GK3 Capital

10/14/2026

The CEO of LinkedIn films his videos while walking. There’s a reason.

Walk-and-talk video gets a 49% higher finish rate than a seated talking head. Finish rate is what platforms reward, so more people actually see it.

If you’ve been putting off video because it feels like a production, this is good news. You need a phone, captions and a ten-minute walk.

That stat surprised Ryan more than anything else at the conference. It’s one of seven takeaways in Ryan Woelk's final Unbound recap, which also covers the 20 headline words that cut engagement and how to turn one strong post into five.

Read the blog here https://hubs.li/Q04B9qjj0.

What’s the one thing stopping you from filming yours this week?

10/13/2026

Colby pitched a content idea. We said yes before he finished the sentence.

Total production budget: one parked car, one leafy branch, and three coworkers who will never let him live this down.

Most of our week is spent helping our clients get marketing ideas out of the meeting and into the world. Turns out we do the same for each other. Even when the idea is this one.

10/08/2026

"Lawn mower."

Someone types that into Google. Are they buying one? Hunting for a replacement part? Checking whether it's one word or two?

Google Ads tells you there's intent. It doesn't tell you what kind.

For financial marketers, that gap gets expensive. When an RIA and a retail investor search the same phrase, you show up for both and pay for both.

The average Google search is about four words. The average ChatGPT prompt runs around twenty-three. That extra context is exactly what ChatGPT's new ad platform lets you target.

Ryan Woelk is running ChatGPT ads for two financial services clients right now. In Part 1, he breaks down what he expected going in, what got debunked, and the early best practices he picked up along the way.

Read it here: https://hubs.li/Q04zGh9T0

Part 2 is the results. Stay tuned.

10/07/2026

Your email has two readers now: the person, and the AI that summarizes it for them first.

Research presented at HubSpot's Unbound 2026 found that 64% of AI inbox summaries misrepresent the original message. If Gmail, Apple Mail or Outlook gets your offer wrong, a lot of people never see the version you actually wrote.

A few findings that stood out:
- Click-throughs rose 19% when the action, product and deadline appeared in the first 200 characters of live text
- Copilot pulls from bulleted content 92% of the time
- Rotating four email formats instead of using one template drove up to 104% higher CTR
- "Game-changing" in the first three words of a subject line cut opens by 24%

Ryan Woelk breaks down what this means for your next send. The article also includes a prompt for checking how AI will summarize an email before it goes out.

Read the full recap: https://hubs.li/Q04zrWXT0

10/06/2026

One month of GK3 Above & Beyond is officially in the books.

Thirty days and a lot of handwritten notes later, the jars told a pretty clear story. People were helping each other on tight deadlines, walking teammates through accounts they'd never touched, and stepping in before anyone had to ask. That's always been how this team works. Now we finally get to celebrate it.

Congrats to our September winners: Emily Reagan in first place and Clara Martin in second. The notes in your jars said a lot about how you show up for this team, and you earned every chip.

To kick off month two, the whole team decorated our jars today.

The chips are already starting to move again. Here's to another month of noticing the good stuff.

10/01/2026

Six meetings booked in two weeks, from two email sequences sent to an intent-based list.

That result comes from Colby Connor's own outreach, and it starts with knowing who is researching what you offer right now. Intent data tracks what people search for online, so instead of hoping a purchased list includes people who might be interested, you start with people who have already shown that interest.

The list quality held up, too. When Colby reviewed his list, about 90% of contacts were worth reaching out to. Only about 10% needed to come off before anything was sent.

Most firms still build outreach lists around who fits their target demographic, not who is actively looking. With fewer prospects filling out website forms in the age of AI search, that gap gets wider every month.

Colby and Ryan Woelk break down how intent data works, and the rest of GK3's IQ Suite, in Episode 6 of the Fund Better Podcast.

Listen to the full conversation here: https://hubs.li/Q04yYR9B0 and https://open.spotify.com/episode/71Qkbcyjw4uU6GpHrAcnHc?si=4MnGN7XOS6WQpLiqQ5Wd0g

Is your outreach reaching people who are looking for you, or just people who fit the profile?

09/30/2026

Listicles get cited by AI 3x more often than a regular webpage.

Worldata Research ranked the formats AI tools quote most. Best-of and listicle content took 32% of citations, how-to guides 14%, and original research 12%. FAQs, a popular AEO bet, got just 3%.

Our Account Manager Ryan Woelk brought this back from HubSpot's Unbound 2026, along with another surprise: backlinks barely predict AI visibility. Answer engines want the clearest answer, not the biggest domain.

That's good news for smaller asset managers and fintechs. You don't need more authority than your competitors, just a clearer answer.

Ryan's field notes cover 14 tested tactics, if you want to read more, check it out here: https://hubs.li/Q04yNyQp0

09/29/2026

Insight from our own Colby Connor, Business Development Associate at GK3, on where trust actually gets built in financial services today.

"You build the kind of pipeline that lasts by being the person people already trust before they need you."

Advisors and investors are researching, reading, and forming opinions long before they ever pick up the phone. The firms that win answer the questions that usually come up in the sales process before anyone asks them, in their marketing, wherever compliance allows.

In content. In posts. In the material that shows up when someone searches your name, your fund, or your category.

That's where trust gets built today. Not on the first call, but in everything that happens before it.

Want Colby's take on how your firm shows up before that first call? Book time with him here: https://hubs.li/Q04yDTHy0

09/24/2026

"Our audience isn't on social media." Tess Grande hears this almost every month, usually right before she has to talk a client off the ledge about their LinkedIn numbers.

Here's the thing. 53% of U.S. adults get news from social media. Your advisors are on LinkedIn. Your prospects are on YouTube. The audience was never the problem.

Organic social builds trust, not direct response. With an estimated $84 trillion about to move to a generation that grew up on these platforms, showing up now matters more than people think.

Tess breaks down where firms get it wrong (and where to actually focus) in our article: https://hubs.li/Q04ydzHb0

What KPI is your firm using to judge whether social is working?

The latest financial marketing news from GK3 capital

09/23/2026

Ever wonder what happens before a strategy lands on your desk?

This is a glimpse into how it actually gets built: the meetings, the back-and-forth, the conversations that run twenty minutes longer than planned because someone caught something worth chasing down.

Everyone in the room actually cares whether it's right, not just whether it's done.

And honestly, it's a really good group to be in the room with where the culture is unmatched.