web pages that incorporate those terms. Rank on page one and you get a ton of traffic. That’s not inaccurate, but it is slightly outdated. That version of SEO hasn’t existed in close to a decade. 

Similarly, for many people AI began two years ago with the launch of ChatGPT. But Google has long been leveraging AI to better understand search intent, content quality, and provide the best possible answers to every question asked.  

As the brain inside Google search has evolved, so have SEO best practices. Those recommendations have routinely included high-quality content, a technically sound site, a strong user experience, and validation from trusted sources. In short, our framework.

Now, let’s walk through each part of the framework and how it applies to AI discovery. 

Clear Positioning and Brand Authority

It’s one of the oldest tenets of marketing. In a sense, this was devalued during much of the early days of SEO, when algorithms just tried to match what you did (via a title tag and keywords) to what someone was looking for. In those days, everyone sounded the same because everyone was chasing (and stuffing) the same keywords. 

But today’s LLMs want a clear view of your brand. Many financial advisors sound identical. They use the same language, have the same messaging, and offer the same services. That makes it incredibly difficult for potential clients and LLMs to understand how you’re different and why they should choose you over a competitor. Generic firms blend together. Differentiated ones stand out. 

Your site must clearly define:

• Who you are
• What you do
• Who you help
• What problems you solve
• Any niche/specialization
• Your philosophy or approach

You’ll sometimes see this referred to as entity building. Consider it brand building. Increasingly, your prospects are arriving at your site after having already done preliminary research. Assume they are evaluating you against your competitors. What your site says, the story it tells, the identity it shapes, will influence whether they go with you or them.

Strong Technical Foundation and User Experience

For the past few years, I’ve been preaching that user experience and SEO dovetail together. Google has been screaming it from the rooftops. The people who visit your site and the LLMs trying to make sense of it both demand a great user experience. That means having intuitive navigation that easily leads users where they want to go, mobile-optimized pages that open quickly and are easy to interact with, and having a clear hierarchy at both the site and page level. 

LLMs particularly like structured data (also called schema markup), a standardized code added to a webpage’s HTML because it provides clear, machine-readable data that relays definitions, relationships, and context. It can be added to FAQs, articles, location pages, and more. 

Ultimately, technical SEO isn’t so much about rankings or citations as it is about trust. Your potential clients will judge you harshly if your site doesn’t meet expectations or forces them to work too hard to get answers. The same is true of LLMs. 

Here are some key elements to consider with technical SEO:

• Fast-loading pages
• Mobile-friendly design
• Clear navigation and hierarchy
• Local SEO optimization
• Claimed Google Business Profile
• Structured data/schema where applicable
• Strong UX with minimal layout shifts/confusion

Original Expert Content

The heyday of old school SEO saw scores of copycat blogs that were thin on content and created to serve keyword-fueled algorithms rather than people. However, even before LLMs hit the scene, there was a shift underway to punish thin content and reward original, high-quality content drawn from expertise. 

That’s where we are today, with a caveat. Topical authority and original perspective matter more now than ever. but may not translate into site traffic. In the original SEO environment, writing a 500-word blog to answer the question “what is a fiduciary?” earned you traffic. Now, an LLM will answer that question. You may get a citation, but you probably won’t get a site visit. Zero-click searches have become the new reality for SEO. 

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create content. It means you shouldn’t create content with the sole purpose of answering a simple question in hopes of earning a click. Instead, think of content as a multifaceted marketing and sales tool designed to answer the big questions prospects have, highlight your expertise, build trust, and support your branding. 

Here are few tips when thinking about content strategy:

• Anticipate the questions and answers that will unfold in real conversations rather than targeting a single keyword or question
• FAQ-style content is viewed favorably by people and LLMs.
• Unique content is better than a rehash of someone else’s asset.
• Original research is particularly powerful.

Importantly, don’t expect that just because you create content, your audience will find it on your site. You need a distribution strategy to get it in front of people. Engagement through emails, social, newsletters and other channels signal that content is useful and influences search results and citations.

Reputation and Third-Party Validation

Backlinking campaigns have long been a staple of SEO because both Google and LLMs care what others think about you. The problem with backlink campaigns is that they typically resulted in backlinks from spammy websites. What truly drives SEO are high-quality referrals.

