Tag: Artificial Intelligence
EP 28 – No Lead Left Behind: A Modern Approach to Organic Growth with Samantha Allen

EP 28 – No Lead Left Behind: A Modern Approach to Organic Growth with Samantha Allen

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Organic growth is becoming more challenging for many advisory firms, especially as competition for attention continues to increase.

How do you create a marketing strategy that consistently attracts qualified prospects while giving advisors more time to focus on client relationships?

In this episode, Dan Gilmartin sits down with Samantha Allen, Executive Vice President of Marketing at Merit Financial Advisors, to explore how marketing, sales, and technology can work together to create a repeatable growth engine. Samantha shares how Merit blends proven marketing channels with ongoing experiments, why video streaming has become one of the firm’s strongest sources of high-net-worth clients, how AI helps route leads to the right advisors, and why close collaboration between marketing and sales has become one of the company’s biggest competitive advantages.

Key takeaways:

  • Building marketing systems that let advisors spend more time serving clients instead of chasing leads.
  • Using content to attract highly qualified, high-net-worth prospects through organic growth.
  • Combining AI, automation, and human relationships to improve lead routing and follow-up.
  • Creating stronger alignment between marketing and sales to improve the client experience.
  • Re-engaging past prospects through data enrichment instead of letting qualified leads disappear.
  • And more!

Connect with Dan Gilmartin: 

Connect with Samantha Allen:

About our Guest: 

Samantha Allen is the Executive Vice President of Marketing at Merit Financial Advisors, where she leads the firm’s integrated marketing strategy across organic growth, digital marketing, content, brand, events, and advisor support. With more than a decade of experience in financial services marketing, she has held leadership roles at organizations including TD Ameritrade, helping firms connect marketing, technology, and business development to drive sustainable growth. Samantha is passionate about building scalable marketing systems, leveraging AI and digital channels, and creating stronger alignment between marketing and sales to improve both the advisor and client experience. She also serves on the board of the FinServ Foundation, supporting initiatives that strengthen the future of the financial services industry.

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EP 26 – How RIAs are Using AI to Create Better Marketing with Michele Welsh

EP 26 – How RIAs are Using AI to Create Better Marketing with Michele Welsh

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Growth gets harder when every firm has access to the same tools.

What separates strong marketing is not the software itself, but the judgment, structure, and empathy behind how it is used.

In this episode, Dan Gilmartin speaks with Michele Welsh, Chief Marketing Officer at Verdence Capital Advisors, about building a practical AI and marketing system inside a wealth firm. She explains how her team evaluates tools through acceleration, accuracy, and innovation, how they train AI to reflect brand voice and empathy, and why clean CRM data drives better automation. Michele also shares how education-first content, strong prompt strategy, and patient distribution across formats help advisors build trust with high net worth prospects.

Key takeaways:

  • Michele shares an AAI filter for judging tools by speed, better output, and new possibilities for teams
  • She explains why empathy, tone training, and compliance guardrails make AI output more personal and usable
  • Thoughtful prompts beat quick prompts when firms want content that sounds distinct and fits the brand
  • Clean CRM data helped advisors adopt automation by showing why bad inputs only create more bad outputs
  • Education across long, written, and short formats helps firms stay top of mind before prospects are ready
  • And more!

Connect with Dan Gilmartin: 

Connect with Michele Welsh:

About our Guest: 

Michele Welsh is the Chief Marketing Officer of Verdence Capital Advisors. Michele leads firm-wide marketing, branding, and content strategies. These include setting and executing technology-based marketing solutions focused on excellent client experience and unbiased, transparent financial advice. Her multifaceted career has included roles as an Art Director, Creative Director, and the Founder & CEO of two startups. Michele has been featured on national network media including GMA, Fox News, and The Today Show. Additionally, she brought her entrepreneurial teachings to the Johns Hopkins MBA program where she co-opted case studies with the Carey Business School. In her community, Michele is a co-founder and board member of Sisters Circle, a mentoring program for girls and young women from underserved communities in Baltimore.

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