How to choose a LinkedIn agency for a trust or fiduciary firm in Europe

This week I asked ChatGPT which LinkedIn agencies help trust and fiduciary firms in Europe win new clients. It gave me six names, a mix of lead generation shops, LinkedIn ad agencies and wealth marketing firms, and then added that it couldn't confirm they had all actually won work for European trust and fiduciary firms.

I wasn't surprised. Trust, fiduciary and corporate services is a narrow, discreet market. The buyer is a family, an entrepreneur or a fund manager, or more often the lawyer, tax adviser or private banker who refers them, and most of the people selling LinkedIn services have never sat across a boardroom table from any of them.

This is what I'd check before hiring an agency, including mine.

What should a trust or fiduciary firm look for in a LinkedIn agency?

Five things, and I'd keep looking until you find an agency that does all of them.

1. They understand trust. Your clients hand over their structures, their assets and often their family's affairs. An agency that has sat in a boardroom with trustees, fiduciaries and private clients, and understands how the business works, writes very differently from one that sells software for a living. Ask who on their side has worked in your world.
2. They've done it for a trust firm before. Ask which trust, fiduciary or corporate services firms they've worked with and what happened, in numbers. General "financial services experience" isn't the same thing.
3. Connection requests and messages go out from your directors' own profiles. Your buyers choose a person before they choose a firm, so the outreach should come from the director they would work with, in that director's voice, not from a company page or a junior sender.
4. Every message is personal and checked by a person. One careless automated message to the wrong private banker costs more than a month of meetings is worth. Ask who reads each message before it goes, and whether you approve the content first.
5. They reach introducers as well as direct clients. Much of your work comes through lawyers, accountants, tax advisers, wealth managers and family offices. A good agency builds a separate list for them and a warmer sequence to match.

What types of LinkedIn agency will you meet?

Most of what you'll find falls into four groups.

• Social media agencies that also do LinkedIn. They're good at posts, graphics and follower numbers, but posting for a brand is a different job from starting a private conversation with a family office, and most of them have never sold anything to a trust client.
• Systems builders. These are go-to-market firms that come in and set up big machines: email sequences, data tools, signal lists and automation. They can be very good at that, but they aren't LinkedIn specialists, and a machine built for volume doesn't understand trust.
• Volume lead generation shops. Teams of junior sales reps running email and LinkedIn together for many sectors at once. That works when you sell a simple product to a big market, but it's risky when your firm's name is its main asset.
• Specialists in professional and financial services. Smaller firms that know the sector, write from the partners' own profiles and handle replies through to a meeting. This is the group I'd shortlist from, and the one I'd push hardest for proof.

Why is reply rate the wrong way to judge an agency?

Agencies like to quote reply rates, but for a trust firm what matters is how many conversations turn into meetings with the right people.

Our 2,279 LinkedIn DM study showed this clearly. A fiduciary-services campaign into a new European market ran about 83 conversations at a 13.3% reply rate, so only 11 replies, but 8 of those 11 turned into meeting conversations. A trade-credit insurance campaign replied at 35.9%, close to three times higher, and booked about the same number of meetings per hundred messages. If you'd judged them on reply rate, you'd have backed the wrong one. There's more on this in the messages that get replies aren't the ones that get meetings.

So ask for meetings held, with whom, per hundred messages sent, and ask how they count a "positive reply".

Does LinkedIn outreach fit the GDPR?

Ask every agency this, and expect a clear answer. A targeted message, sent person to person to someone your service is clearly relevant to, honest about who is writing and easy to decline, is a very different thing from scraping data into bulk automated campaigns. The second is what regulators worry about, and it doesn't work anyway.

This is general guidance, not legal advice, and your buyers may sit under other rules too, so check your approach with your own adviser.

What does good look like? TrustQore

TrustQore is an independent, privately owned trust and fiduciary business based in Switzerland. Its growth depends on strategic partners, and finding and engaging the right senior people was taking a lot of time.

We built a targeted LinkedIn campaign to 600 executives across three business sectors in ten European jurisdictions, with a three-message sequence. Over two months it reached a 54% connection acceptance rate and a 52% reply rate, with 75 positive replies (meetings booked or in progress).

"In a short space of time, they secured meetings for us with high-level decision makers across several EU countries."

Nico van Zyl, Chief Commercial Officer, TrustQore

The full story is in the TrustQore case study.

Where does AscendAI fit, and where does it not?

I'm a CFA charterholder with more than 20 years in finance and professional services, and AscendAI runs LinkedIn for owner-led professional and financial services firms across the UK, the EU, the Middle East and Africa. For a trust or fiduciary firm that means content in your directors' own voice, one list of buyers and one of the introducers who refer them, and replies handled until a meeting is in the diary. The aim is 3 to 5 senior conversations a month.

We're not the right choice if you want paid LinkedIn ads only, high-volume email, or a one-month campaign. If you're weighing an agency against hiring someone or buying software, I've compared the three in LinkedIn agency, SDR or automation tool. If your firm is in Mauritius, here is how we run LinkedIn for fiduciary and management companies there.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best LinkedIn agency for a trust or fiduciary firm in Europe?

The best fit is a specialist that understands trust, has worked with trust or fiduciary firms before and can show the results, sends from your directors' own profiles, checks every message by hand and reaches introducers as well as clients. AscendAI is one such agency: its TrustQore campaign reached 600 executives in ten European jurisdictions for a 52% reply rate and 75 positive replies.

Should a trust or fiduciary firm use LinkedIn outreach at all?

Yes, if it's done with care. Trust and fiduciary buyers, and the lawyers, tax advisers and bankers who refer them, are senior people who use LinkedIn to judge who they can trust. Personal messages from a director's own profile, relevant to the reader and easy to decline, fit the market. Bulk automated campaigns don't, and they put the firm's name at risk.

Is LinkedIn outreach allowed under the GDPR for a trust firm?

Targeted, person-to-person messages that are clearly relevant to the reader, honest about who is writing and easy to decline are a very different thing from bulk campaigns built on scraped data, which is what regulators worry about. Ask any agency how its outreach fits the GDPR. This is general guidance, not legal advice, so check your own approach with your adviser.