The same holds true of LLMs, but it’s no longer limited just to backlinks. LLMs look at where your brand is mentioned and the overall sentiment. Part of modern SEO is building your reputation and trust across multiple platforms and channels. Sometimes that can be as simple as encouraging clients to leave reviews. Other times, it might mean being more visible and proactive, seeking out industry podcasts or events to take part in. 

Some ways to build trust and third-party validation include:

• Reviews and testimonials
• PR mentions
• Podcast appearances
• Backlinks and citations
• Community involvement
• Relevant online communities

Search engines and AI systems no longer just trust that you’re unlike every other firm because you say so. They’re looking for corroboration across the digital landscape.

The Fundamentals Haven’t Changed, The Opportunity Has

Despite the role of AI, in many ways, modern SEO has become more human. Search engines always strove to provide people with the best answers to the questions they asked. Serving up ten blue links was never the best way to do that. It was the best way to do that with the technology at the time. SEO was a way to take advantage of the opportunity the technology presented.

Modern SEO presents its own set of opportunities. But taking advantage of them will require financial advisors to evolve their thinking and adopt a dynamic approach that extends beyond keywords to a more connected and coordinated marketing strategy. The framework provided here is a strong starting point. 

For decades, financial advisors have earned their reputations by being methodical, cautious, and deeply protective of client trust. The “everyday advisor,” particularly those operating in regulated environments, has thrived by controlling variables: data, workflows, compliance processes, and client communications. Innovation has never been rejected outright, but it has always been filtered through a disciplined lens: Does this introduce risk? Does it create uncertainty? Does it compromise control?

Context is critical when evaluating the current state of artificial intelligence in financial services. While AI has dominated headlines for years, its real adoption among advisors has lagged behind consumer and enterprise technology curves. But that lag is evaporating fast.

The Hypothesis: We’ve Crossed the Threshold

The financial services industry is at a new and meaningful threshold in the technology adoption curve. AI is no longer perceived as experimental or futuristic; it’s becoming invisible infrastructure. Advisors and firms increasingly view AI elements embedded within everyday tools as table stakes, not differentiators.

Several forces have converged to create this moment:

• Regulatory bodies have begun paying closer attention, providing early (if imperfect) guidance
• AI capabilities have been folded into tools advisors already use daily
• Testing has shifted from pilot programs to production workflows
• AI use habits, both personal and organizational, are solidifying

As a result, AI is moving from “interesting but risky” to “expected and necessary.”

Where AI Sits on the Adoption Curve

Silicon Valley’s classic technology adoption framework, popularized by Everett Rogers and later refined in startup culture, maps adoption across innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Historically, financial advisors have entered the curve later than consumer markets due to compliance pressure and fiduciary responsibility.

Today, AI in financial services appears to be crossing the chasm between early adopters and the early majority.

• Innovators (2018–2021): Experimental use cases—chatbots, predictive analytics, natural language processing—often siloed in large institutions or innovation labs.
• Early Adopters (2022–2024): Forward-thinking firms testing AI for marketing, client service, compliance monitoring, and internal efficiency. Heavy oversight, limited rollout.
• Early Majority (2025–2026): Where we are now. AI is embedded into CRMs, portfolio tools, email platforms, compliance tech, and planning software, often without requiring advisors to “turn it on.”

For the everyday advisor, adoption no longer requires betting on unproven technology. Instead, AI shows up inside closed-loop, permissioned systems that feel familiar, controlled, and compliant.

Habit Formation: Why “Invisible AI” Wins

James Clear’s research on habit formation offers a useful lens. In Atomic Habits, Clear argues that behaviors stick when they are obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. Advisors aren’t forming habits around AI itself. They’re forming habits around outcomes: faster responses, cleaner notes, better insights, and fewer manual steps.

When AI:

• Is embedded into existing workflows (not bolted on)
• Reduces friction rather than introducing new decisions
• Improves performance incrementally, not disruptively

Adoption accelerates. This explains why “closed-loop” and protected AI environments are winning in financial services. Advisors don’t have time to manage prompts, train models, or guess at compliance implications; they need safe, familiar, and functional tools that get better over time without being disruptive about it.

Regulation, Caution, and Historical Parallels

Advisor hesitancy isn’t irrational; in fact, it’s historically validated. Government oversight has consistently lagged behind technological innovation. DNA testing, blockchain, and digital currencies all advanced faster than regulatory clarity could keep up. 

