Marketing used to support growth inside RIAs. Now it’s expected to drive it.
That shift was on full display in a live Marketing Matchup panel at RIA Edge in Nashville, where Michelle Winkles of Mission Wealth, Darcy O’Brien of Simon Quick Advisors, and Kayla Kennelly of Opal Wealth Advisors shared how their roles have expanded and what it actually takes to build a growth engine inside a firm.
Each of them stepped into their role as the first marketing or growth leader at their firm. What they’ve built since reflects a broader change happening across the industry.
Marketing now owns growth outcomes
Michelle Winkles has seen the shift firsthand over nearly a decade at Mission Wealth. When she started, marketing focused on supporting advisors with events, materials, and client communications. Today, the scope is much broader.
“There are so many more growth channels,” she said, pointing to digital, recruiting, M&A, and advisor marketing as areas that now fall under her team.
Marketing is now tied directly to bringing in new business and helping retain clients. It also means thinking about where prospects validate advisors before ever reaching out.
Winkles described advisors seeing prospects reference ChatGPT results, online bios, and client testimonials during conversations. In response, her team has built out an advisor marketing function and launched a testimonial program that has already produced hundreds of reviews and driven a surge in inbound leads.
Building systems to move beyond founder-led growth
Kayla Kennelly broke her responsibilities as a growth catalyst into three areas: top-of-funnel marketing, direct work with advisors, and the systems that support both. Growth often starts with founders or a small group of rainmakers. Scaling beyond that requires something more repeatable.
At Opal, Kennelly’s team structured processes around referrals and pipeline management. Kennelly described a “loyal client advocate” program designed to make referrals more consistent rather than relying on chance. Advisors meet regularly to review pipelines and identify opportunities, turning growth into a shared responsibility across the firm.
The goal is to support what the rainmakers do well, and make those behaviors visible and repeatable so others can follow them.
Darcy O’Brien described a similar progression at Simon Quick. When she started, the focus was on foundational elements like CRM, mailing lists, and social media. From there, the firm built outward, adding layers of strategy and go-to-market efforts over time.
“It is very customized to where you are in your business’s evolution,” she said.
That step-by-step approach is what turns marketing from a set of tactics into a system.
AI is extending what small teams can do
AI came up repeatedly, but the most useful insights were practical.
O’Brien pointed out how quickly content creation has changed. Tasks that once required significant time can now be handled faster and more efficiently. Her team uses AI daily to keep up with content demands and is now testing ways to extend it further into operations, including RFP responses and internal knowledge tools.
Winkles shared a different use case. Her team uses AI to qualify inbound leads, pulling in data to understand who a prospect is and tailoring outreach accordingly. What used to take hours can now happen in seconds, allowing for more personalized engagement at scale.
Kennelly took a step back from execution and focused on strategy. For her, the bigger question is where AI is creating new wealth.
To answer that question, her firm has approached the intersection of AI and through events and outreach aimed at founders and business owners operating in AI-driven industries.
Watch the full conversation below, or download Marketing Matchup from your podcast platform of choice.
