The 5 best strategies to gain more clients as a financial advisor in 2025

In today's rapidly evolving financial landscape, the methods for attracting clients are undergoing significant changes. Advisors now face a marketplace characterized by increased competition, readily available information online, and a growing demand for personalized, transparent, and value-driven services. Recent data from Michael Kitces highlights a challenging environment characterized by high client acquisition costs and headwinds to client growth.

Standing out requires more than just investment expertise; it demands a deep understanding of client needs and a strategic approach to reaching and engaging potential clients in an increasingly challenging environment for winning new business. To succeed in 2025, advisors must adopt a dynamic approach, strategically choosing and adapting tactics based on their practice's stage and growth ambitions. They must recognize that a more robust and dedicated commitment to effective marketing is essential for sustainable growth. 

Below, you’ll find new ways and approaches to attract more clients as a financial advisor. 

The top 5 ways to gain more clients as a financial advisor

1. Build a niche online presence and develop a content strategy

To stand out in the digital landscape and attract clients, particularly more affluent ones, financial advisors should focus on building a niche. Kitces Research indicates that niche advisors tend to be more successful in their marketing efforts overall. 

Once a niche is defined by lifestage, profession, or specific financial need like retirement planning, developing a strong digital presence becomes a powerful way to reach that specific audience. A key element of this involves creating valuable content – including blog posts, articles, videos, or podcasts – designed to address the unique financial concerns and questions of your target niche. Consistent content generation is a hallmark of high-growth practices due to its efficiency and relatively low cost, particularly when its visibility and reach are amplified through supporting digital tactics like search engine optimization (SEO). By providing helpful, specialized information, you can help establish authority and build trust with prospects actively seeking expertise in your area.

2. Leverage social media for professional networking and engagement

Social media platforms, particularly LinkedIn, offer powerful opportunities for financial advisors to connect with prospects and professional networks. Research from Broadridge showed that 41% of financial advisors generated clients through social media, with LinkedIn and Facebook representing the leading platforms. Social media also serves as a crucial supporting tactic for distributing the content you create, significantly boosting its effectiveness and discovery by potential clients.

Beyond LinkedIn, other platforms like X can be effective for sharing insights, engaging with your community, and building your personal brand. The key is to use these platforms strategically, focusing on providing value, engaging in meaningful conversations, sharing your niche expertise, and adhering strictly to compliance regulations regarding client communication and testimonials. 

3. Develop and nurture a strong referral network

According to some sources, nearly two-thirds of clients find an advisor through a referral. This can include referrals from existing clients, third parties like attorneys/CPAs, or trusted online directories. Client and center of influence referrals rank high in advisor satisfaction and probability of success per referral. However, recent research highlights a crucial nuance: a heavy reliance on referrals alone does not strongly correlate with sustained high growth, especially as practices grow larger.

While consistently providing exceptional service is foundational to generating referrals, advisors seeking high growth must go beyond simply waiting for them. Advisor time dedicated to managing referral generation becomes more scarce and costly as practices scale, and larger practices often find diminishing returns from relying solely on existing clients for more referrals. While nurturing your referral network is vital, it should be part of a multi-tactic approach that includes more scalable non-referral strategies to support consistent, high-level growth.

4. Host educational workshops and webinars

Educating potential clients through workshops and webinars is a fantastic way to demonstrate your expertise, build trust, and generate leads, particularly within your niche. These events, both in-person and virtual, allow you to connect with a group of interested individuals, providing a low-pressure environment for prospects to learn from you and see your communication style firsthand.

Recent data characterizes events as "high risk, high reward." They may have lower success rates in terms of attendance to client conversion compared to referrals, but they frequently yield high revenue per new client acquired ($10,000 median revenue per new client won via a client appreciation event, for example, ranks among the top tactics). Advisors who are successful with events tend to hold more of them and promote them aggressively through multiple channels. For those looking to attract more affluent clients and willing to invest in events, they represent a powerful strategy to showcase expertise and build relationships that lead to substantial new business.

5. Use financial planning software to manage clients

Modern financial planning software is no longer just a tool for crunching numbers; it's an essential platform for managing client relationships, enhancing the client experience, and critically, supporting both acquisition and retention efforts. Integrated software allows advisors to consolidate client data, create comprehensive financial plans, track progress towards goals, and communicate effectively and efficiently.

Software can help streamline workflows, freeing up valuable advisor time – a resource highlighted as increasingly costly, especially for growing practices. A platform like Human Interest's PartnerConnect™, for example, exemplifies this evolution. It goes beyond simple data consolidation, offering a single digital platform with intelligent tools, workflows, and recordkeeping capabilities designed to streamline plan management efficiently. Features like an investment toolkit and onboarding trackers provide advisors with complete control and visibility, freeing up valuable time that can be reinvested into prospecting and business development – a crucial advantage in today's demanding marketing environment.

The bottom line

Client acquisition for financial advisors in 2025 operates within a more challenging and costly environment characterized by rising expenses, slower growth, and decreased marketing efficiency. While traditional referrals remain a vital source for new business, achieving sustainable high growth requires a dynamic, multi-tactic approach that strategically leverages digital channels like building a niche online presence supported by SEO and social media, creating valuable content, and hosting educational events. Embracing modern financial planning and management software like PartnerConnect™ can also be helpful, as it enhances operational efficiency and the client experience, providing advisors with the capacity to focus effectively on growing their book of business.