Artificial intelligence is changing the way prospects look for advice as well as how they get approached.girafchik123/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
Every week, Brent Allen, head of sales and distribution at IG Wealth Management Inc., is pitched new AI tools designed to help advisors find new clients.
“It’s changing the way people look for advice and get approached,” he says.
Although Mr. Allen and his team are excited about the possibilities and are vetting the tools – often aimed at building marketing funnels using AI to unlock leads – they’re taking a careful approach as the technology matures.
“We’re very cautious on these because of the Canadian anti-spam laws,” he says. “These new AI tools will help us. But they’re so new and they’re being created so quickly that we’re very cautious, because as you collect client information … or prospect information, they’re trusting you with their data.”
As with many uses of AI, advisors have found taking advantage of certain tools is essential to standing out and getting ahead, but a wait-and-see strategy can be more prudent with others.
Jason Pereira, partner and senior financial planner at Woodgate Financial Inc. in Toronto, says rules for using AI for advisor marketing and prospecting vary depending on the jurisdiction.
In the U.S., for example, AI tools allow advisors to identify trigger points in the lives of potential clients, such as the birth of a child, a large liquidation of shares from their employer or a house sale.
“There are so many triggers of life events that they can actually refine big data and point you to the actual person and their contact information,” Mr. Pereira says. “Those are basically modern versions of lead lists, just far more intelligent.”
Yet, this type of tool is not available in the Canadian market because of Canada’s more restrictive privacy regulations, he says.
Still, Canadian advisors are finding ways to use AI for prospecting and marketing. Fine-tuning advertising to identify ideal clients is one way.
Mr. Pereira is a strategic advisor to Vast Advisor, an AI-driven platform that allows advisors to design targeted online ads around ideal client profiles, manage ad spend, see engagement numbers and refine their strategy.
No matter the jurisdiction, Mr. Pereira says, advisors can use AI to understand clients and craft messaging.
For example, he says, some advisors are using AI specifically trained around behavioural finance – such as Shaping Wealth’s tool, Lydia – to analyze questionnaires filled out by a client or prospect in advance.
“That then crafts a very human, very thoughtful, very understanding message back to the prospect to make sure they feel understood,” Mr. Pereira says.
Over the past 18 months, Mr. Allen says, AI tools have dramatically improved advisor marketing via written and video content, while keeping a “human in the loop.”
Large language models such as Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT and Writer AI “help draft and refine compliant, advisor-led communications that are empathetic, they’re to the point, they’re clear, they’re well-written,” he says.
Michael Zagari, portfolio manager with Zagari Wealth Advisory Group at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth Inc. in Montreal, is a big proponent of using AI to grow his business, even redirecting budget from traditional advertising into subscriptions to AI tools and services.
But rather than implementing new AI tools specifically for marketing, he’s using the tech for more efficient, personalized client communication to enhance relationships and retention and to help him scale.
“I’m convinced I’ve been able to maintain a personal relationship with so many new families and accounts that have been added to our practice over the years because [of] the way we paid attention to scaling the business. And AI has played a major role,” Mr. Zagari says.
As Canadians search for financial information and advice using ChatGPT and other large language models, refining advisor websites to be searchable in the AI world is becoming a key marketing technique.
AI tools can provide feedback on how to make yourself more visible and how to retool your website, Mr. Pereira says. “Putting yourself in a position in which you can be the answer [to an AI query] is exactly what you should be doing.”
In recent months, Mr. Allen says certain advisors began to show up in ChatGPT searches by Canadians asking questions such as, “What should I do with my pension?”
“We just started seeing these leads showing up about three months ago for these teams, and they’re getting dozens of them,” he says.
These advisors, he says, all have comprehensive, financial planning-focused websites; public, compliant social media accounts; and a volume of online content that demonstrates quality and authenticity.
“If you’re not actively promoting yourself out there with authentic content, it’s going to be really hard to show up in this world,” he says.