Financial advisers, wealth managers, cross-border planners, and specialist firms need meetings they are permitted to hold. A larger audience is not the same thing. The notes below are about marketing to expatriates in that situation. They are not financial, tax, or investment advice. Expat Marketing is not a financial adviser and does not manage client money. We will not state that a firm is authorised, licensed, or suitable for a particular client unless that firm supplies the wording and the regulator reference, and its own compliance team approves the line.
Cross-border planning is a slow, personal appointment. People arrive because their salary, pension, property, or family is no longer in one country. They leave if the first page implies a return, hides fees, or is vague about where the firm is allowed to advise. The marketing task is to make the firm’s real permissions and process easy to find, and to attract meetings the firm is permitted to hold.
What people are trying to solve when they search
The searches are practical, and they are not an invitation for an advertisement to answer them. Common reasons someone looks for an adviser include:
- They are paid in one currency and live in another, and they want a person who will talk about that plainly.
- They are approaching retirement outside the country where their pension was built.
- Their tax residence may have changed, or be about to change, and they know they should not guess.
- They already have a home-country adviser who cannot act where they now live.
A responsible page acknowledges those situations and offers a meeting with someone who can advise in the relevant jurisdiction. It does not explain the reader’s tax position, name a product as appropriate, or suggest that an international lifestyle requires a particular investment. Tax residence, in particular, is a question for a qualified adviser in the countries involved. Marketing can capture the countries. It cannot settle the status.
Some of those readers also need a lawyer for a transaction or a residence application. That is a different profession. Send them to a clear explanation of legal services for expats rather than folding legal work into a wealth advertisement.
Trust is the offer
Before a prospective client will book, they usually want five things in view:
- Who the firm advises, and who it does not.
- The countries and the permissions under which it advises, in the firm’s own approved language.
- How a first meeting works, what it costs, and what the client is expected to bring.
- How personal information will be used, and that they should not send account numbers or identity documents through a marketing form.
- A way to check the firm’s status with the regulator the firm names, rather than a badge that cannot be verified.
Plan on the basis that referrals and existing clients remain central to how these firms are chosen. Digital marketing supports that shortlist. It does not replace the duty to know the client, and it should not be written as if it does. Content that walks through the process, with the limits stated, is more useful than a list of products. Search fits queries about finding an adviser for a stated situation and country. It is a poor place for slogans about performance.
What the advertising must not say
In the United Kingdom, the Financial Conduct Authority expects communications and financial promotions to be fair, clear, and not misleading. Its public overview is financial promotions and adverts. Handbook guidance warns against describing a feature as guaranteed, protected, or secure unless that description is fair and the necessary information is presented with enough prominence. See COBS 4.2. Many promotions also have to be communicated or approved by an authorised firm unless an exemption applies. This is a UK illustration. Other countries, including the markets where a firm actually advises, impose their own licensing and promotion rules.
We will not draft “best returns”, “safe income”, or comparisons that the firm cannot substantiate. If the firm’s name is to appear next to a regulator, the firm provides the sentence. The website should make regulated and unregulated activity distinguishable when both exist, because blurring them is a common way a true statement becomes misleading.
LinkedIn and similar professional channels can reach people by role and location. They are still promotions when they invite someone to engage a financial service. The same approval path applies. A casual post is not an exemption.
Measure meetings the firm is allowed to take
The useful numbers are booked meetings where country of residence, nationality, and the topic are known, the share of those meetings that happen, and the share the firm declines because it is not permitted to advise. A decline for permissions is a quality signal, not a failure of the ad, provided the page gave the reader a fair chance to see the limit first. Email list size and cost per click do not describe this business.
Do not ask a marketing form for account balances, identity documents, or anything else a first conversation does not need. City or country, the topic, and a preferred time are enough to judge fit. Markets where this kind of client is common in our location notes include Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, and Portugal. Those pages are context for campaign planning. They are not a statement that a firm can advise in each of them.
Bring the permissions, not a product slogan
Tell us where the firm is permitted to advise and what a suitable first meeting includes. Get started with that brief. Please do not include client information. If you are still deciding whether finance, insurance, or another category should lead the plan, begin at expat marketing by industry or book consulting to order the work before any promotion is written.