Digital Asset Marketing: Why One-Size-Fits-All Won’t Drive Adoption

There’s no doubt that advisors are engaging with digital assets, but it’s a mistake for content marketers to treat these advisors as a single audience. Some are already allocating and looking to build conviction. Others are still figuring out how to get started. Marketing that tries to reach both segments at once risks missing the mark with each group.

In our recent survey of 200 financial advisors, 48% currently allocate to digital assets in client portfolios and 52% plan to within 24 months. That’s nearly a 50/50 split, but the two groups have very different mindsets and questions that content needs to address.

In our first post on the digital asset content gap, we shared that only 2% of advisors rate current digital asset content as very effective. Here, we go a level deeper: where advisors actually are in their journey, how they’re using digital assets today, and what’s holding them (and their clients) back.

Sparking adoption vs. expanding allocations

Most current allocators aren’t heavily invested: 58% put less than 2% of client portfolios into digital assets. Growing those allocations requires content that skips the basics, builds confidence, and articulates what a more meaningful position does for a client portfolio.

Potential adopters are in a different place: 73% say their ability to explain digital assets to clients is a barrier, compared with 49% of current allocators. For this audience, content needs to establish credibility before it drives initial allocations.

So what does this mean for content marketers? It’s vital to define your primary audience before your next campaign. Content designed to spark first-time adoption needs a different focus and architecture than content designed to deepen existing allocations.

For most advisors, digital asset investing is ETF investing

Among current allocators, the vehicle question is largely resolved. Nearly 80% of advisors name digital asset ETFs or ETPs as their preferred vehicle, well ahead of blockchain-themed equity (23%), spot crypto (22%), and other approaches. For most of the wealth channel, digital asset investing effectively means ETF investing, and messaging that isn’t structured around that reality will miss much of its audience. Content for this segment can assume the ETF baseline and focus on product selection, positioning, and comparison.

But the situation is very different with potential adopters: 39% say they’re still evaluating how to invest, compared with just 4% of current allocators. Before this group can act on market opportunity ideas, they need help resolving questions about which vehicles or implementation approaches they should use to give their clients exposure to digital assets.

Digital assets’ portfolio role is still up-for-grabs

Among current allocators, there is no consensus about what role digital assets play in a portfolio. While 20% use digital assets as a tactical/satellite allocation, roughly equal percentages use digital assets primarily for diversification (18%) or as a long-term strategic (19%) positions.

With potential adopters, digital assets’ portfolio role is even more unsettled; 27% of potential adopters have no clearly defined portfolio role for digital assets, compared to only 7% of current allocators. Portfolio construction content for this group should present multiple viable approaches and give advisors talking points for explaining each to clients.

The client conversation is the real bottleneck

Ask advisors what’s holding back adoption of digital assets, and clients top the list.

Nearly 90% cite clients’ understanding of risks and volatility as a significant barrier. Regulatory uncertainty (86%) and firm or platform restrictions (81%) follow. But 79% also point to a lack of effective educational or marketing content from asset managers, one of the few barriers marketers can directly solve.

Barriers to adopting digital assets
Percent selecting

Client objections back this up. The most common ones cluster around confusion and skepticism: 60% of advisors say clients don’t understand how digital assets work, 60% say clients view them as too speculative, and 50% cite concerns about volatility. Confusion and speculation concerns feed each other, and content that reframes volatility in the context of traditional asset class behavior gives advisors a more credible, data-grounded response.

What this means for digital assets marketers

The wealth channel isn’t at a single point in its digital asset journey. It’s at two, sometimes three various stages of understanding and interest. A content strategy that assumes that all advisors are interested in digital assets will leave all segments of the advisor universe underserved.

The full e-book covers all of this and more in depth. Download it here: Digital Assets in the Wealth Channel: Unlocking Adoption Through Content.

About the Author John Spence co-leads the ETF content marketing practice at Wentworth Financial Communications. He collaborates with a team of writers and editors at Wentworth to help professionals across the financial services industry build their brands by creating investment-grade infographics, videos, email campaigns, blog posts, social media content, white papers, bylined articles, newsletters, and other forms of content marketing.