Financial professionals learned from those moments that early adoption can come with reputational and legal risk. The difference today is that AI has already embedded itself into American life. Advisors use AI-powered search, recommendation engines, voice-to-text, fraud detection, and content tools outside of work every day. Normalization reframes AI not as a speculative leap, but as an inevitable evolution.

As a result, the industry is increasingly comfortable with SEC-approved or compliance-aligned variations of AI, even if broader regulation remains in flux.

Generational Dynamics and Latent Adoption Potential

Age and career stage play a meaningful role in adoption curves. Contrary to popular belief, the most interesting growth opportunity may not sit with the youngest advisors.

Mid-career and late-career advisors, particularly independent reps and stock-picking–oriented professionals, represent a large, latent adoption cohort. 

This group:

• Manages complex books of business
• Feels time pressure acutely
• Is motivated by efficiency, not novelty
• Has historically resisted large platform changes due to control concerns

Adoption spikes when AI functions as a support layer rather than a replacement. Tools that enhance judgment, documentation, and communication without threatening autonomy unlock real momentum.

Why 2026 Continues to be AI’s Breakout Year

Several conditions are converging: 

• Firms have validated AI internally and sanctioned broader usage
• Advisors expect AI-enhanced workflows as part of their tech stack
• Platforms without AI components feel slow, manual, and outdated
• Competitive pressure has normalized adoption

This mirrors past transitions: digital account opening, CRM adoption, and cloud-based reporting. What once felt optional becomes expected, then invisible.

Implications for FinTech Marketing Leaders

For FinTech firms, this moment demands a shift in marketing strategy:

1. Stop Selling “AI.” Sell Stability and Progress.

Advisors don’t want to feel like beta testers. Position AI as a natural evolution of reliability, accuracy, and compliance, not as disruption.

2. Emphasize Closed-Loop and Protected Systems.

Security, data governance, and regulatory alignment should be front and center.  

3. Speak to Habit, Not Transformation.

Highlight small, compounding gains like faster notes, cleaner records, better insights, and less friction, rather than full workflow overhauls.

4. Segment by Readiness, Not Age Alone.

Independent reps, productivity-focused advisors, and firms managing scale pressure may adopt faster than digitally native but less complex practices.

5. Make the Roadmap the Message.

Advisors want confidence that what they adopt today will still matter tomorrow. Marketing should reinforce continual improvement, not one-time innovation.

AI is no longer disruptive; it’s expected. Fintech firms that use AI to meet advisors where they are, respect their caution, and help them build better habits one workflow at a time will capture the opportunity.

As you start mapping out your 2026 marketing strategy, it’s worth asking a simple question:

Why would someone attend your event?

Advisors, asset managers, and fintech leaders are overwhelmed with content. Between webinars, podcasts, LinkedIn posts, and AI summaries, information is everywhere, and it’s available instantly.

Genuine connection isn’t as easy to access.

In 2026, events won’t stand out because of how much information they offer. They’ll stand out because of how they make people feel and who they bring into the room.

People Don’t Show Up for Slides

For years, many agendas were built around volume: more panels, more speakers, more sessions. But today, professionals can get insights without boarding a flight or even leaving their desk.

They attend in-person events to:

• Meet people they wouldn’t have access to otherwise
• Have candid conversations
• Strengthen relationships
• Step away from their day-to-day responsibilities

If your event is just a webinar with better catering, it’s going to be a hard sell.

Prioritize Purposeful Connections

The events that will win in 2026 will be intentionally designed around valuable interactions. We’re increasingly seeing a shift toward:

• Smaller, curated gatherings
• Roundtables instead of traditional panels
• Facilitated discussions that invite participation
• Dinners with thoughtful seating arrangements

These formats create space for real dialogue, which builds trust and connection in our industry. Here’s a practical look at the strategies we’ve seen foster meaningful conversation and engagement:

• Keep attendees together in one space rather than multiple breakout rooms
• Use rounds for seating instead of classroom- or theater-style seating
• Trade long slide decks for graphics pictures, and short videos
• Experiment with fireside chats
• Shift from speaker-centric sessions to peer-to-peer learning environments

The Real Advantage

As budgets tighten, leadership teams are looking beyond attendance numbers to more qualitative results:

• Did we strengthen relationships?
• Did we facilitate meaningful introductions?
• Would they attend again?

In a competitive marketplace where many firms offer similar services and AI continues to threaten authenticity, delivering a unique and valuable experience can become a powerful differentiator.

As you plan for 2026, consider this:

Are you simply delivering information, or are you intentionally designing an experience people won’t forget?

