Roughly two-thirds of financial advisors rely on referrals from their Centers of Influence (COIs) to acquire new clients. However, only a small percentage have found the formula to make the channel truly scalable – and this article will explain how they do it.
The right combination of strategy and digital communications can turn an unreliable revenue source into a powerful growth engine. However, it will require many advisors to leave behind their assumptions and embrace a new approach to COI marketing.
My marketing agency specializes in financial advisory marketing and has helped firms drive over $2 billion in new AUM pipeline – with a lot of our success coming from challenging traditional approaches to marketing. So, in this article, I want to challenge you to rethink:
- The channels through which you engage with COIs
- The messaging you use with COIs
- The expected cost of a COI referral
The Basics of Center of Influence (COI) Marketing
Centers of Influence (COI) are professionals from whom advisors can gain referrals, typically related to fields where financial advice might add value. For example, a mortgage broker might see that their client requires financial advice before completing a property purchase – at this point, they’ll reach into their network and pluck the most qualified, best-fit advisor they know.
This is one of the most efficient channels through which advisors generate new clients, especially because it typically requires relatively few “hard costs” (i.e., advertising or sponsorships).
Let's not forget: this is a relationship business, and building those COI relationships through intentional marketing is essential for growth. But it isn’t always quite so simple – and COI marketing can lead to a potential bottleneck for advisors who lean too heavily on the method.
The Challenges of COI Marketing
COI referrals are among the most reliable and effective sources of new clients for advisory firms of all sizes. Research shows it is among the top three channels for advisor satisfaction, probability of success, and marketing efficiency.2 But plenty of advisors have recently told me they fear COI referrals are not a sustainable path to growth.
They typically cite two factors:
1. Scalability
COI relationships involve a heavy time investment, as advisors must maintain regular contact to ensure they are not unseated as the COI’s go-to referral. But this can make COI referrals very difficult to scale. Advisors have a finite amount of time to spend networking with real estate agents or mortgage brokers – and the average advisor juggles 5 different COIs at any given time.3
Worse still, this means COI referrals become more expensive as your firm grows. Advisors’ time becomes valuable as they earn more, making it harder to justify taking time out of their schedule to meet with a COI who might one day generate new business for them.
2. Uncertainty
In my experience, high-growth advisors want to feel in control of their own destiny - and a reliance on third-party referrals is the opposite of that. COI marketing can feel passive and uncertain. While other marketing channels may be less effective, they are also more predictable. Predictability is valuable because it allows advisors to make an informed decision about their willingness to invest time and resources - all based on a clear expected ROI.
To recap: COI marketing is highly effective but lacks scalability and predictability. However, this is only when advisors approach it in the traditional way, and these issues can be largely eliminated with the right strategies.
5 Steps to Drive Growth Using COIs
The ideal COI marketing process follows a clear set of steps that enable more efficient, reliable, and scalable growth:
1. Target Niche COIs
The most successful advisors look for quality, not quantity. My agency’s clients find that COIs vary greatly in terms of the volume of referrals they produce, while research shows that more than 50% of the average advisor’s referrals come from just two of their COIs4 This suggests advisors’ time and effort should be focused on selecting the right COI - rather than nurturing multiple lower-value personas.
Importantly, research shows that 2x more high-growth advisors rely on a target market COI.5 What is a "target market COI”? A professional that works directly with clients within your niche. For example, advisors that niche down to focus on business owners might find success with M&A attorneys.
There are two reasons for this:
- Target market COIs are more likely to work with (and therefore create referrals for) your ideal clients
- It makes it easier to explain how the advisor's services benefit their specific client
This is really the essence of COI marketing:
- Ensuring your COIs understand what an advisor does and when they would provide clients with value
- Showing the right set of COIs that you are the best advisor for their clients
But achieving that goal requires a very clear vision of your target audience.
2. Pinpoint Your Ideal Clients
COIs want to help their clients get the best possible service for their specific needs. Advisors who don’t articulate a clear niche or demonstrate domain-specific expertise will always be overlooked in favor of an advisor who appears a stronger fit – even if they actually offer better service.
