Your client’s relationship with your firm begins and ends with your brand.

Though advertising is about communicating what you have to offer, branding has everything to do with the identity of your firm.

Brand is the look, feel and personality of the message you’re sharing, and advertising is simply communication through a specific medium that allows you to amplify that message. When you advertise to bring clients in the door, you are soliciting their business through your ads, which is much easier if they know your brand.

Imagine trying to invite a complete stranger to dinner at your place; it would be challenging, and much easier to invite a friend. Brand is the link between you and your clients. You can easily turn prospects into clients if they already know who you are and can connect with you personally. Just as you can easily invite a friend over to your place for dinner, but a stranger would be much more difficult.

What’s in a brand?

We work in a high trust business, making brand all the more important. Branding is what makes you and your business relatable. It involves the collection of things an audience expects and experiences with your firm, combined with the workings of all the brand elements, including typeface, logos, color palette and tagline. Creating a consistent association between your company and its brand is crucial to growing your firm.

Using consistent colors, typeface and language will help future clients to know your brand when they see or hear it. But it’s not just about the look and feel of your brand; the look needs to also be consistent with the personality.

Nike is an example of a brand that exudes power and confidence, one that inspires consumers to purchase its products, to endure, overcome and conquer any sport. The words that they select, the colors they use, and the feeling that they elicit are all a part of their identity.

Your brand doesn’t necessarily need to be a strong powerhouse like Nike, but it needs to give life to your company and hopefully help people to better identify with your firm.

At Hanson McClain, our brand is rooted in our belief that financial advising is about more than product sales and investment management. It’s about a client-centric, education-based financial advising model that takes the complication out of finance. And we live and breathe that brand.

Once you take the time to identify your brand, and consistently portray it, you’ll be able to advertise successfully.

The Similarities Between the Two

Similar to branding, advertising requires consistency, but in the frequency, you advertise and the medium you use. Advertising in a local magazine once is not going to move the needle but continually placing ads in that magazine is likely to have a positive effect on your business.

So, while branding and advertising are very different, they are similar in that they both require repetition to be successful. But different in that advertising creates a feeling that motivates action. That feeling can be confidence, fear, excitement, urgency, or need, but in the end, the prospective client is motivated to do something.

Although advertising can be expensive, which puts small advisory firms at a competitive disadvantage, it can give you a competitive advantage if done properly. If you elect to advertise, just make sure that your ads are consistent with the brand you have created. Doing so will help you better market your business and ensure you get the most bang for your buck.