If you’re looking to create more thoughtful, experience-driven events next year, we’d be happy to help you build a strategy that aligns with your growth goals. Get in touch with us here.

Recently, I hosted a webinar with Sheryl O’Connor, CEO of IncomeConductor, focused on the importance of building trust with prospective clients, and how to do so in a world where generic AI content is stripping firms of what makes them unique and relatable.

One idea kept resurfacing:

Are you earning the right to ask?

• For demos.
• For meetings or phone calls.
• For event attendance.
• For attention and engagement.

Too much marketing today skips straight to the ask, assuming prospects know who we are, understand what we do, and owe us their time simply because we showed up in their inbox or LinkedIn feed.

They don’t.

And I can say this with confidence because I see it every day.

What Firms Ask Us For

At Intention.ly, 99% of companies that come to us are chasing those accelerated wins.

They want:

• Leads now
• Quick wins
• Lower cost per meeting this quarter
• Campaigns that “start working immediately”

To be clear, we’re very good at delivering that. We can generate demand fast. We know how to activate channels, sharpen CTAs, and create near-term momentum.

But we’re also upfront about the fact that if that’s all your firm is doing, you’re not setting yourself up for long-term success.

I’ll show you why using stories from two firms I recently talked to. 

Company A: Chasing the Quick, Cheap Lead

The mindset: “Get us leads now. We can worry about brand later.”

What their marketing looks like:

• Cold outbound emails pushing demos
• Paid campaigns optimized for clicks rather than audience fit or relevance
• Feature-heavy content
• Positioning that sounds like every competitor: “Streamline your workflow and save time”

The experience for prospects:

• They see the company’s name for the first time in a cold pitch
• They have no context for what makes this solution different from the five other tools they saw this month
• They’re being pushed to book a demo before understanding if this even solves their problem

Short-term reality:

• They generate 60 demo requests a month
• The marketing dashboard shows green arrows for short-term success metrics
• Leadership feels momentum

Long-term reality:

• Only a few of those demos are qualified prospects
• Cost per qualified lead continues to climb
• Sales cycles drag on for months because trust and education happen entirely in the sales process
• Brand awareness never improves

Because they continue to prioritize short-term attention over long-term success, they’re trapped in a cycle of paying more for the same attention, forever renting demand instead of owning it.

Company B: Laying the Foundation First

The mindset: “Let’s add value and earn attention before we ask for it.”

What their marketing looks like:

• Consistent thought leadership addressing real problems their audience faces
• Educational content that demonstrates deep understanding of the market
• Stories showing honest results, including challenges and timelines
• Positioning rooted in a clear point of view that differentiates them

The experience for prospects:

• They encounter the company’s content multiple times before any outreach
• When a sales email arrives, they already understand what the company believes
• They reach out to book a demo because they know how the company can solve their problems

Short-term reality:

• They book far fewer demos initially
• Leadership trusts their process rather than changing gears to drive short-term wins

Long-term reality:

• Within months, most demos come from inbound requests
• Sales cycles compress dramatically because prospects are bought in by the time they talk to sales
• Cost per qualified lead drops as brand awareness grows

They’re generating more pipeline while spending less on acquisition. Their content qualifies prospects before sales gets involved.

The Difference Compounds Long Term

Fast forward five or 10 years, and the difference becomes impossible to ignore.

Five or ten years out:

• Company A is paying more than ever for the same leads
• Their CAC keeps climbing
• Growth depends entirely on budget, not brand

Meanwhile:

• Company B is generating demand at a fraction of the cost
• Their content, credibility, and reputation do the heavy lifting
• Their marketing works even when spend slows

One company is still asking for attention. The other has earned it.

Are You Building for the Next Quarter or the Next Decade?

The firms winning long-term aren’t doing it with louder messaging or cheaper leads.

They’re doing it by earning attention before they ask for it. They publish ideas that challenge how their market thinks and take clear, unequivocal positions. They demonstrate credibility before demanding time so that when they finally make an ask, it doesn’t feel like an intrusion.

Ask yourself: Are you willing to invest in building trust, or do you want to keep buying short-term engagement?

The brands that will dominate 10 years from now are laying the foundation right now. If you want to be one of them, let’s talk.

Most financial firms come to us unsure of which marketing initiatives are actually bringing in clients.