The problem is most advisors think they know their target audience – but they cast their net way too wide. You are probably not the best advisor for both thirty-something tech founders, fifty-something property owners, and seventy-something retirees. It’s just not realistic, and nobody is going to take the claim seriously.
Instead, take a step back and evaluate exactly which clients you want to serve. This should go beyond net worth or demographics and allow you to build a true niche – which really means getting far more specific about the services and segments you focus on. A few areas to consider include:
- Professions: Medical professionals, attorneys, and entrepreneurs all have wealth to manage but likely respond to different messages and may respond to different cultural and social cues
- Geography: People typically want to work with an advisor who understands them and is nearby, meaning it can be very powerful to define your audience in terms of location and local culture
- Specific Challenges: Life events like death, divorce, or childbirth all bring about new financial concerns, and you can build a niche around serving people who have these specific experiences
Once you’ve identified that niche, build marketing campaigns to show COIs exactly what kind of clients you want to work with – and how you will support them. Even a small adjustment to your positioning statement to identify the specific problems you solve or the services you specialize in can help signal that you are specifically suited to a particular client.
For example: “I help you protect and grow your wealth with financial advice” contains almost no information. But it can quickly turn into a powerful positioning statement by making the details more specific. “I help young medical professionals adapt to their growing wealth with no-nonsense advice around saving, investing, and spending.”
This will lead to fewer bad-fit referrals and a higher percentage of your ideal clients being sent your way.
3. Increase COI Nurture
The next step is to reduce the time investment required for COI marketing and ensure it is more scalable. Many advisors are attached to traditional methods of nurturing COIs – such as in-person meetings – but these can be heavily supplemented or even replaced through digital marketing.
Traditional 1:1 meetings are essential to any advisory business. But from a marketing perspective, they lack scalability. This is especially true when you are trying to balance client care with COI marketing because, let’s be honest – the client will always be the priority.
Each meeting you run with a COI generates one meeting’s worth of value – and they depend on you to be personally available. Contrast that with digital content, which requires an initial investment but can be used across multiple COIs. Better still, digital content can be easily repurposed. An eGuide can produce four blogs and eight social posts and form the basis for a whole sequence of emails – all with relatively time and effort.
Ultimately, digital content nurtures COIs more effectively because it is scalable, easier to fit within your busy schedule, and shows the COI that you are thinking of them. At my agency, we recommend that our clients generally leverage:
- Regular social media posts and comments to stay in your COIs’ LinkedIn feeds
- Newsletters or email marketing to showcase your industry knowledge
- Content marketing (e.g., webinars) to demonstrate thought leadership
These are all highly effective ways to get in front of your COIs and make nurture scalable.
4. Equip COIs with Collateral
The most overlooked element of COI marketing is removing friction: how easily can your COIs make a referral? Remember, they want to look good to their clients – and simply giving those clients your email address or a website link may not create the professional impression they’re after.
Instead, advisors should create a strong package of collateral that COIs can share with their clients. From blogs and one-pagers to comprehensive eGuides, equipping your COIs with high-value content will make them feel great about referring clients to your firm – and ultimately make you a more appealing advisor to recommend.
Think of this as a form of sales enablement: the easier it is to make a referral, the more referrals you’ll generate.
5. Measure What Matters
To make COI marketing a repeatable and scalable growth engine, you need more than just strong relationships: —you need visibility into what’s working. By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs), you can identify your highest-value COIs, double down on what’s effective, and refine what’s not.
Here are four critical metrics every advisor should track:
- Referral Volume: This is your baseline metric. How many referrals are you getting from each COI per quarter? Tracking volume helps you prioritize the relationships that move the needle.
- Referral-to-Close Rate: Not every referral converts. Measuring how many introductions turn into viable opportunities and actual clients helps you gauge referral quality, not just quantity.
- COI Engagement: Keep tabs on how actively your COIs engage with your content and communications. Higher engagement typically leads to stronger mindshare—and more referrals.
- Average Client Value by COI Source: Zoom out to see the long-term impact. What’s the average revenue or AUM generated per client referred by each COI? This insight helps you assess the ROI of each relationship and prioritize your time accordingly.
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