It’s no coincidence that many of the guests of Marketing Matchup stepped into their new roles within the past year. Across the wealth management industry, firms are hiring CMOs and their teams with the expectation that they will drive growth and retention.
In the season finale of our podcast, we invited Justin Barish of Lido Advisors, Tara Ryan of Cerity Partners, Meghan McCartan of Composition Wealth, and Jack Casady of Beck Bode to return and share what they’re learning as the RIA space gets serious about marketing as a central growth function.
Marketing is becoming a revenue driver inside RIAs
For the larger RIAs marketing teams are responsible for bringing in new business, as well as helping other parts of the business accelerate. This is a recent development, Ryan said. “Seeing marketing with its own P&L and its own source of revenue growth is really refreshing,” she said.
That shift is also influencing how firms measure marketing performance. McCartan said marketing leaders are increasingly tied directly to business outcomes.
“I work really closely with our CFO, so it's not just marketing over in a corner,” McCartan said. “We’re tying what we’re doing to real KPIs. It can’t just be anecdotal results. It has to show actual impact.”
Organic growth and acquisitions are tightly linked
Many RIAs grow through a combination of marketing and mergers. The panelists argued that those two engines work best when they reinforce each other.
McCartan noted that acquisition partners often evaluate a firm’s marketing capabilities before deciding to join. “You have to be able to tell an organic growth story in order to attract that inorganic growth. Firms want to know that there’s a real growth engine behind the platform,” McCartan said.
Justin Barish has spent much of his career working with advisors going through mergers and acquisitions. In his experience, marketing plays an important role in helping advisors transition after selling their firms.
“Advisors want two things. They want to make more money and they want to better serve their clients. Marketing is a partner in both of those objectives. When advisors join a larger platform, they gain access to resources that can help them grow their book faster and serve clients better.”
That support becomes especially important when advisors shift from running their own firms to operating inside a larger organization.
Letting advisors be themselves
One recurring theme in the discussion was the importance of letting advisors communicate in ways that feel natural.
Jack Casady described how forcing advisors into unfamiliar marketing tactics often backfires.
“You can walk into a meeting and say, ‘This tactic works ten thousand times.’ But if it doesn’t fit the advisor, it won’t work. People can feel that. The approach for me is asking where the advisor is most confident and building around that strength.”
That flexibility can coexist with centralized marketing support. Firms often handle infrastructure such as websites, SEO, and brand messaging while allowing advisors to personalize how they engage with clients.
Casady emphasized that authenticity ultimately drives trust.
“People can smell inauthenticity really quickly. If the marketing looks polished but doesn’t feel real, it won’t resonate.”
Marketing Matchup’s guests closed the season with this observation: Firms that treat marketing as a core leadership function are likely to outperform those that do not.
“The most successful firms are the ones bringing marketers to the table, trusting their advice, and treating them like thought partners,” Ryan said.
Watch the full conversation below, or download it on your podcast platform of choice.