The attribution challenge is understandable, especially as the modern buyer journey evolves further away from the classic linear “funnel.” A prospect might discover your firm through a LinkedIn post, download a whitepaper six months later, attend a webinar the following quarter, and finally schedule a consultation after receiving five emails and a phone call. By the time they become a client—often 12 to 18 months after first contact—connecting that relationship back to its origin feels nearly impossible.

But you can’t optimize what you don’t measure. Building an intentional attribution system allows you to prioritize the initiatives that are moving the needle and stop wasting budget on the ones that aren’t.

The Attribution Foundation: CRM and Marketing Automation Integration

When your marketing platform and CRM operate in silos, you’re left guessing about what’s working.

At minimum, your integration should capture the original lead source for every contact, track all marketing touchpoints (emails opened, content downloaded, events attended), record sales activities and meeting notes in the same system, and maintain a clear timeline from first touch through conversion.

The specific platforms matter less than the connection between them. Whether you’re using Salesforce, HubSpot, Wealthbox, Redtail, or another CRM, marketing activity data should flow into the same record where sales tracks their conversations. 

Common integration gaps we see include webinar registrations that don’t sync to contact records, website form submissions that create duplicate records, and email engagement data that lives separately from sales notes. 

For firms building or rebuilding their attribution infrastructure, expect to take a phased approach: foundation work (system selection, data cleanup, basic source tracking) in the first few months, followed by integration and lead scoring implementation, then optimization based on actual results. Most firms need nine to twelve months to reach meaningful attribution maturity.

Not sure where you stand? Audit your current setup by following a recent client backward—can you see their complete journey in one place? 

Lead Scoring for Long Sales Cycles

Traditional lead scoring models were built for transactional sales, not relationships that develop over months or years the way they do in financial services.

In our industry, effective lead scoring weighs:

• Demographic fit (assets, profession, life stage, geography)
• Engagement depth (not just frequency)
• Intent signals (pricing page visits, consultation requests)
• Recency and consistency of engagement 

You should also consider implementing lead score decay, where points decrease over time without new engagement. This way, your sales team isn’t putting the same amount of energy and resources into chasing leads who have gone cold.

The Marketing-to-Sales Handoff

The threshold for handoff from marketing to sales depends on your firm’s unique capacity and close rates.

Define explicitly what triggers a handoff (score threshold, specific actions, or both), what information transfers with the lead, what response time is expected from sales, and what happens if sales doesn’t act or disqualifies the lead.

Marketing should provide sales with the complete engagement history, the specific content or campaigns the prospect engaged with, any information collected through forms or progressive profiling, and context about what likely prompted current interest.

And sales should offer feedback to marketing on lead quality. Marketing needs to understand not just whether they closed, but whether they were qualified, what objections arose, and what additional information would have helped so they can continuously optimize efforts.

Establish a regular meeting—weekly or biweekly—where marketing and sales review recent handoffs, discuss pipeline quality, and align on upcoming campaigns.

Understanding Attribution Models

Single-touch attribution, or crediting only the first or last interaction with a prospect, can dramatically misrepresent what’s working in your marketing.

Consider multi-touch models, including linear attribution, which gives equal credit to every touchpoint; time-decay attribution, which weights recent touches more heavily; and position-based attribution, which emphasizes first and last touches while still crediting interactions in the middle of the prospect journey.,

For firms with sales cycles exceeding 12 months, time-decay often provides the most useful insights. In this model, early awareness-building matters, but recent engagement more directly influences conversion.

Whatever model you choose, document it clearly. When leadership asks why you’re investing in webinars or content marketing, you need to be able to articulate how those activities contribute to eventual client acquisition.

Bringing Everything Together

Your technology and attribution processes are only as effective as your team’s willingness to use them. For attribution to be successful, you need sales buy-in on lead scoring and handoff processes, consistent data entry habits from everyone who touches prospect records, regular review and refinement based on what the data shows, and willingness to adapt.

Firms often find it helpful to identify one important question to answer:

• Which marketing channel produces our best clients? 
• What kind of content do clients typically engage with before requesting a meeting? 
• How long does an average sales cycle take?

Build the tracking to answer that question first, then expand.

Financial services relationships are complex and the time it takes to build them can transcend fiscal years. Challenges in our industry make tracking and measurement more difficult but doing the foundational work drives smarter marketing decisions, better relationships between marketing and sales, and a more streamlined journey for prospects.

Need help determining if you have attribution gaps? Schedule a complimentary strategy call with our team by clicking here!