How Financial Advisors Can Grow Their Client Base with AI and Machine Learning

By Keiter Technologies

How Financial Advisors Can Grow Their Client Base with AI and Machine Learning

Using consumer insights and AI to drive growth for financial advisory firms

In the intrinsically data-driven financial advisory services industry, professionals rely on a variety of data sources and information to make informed decisions for their clients. Much of the seemingly infinite availability of investment data to financial professionals centers squarely on investment portfolio performance. However, financial advisors looking to grow their client base require a different set of data solutions that borrow from the broader world of consumer analytics, which are now being super-charged by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

Identifying ideal clients through data

One of the key benefits of leveraging data as a financial advisor is to more effectively understand the people within the broader client base. By analyzing customer behavior, preferences, demographics, and more, financial advisors can gain insights into new opportunities for growth. For example, segmentation modeling uses a clustering algorithm to find general groupings of customers based on certain characteristics. This technique can help financial planners understand pockets of high value clients and the characteristics that set them apart from the rest, allowing for more effective prospecting and targeting.

Leveraging models to uncover cross-selling and upselling opportunities

Additional models can be leveraged to uncover cross-sell and upsell opportunities that would otherwise go unrealized. Approaches such as market-basket analysis and random forest modeling can provide insights into not only what the client might purchase next, but also the propensity that they’ll do so. This information provides a focused lens for prospecting efforts, uncovering where marketing dollars can provide the most value. Coupling these approaches with client segmentation can create a more robust, and ultimately more valuable, model to inform client marketing.

Incorporate AI to assist with marketing automation

Additionally, a layer of artificial intelligence (AI) can help automate these insights for busy financial advisory professionals. This could include bringing together all the insights gleaned through segmentation and upsell analysis to fully optimize email messages and their delivery time to the right clients, at the right time, with the right message. Or, an automated purchase of a social media ad that is triggered via an AI-driven decision as a machine learning model detects a high potential targeting opportunity.

In fact, the opportunities for applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to financial planning are endless, and creative solutions to interesting problems abound. Could the data reveal a relationship between a client’s risk profile and their likelihood to leave during a financial downturn? Could an AI model help identify those clients who may be getting “nervous” based on a variety of factors, some obvious and some less so? Could AI automatically trigger an email to a group of clients under certain economic conditions, writing the message in a tone that projects a sense of calm? Could these AI-driven solutions drive a new level of loyalty amongst the client base while ultimately saving time and money?

Enterprising financial services professionals can already begin to answer these questions, either by bringing in full-time support or (more commonly) partnering with a professional services firm specializing in advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning. The explosion of data available to planners, coupled with the variety of techniques that can be applied to that data, provides an opportunity unlike any before. As AI continues to mature, the impact it will have on how financial advisors build and nurture their client base is boundless.

Interested in learning how AI and machine learning can help your financial services firm? Reach out to your Keiter Opportunity Advisor or Contact the Keiter Technologies team. We are here to provide innovative data solutions to help your business grow.

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Keiter Technologies

Keiter Technologies

Keiter Technologies focuses on serving businesses with their strategic technology needs through data science, cybersecurity, and IT audit and consulting.

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The information contained within this article is provided for informational purposes only and is current as of the date published. Online readers are advised not to act upon this information without seeking the service of a professional accountant, as this article is not a substitute for obtaining accounting, tax, or financial advice from a professional accountant.

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