September 15, 2026
Editor’s Note
Asset managers can win financial advisors’ attention by making thought leadership immediately relevant, concise and easy to use. Trusted distribution helps, but content still has to earn its place in an advisor’s crowded day.
Financial advisors are swimming in content. From market commentary to investment outlooks, regulatory updates, webinars, podcasts and newsletters, there is a nearly unlimited amount of content to consume. New research from The Advisor Exchange, Cogent Syndicated and C Space’s always-on community of financial advisors, found advisors spend an average of 10.7 hours per month consuming thought leadership—yet advisors still only engage with 35% of the content they receive.
For asset managers and other financial services players investing heavily in advisor thought leadership, that gap presents both a challenge and an opportunity: How can you ensure your content is among the one-third that rises to the top?
Relevance gets you through the first filter
Advisors have a screening process to manage the volume of thought leadership coming their way.
- First, advisors look at the title, source and relevance to their practice.
- Then they consider the time and effort required to read or listen to the content, review the format and assess overall quality.
- Finally, they review again for relevance and seek out content that is unique.
A compelling headline is important to grab attention and prove relevance—but a clever headline alone won’t do the job. Advisors want content that delivers market insights related to current events, whether that means informing portfolio decisions, preparing for client conversations or understanding regulatory change.
"Is it relevant to my job? Will it help me service my current clients? It must be a topic that is current in my field. I need to be able to reference the material in meetings."
RIA, $250M+ AUM
Brevity is table stakes, not just nice to have
While some advisors are often deliberately making time for thought leadership, others engage when a client need or market event prompts them to look for answers. Regardless of their routines for interacting with content, they don’t have unlimited time.
Brevity is the top-ranked characteristic across written content, video, webinars and podcasts. Advisors favor bulleted takeaways in written pieces, videos of five minutes or less, webinars under 20 minutes and podcasts of up to 30 minutes.
They’re also drawn to materials that are visually appealing, easy to access and easy to read. Charts and images can make complex ideas more digestible, while unnecessary barriers such as logins and subscriptions can work against engagement.
Across formats, advisors favor concise, accessible experiences that make the core insight easy to find and use. In other words, the burden should be on the content to fit into the advisor’s day—not on the advisor to make room for the content.
"When brevity ranks first across formats, the implication is clear: respecting advisors’ time is part of delivering value, not simply a matter of presentation."
Sonia Davis
Senior Product Director
Why Do Asset Managers Have an Advantage as Thought Leadership Sources?
There’s encouraging news for asset managers: advisors already see them as important sources of thought leadership.
Advisors receive 39% of their thought leadership from asset managers and plan providers, more than any other source measured. And when advisors actively go looking for insights, 64% seek content on asset manager websites and 57% turn to asset manager newsletters.
While the majority (61%) of advisors gravitate to content from firms they know, established brands shouldn’t get complacent. More than one-third of advisors are willing to scan content from an unfamiliar source if it catches their eye and is relevant to their business.
The takeaway isn’t to simply produce more.
It’s to create thought leadership that earns its place in an advisor’s already crowded day:
- Timely and relevant
- Credible and differentiated
- Concise and easy to access
- Visually engaging and differentiated
"Asset managers already have advisors’ attention as an important source. The opportunity is to convert that access into engagement by making every piece relevant, concise and genuinely useful."
Sonia Davis
Senior Product Director
How Can Firms Learn What Financial Advisors Want From Thought Leadership?
Our new Advisors On: Thought Leadership white paper further explores how financial advisors discover, evaluate and consume thought leadership, what they want across formats, and the topics they’re most interested in hearing about next.
Download the full white paper to learn how your firm can create thought leadership advisors are more likely to notice, consume and use.
Sonia Davis
Senior Product Director, Cogent Syndicated
Sonia is a senior product director in Escalent’s Cogent Syndicated division, where she manages the firm’s defined contribution retirement suite of research with plan sponsors, plan participants and plan advisors. She has more than 15 years of quantitative and qualitative market research experience in financial services industry research, as well as the hospitality, consumer packaged goods and retail sectors. Prior to Escalent, Sonia served as a community manager for C Space, a public relations specialist for Putnam Investments and as a staff reporter for Community Newspaper Company. Sonia earned an MBA from Boston University School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in communications from Simmons University. She’s a proud finisher of the rainiest Boston Marathon on record (2018) and multiple sprint triathlons who now enjoys rowing (sweeps) on the Charles River and outdoor adventures with her husband, two daughters and black lab.
