Cetera Rolls Out Marketing Platform, Leaves Schorsch Drama in Dust

February 03, 2015 at 11:25 AM
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Cetera Financial Group is rolling out a new marketing portal, Connect2Clients, to its 9,800 independent advisors over the next few months.

Cetera, led by Larry Roth and owned by RCS Capital (RCAP), says it worked with digital marketer FMG Suite, so the portal can best help advisors build and strengthen their relationships with existing and prospective investor clients using preapproved as well as personalized content.

"2014 was a very good year for us," said Cetera Financial CEO Roth, in an interview with ThinkAdvisor last week. "As we close on [two] broker-dealer acquisitions, we are making big plans for the future and how we can work with our advisors to increase revenue and business results, including growth tied to new clients."

Last year, of course, included bumps tied to RCAP's sister company American Realty Capital (ARCP), which reported $23 million of accounting errors. Nicholas Schorsch, a founding executive of both companies, has since resigned from his role on their boards.

"We've put that behind us," Roth said. "In 2015, 100% of our attention is on Cetera advisors. We are communicating more around our intents with regards to projects like the Connect2Clients platform, and that's what we will spend our time on."

At last week's FSI OneVoice 2015 conference, Cetera President Adam Antoniades said the group had been on a tear, announcing 11 acquisitions in 15 months. "I may not eat ever again," explained Antoniades, alluding to the restaurant time involved in the M&A process and the firm's desire to step back from the table for a while.

Marketing Muscle

The new platform aims to give advisors the mobility and social media presence they need to do just that, according to Susan Theder, Cetera's chief marketing officer.

"At times, advisors can struggle with social media and building their brand both effectively and efficiently" while focusing on their other work for clients, Theder explained in an interview.  "That's why we've built a proprietary platform for them. It's one of many tools we plan to introduce that takes advantage of our scale."

Advisors were introduced to the platform at Cetera's recent educational conference, which took place in late January in Denver. 

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