Advisors Need Automation, Not 'Phoniness': Snappy Kraken

When it comes to digital marketing, financial advisors want four things: “Clarity on where to start, avoiding spending money on the wrong things, the ability to scale, and relief from trying to do it all themselves,” according to Angel Gonzalez, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Snappy Kraken.

The fintech firm — a finalist in ThinkAdvisor’s 2022 LUMINARIES awards in the category of thought leadership and education — says it helps advisors by providing them with easy-to-use automated digital marketing strategies, original content, personalized website design and advertising campaigns. 

In a podcast interview, Gonzalez explains how Snappy Kraken works with a range of advisors at different stages of their business development and growth.

The executive notes that advisors who’ve benefited from working with Snappy Kraken are “brand-new advisors just starting out on their own as independents, advisors who have been a one-person shop and want to add to their practice, and others who have been around quite a few years — if not decades — and want to find ways to really leverage what they’re doing.” 

As advisors and their clients demand customization, Snappy Kraken boasts a highly automated offering in which everything can be personalized by the advisor. “That’s really important today because people don’t like phoniness. There’s a real hunger for authenticity and being human,” says Gonzalez.

“Our platform automates all the things that are [time-consuming] but allows advisors to go in and add a little humanity [by] swapping out a word or changing up a turn of phrase that doesn’t feel quite like them,” explains the digital marketing professional, who oversees the firm’s brand, voice and content strategy. 

“We encourage advisors to automate but to [also] absolutely personalize and humanize” where desired, he adds.

Launched in 2016, Snappy Kraken is based in Ormond Beach, Florida. It’s made several recent moves to broaden its capabilities.

For instance, it introduced Convos, a text messaging platform; acquired Advisor Websites; and teamed with Morningstar Wealth to create Snappy Kraken Morningstar Wealth Edition, giving its clients access to Morningstar articles. In May, the firm unveiled a full digital marketing service that includes personalized websites and branding tailored to advisors’ ideal clients.

“We believe that meaningful connections drive business, and we think about what consumers want to be connected with,” Gonzalez explains. “An advisor’s website, which can be the hub of their marketing strategy, is a place to make meaningful connections as it showcases the advisor’s brand, humanity and individuality.” 

What’s on Snappy Kraken’s jam-packed drawing board right now? “Features that will make our offering a lot stronger and more innovative,” says the CMO.

“I’ll hold those close to the chest, so stay tuned for the surprises!” says the marketing expert, who, before starting Snappy Kraken with Robert Sofia and Brad DeLoatche, founded a digital agency that created website redesigns and marketing strategy.

When the three Snappy Kraken founders were working on names for their new company, they wanted the moniker to really stand out from more typical brands. What they came up with is far from typical in financial services: Kraken, which is a huge mythical sea monster.

“We wanted to elicit feelings of good will and to be almost absurd and an anomaly in the industry. So what better way to think of marketing as something a little ambiguous or scary and complex and mystifying than a mythical sea monster?” Gonzalez says. 

“[But] we made [the logo look] friendly and more inviting to advisors by slapping some shades on it,” he adds.

As for Snappy Kraken’s being honored as a ThinkAdvisor LUMINARIES finalist, he connects the word luminaries with his firm’s mission to make digital marketing seem less esoteric. That is “to help enlighten and demystify something that’s been confusing,” he explains. 

For more insights into digital marketing and Snappy Kraken’s approach, listen to our podcast.