Front Page PR this week rolled out a general solicitation marketing program for broker-dealers and crowdfunding platforms looking to market investment opportunities to the next generation of accredited investors.

The firm’s announcement is designed to encourage broker-dealers and others who offer investments and securities to use previously-banned general solicitation methods such as television, print, social/digital media and press.

It is a sign of things to come, and symptomatic of new opportunities for decisions, and potential confusion, as more wealthy people see “more investments, and a greater variety of investments, than they’ve ever seen before,” April Rudin, chief executive and founder, The Rudin Group, told Family Wealth Report.

“That’s what makes it even more important for wealth managers and family offices to get themselves up to speed on these alternative investments. Clients are going to be bringing things they’ve seen advertised to them… and their advisors may not be up to date on all these investment strategies or opportunities - or even what crowdfunding is,” Rudin said.

Wealth managers will really need to demonstrate their expertise, and ultimately guide the clients through this “new investing environment,” Rudin added, or risk losing these clients.

The news follows the SEC's Regulation D ruling on July 10 this year, which lifted an 80-year-old ban barring the general solicitation and advertising in certain private securities offerings. Abolishing the ban was required under the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, established to help startups and small business with regard to financing regulations.

But as of September 23, 2013, registered financial institutions will legally be able to market their investment opportunities to what Front Page PR believes is an “an untapped market” of some 8.7 million US households that qualify as accredited investors.

Indeed, many have welcomed the SEC’s move - particularly companies operating in sectors where sources of venture capital, for example, appear to be drying out.

"Over the past five years the pent up demand from small business and entrepreneurs who need money has been growing at an alarming rate as bank loans have been almost been impossible to get," said Robert Hoskins, Front Page PR's director of media relations.

On the flip side, critics argue that lifting the ban will expose small and/or inexperienced investors to fraud as a result of loosened investment protections. The SEC responded to this by adopting additional rules that disqualify felons and other “bad actors” from participating in certain securities offerings as required by the Dodd-Frank Act.