Partner with Marketing Strategists Who Know You and the Financial Industry

Get strategic about your marketing goals, needs, and budget.

Dan Goeddel, Partner, Chief Operating Officer and Wealth Advisor at Gatewood Wealth Solutions has tried it all when it comes to marketing the St. Louis, Missouri, financial firm — from an intern, to hiring internal marketing staff, to working with three external marketing agencies. They were spending upwards of $300,000 each year with not a lot to show for it. That’s when Goeddel knew they had to take a step back and develop a clear, strategic goal for marketing that aligned to what they wanted to accomplish and the resources they could devote to it.

As Goeddel looked for marketing support for Gatewood, he reviewed LPL’s Managed Marketing Services with a critical eye and discovered it was a game changer. “It really came down to value. We didn't need to hire headcount and were able to add tons of capabilities in a more strategic, focused way at less than a tenth of the cost previously,” he said. “I absolutely love that savings because we've been able to deploy it toward other strategic initiatives at the firm.”

Managed Marketing Services: A Partner Who Delivers Value and Results

Marketing can help your financial advisors be seen as a cohesive and unified firm.

Goeddel credits Managed Marketing Services with presenting the financial firm as a unified, singular team to the public, as opposed to a group of individual financial advisors. This has established the 19-team member company as a true professional services firm under one cohesive brand.

LPL’s marketing strategists understand who they’re working with and the financial industry.

LPL’s marketing strategists take the time to get to know who they’re working with. They are integrated within LPL Financial and understand the industry where external agencies may struggle with that. Goeddel said, “Our amazing strategist really gets us: the tone we're going for and the things our client audience would appreciate. They're an extension of our firm.” Another positive aspect of working with Managed Marketing Services is that because they are integrated with LPL, they manage all of the marketing compliance, an important step an external marketing agency can't do.

One recent example of how Gatewood’s marketing strategist helped the firm shine (and made their clients feel closer to them) was with the creation of a monthly company newsletter. Featuring their families and firm updates, the newsletter showcases who they are while streamlining how clients interact with them.

Gatewood focuses on the family unit as a client versus the individual, and their marketing strategist helps them convey that. Families they work with often include their initial point of contact, as well as their parents who may be going through long-term care events, and children who are getting their first jobs, starting to open their first accounts, and creating a plan for the first time. Goeddel said, “We found our ideal client is a family where we're working with all three of those generations. That's who we're built to serve.”

Delivering the Right Outcomes at a Great Value

Gatewood started working with Managed Marketing Services about 18 months after joining LPL. For the first six months of the partnership, Goeddel met with his marketing strategist bimonthly. Now, one of his teammates connects with their strategist bimonthly, and Goeddel is part of the strategic discussions that happen on a quarterly basis.

He believes the ideal candidate is any financial firm that currently has the budget and resources to work with an external marketing agency and isn’t satisfied with the outcomes or value. As demands on a company start to increase, Managed Marketing Services can help determine your strategic marketing goals, establish your brand, and deliver cohesive, centralized client communications, which include a great website and social media.

Since Gatewood has accomplished amplifying their brand with the help of Managed Marketing Services, Goeddel’s 2024 goal is to impact business development and generate more qualified leads for the financial firm. Previously their website had about 2,000 visitors a month, and now they’re consistently breaking through 3,000 visitors. And with HubSpot data, they’re able to see who is and who isn’t opening their emails, which is a good marker of engagement that will help them develop and nurture leads through targeted campaigns. 

His advice for financial professionals considering LPL’s Managed Marketing Services is to do the discovery calls and due diligence and run the cost-benefit analysis. For him, along with the quality work his strategist delivers, he appreciates that there’s no long-term commitment and the price is much lower compared to a full-time marketing employee or external agency. He said, “It's a great savings when you think about if you want to hire an external agency that's $8,000 to $12,000 a month or a full-time marketing person with bonus and benefits. Run the numbers, look at the cost, look at the benefits. I think the numbers will jump out at you. Having been in every one of those camps, I'll tell you the best value by far was LPL Managed Marketing Services.”

Finding a Strategic Partner in LPL

Gatewood joined LPL Financial the Monday before Thanksgiving in 2019. They found LPL to be the perfect partner as they made the transition because LPL allowed them to go independent with the least amount of risk. “LPL provided transition assistance in the form of affordable notes that helped us build a new office and build out our whole new tech stack. At the time, our firm was 100% owned by our founder, John Gatewood, and he was near the end of his runway for retirement. Fast forward to today: we've bought out John and are a second generation-owned and operated firm.”

Goeddel shared the most recent example of LPL’s support was when they wanted to launch a new line of revenue within their financial firm. LPL made sure they navigated to the right person within the LPL ecosystem to get what they needed. “It's really unlocking a whole new stream of revenue that's diversified from our classic wealth management business, which has been amazing.”