Email marketing makes perfect sense for financial advisors. It is painfully simple, incredibly low cost, and hardly takes time out of your day, but email marketing has been consistently proven to yield a high ROI. In this industry, clients require multiple touches per month to keep your services at the front of their minds, and they actually expect it; recent studies have shown that clients most prefer to be emailed by their advisors 1-3 times per month.
Advisors have had success emailing their clients in all different formats, but the most common and effective is the monthly newsletter. It is a great way to create brand awareness, give clients and prospects different kinds of content in one place, and advertise your services/events. Your business as an advisor relies greatly on referrals, and email marketing is a great way to encourage them; newsletters are easy for clients to forward, spreading your sales message to new prospects you wouldn’t have reached otherwise.
Creating an impactful email marketing campaign requires strategic planning and careful content creation. Luckily, we have tons of experience marketing via email, so we created this ultimate guide on email marketing for financial advisors.
1. Building a Great List
People tend to put all their focus on the content when creating their email marketing campaigns, gut great content goes to waste if your emailing list is lacking. You should compile all of your current clients as well as your leads to create your initial list, but also make sure to actively seek out potential clients’ emails. Add a newsletter signup box to your website or landing page, require email addresses on new account forms, and advertise your newsletter on your blog/social media accounts. Market your newsletter as something beneficial to recipients; let people know that you’ll be providing free information, tips, and news that will help them in some way and they will want to give you their email address.
2. Devising an Attention-Grabbing Subject Line
The subject line is arguably the most important part of an email. Regardless of how good the content is in the body of the email, nobody will ever read it if they aren’t interested in the subject line. High open-rates are the first and most essential step to high click-through and conversion rates. Make your subject line a question, include a number or percentage in it, use the word “FREE”, or the phrase “Don’t do (blank) until you’ve tried (blank)” These types of subject lines generate curiosity and excitement. The more unique and enticing, the better, so get creative with your headlines and don’t be afraid to experiment.
3. Segmenting and Personalizing
Another thing you should pay attention to before you shift your focus to content is how you segment your email list. If you provide multiple services to your clients, separate them by their personal needs. For example, you don’t want to be sending information on retirement options to clients who have already retired, so create a separate segment for each group and cater your content to each segment. The most effective marketing is personalized. Consumers want to feel like the marketing they receive is made special for them. Something as simple as including the recipient’s name at the top of the email goes a long way. Whatever information you have about your clients or prospects can be used as variable data to personalize their emails.
4. Creating Content That People NEED
Now is the time to come up with the meat of your email marketing. The best newsletters include various types and formats of information, like tips/articles related to financial topics, info on your new products/services, your event schedule for the next month, and deadlines to sign up for events. Make sure that you advertise your content as something that your clients need… people don’t need a free guide for investing, they need financial security, so make sure you are selling the latter in your content headlines.
You should keep your content short with links for more info. You don’t need to include a full, detailed description of your products/services in every email if that information can be found on your website. Instead, you should include a quick blurb and a link. Don’t be afraid to break up your text and leave some white space; emails shouldn’t be dense or crowded and they should always be easily scannable (people spend on average 20 seconds reading an email). You should always take the opportunity to cross-promote your blog, website, and social media accounts in your emails. Even if all of these channels are covering the same content, you will have a better chance of being remembered by a potential client if they’ve seen your name in different places.
At the end of your emails, you should always include a call to action. For example, “If you are interested in learning more about this topic, sign up for my seminar here: (link)” or “Get started building your financial freedom today, give me a call at (phone #).” A great email marketing tactic is including a PS at the end of your email that contains the call to action. People always stop to read the PS, and will be more intrigued to click on your link, since it is presented as private or exclusive info. Another necessary call to action is to encourage referrals. Ask clients to forward this message to their friends. People enjoy sharing articles and things like that with each other, but they might not think to do so unless you prompt them to. Lastly, you should always include a way for recipients to unsubscribe from your email list, because it is better to let someone slip by without getting your newsletter than to lose a client because you annoyed them with too many emails.
5. Reviewing Your Analytics
The final step is to review your results and make changes accordingly. See what time of day or day of the week gets the best open and click-through rates. See what topics are getting the best response. Most email providers will provide analytics for you so you can really get a picture of what is working and what isn’t working in your email marketing. From there, it’s up to you to adjust for optimal success.
That’s it!
It’s really that simple! Creating effective email marketing campaigns relies mostly on having a great mailing list, segmenting it properly, and catering to each segment with useful content that includes a call to action. Do this, and you will surely see a huge ROI, unlike any other digital marketing channel. However, we know that email marketing can’t stand alone. Studies consistently show that combining marketing channels is the most effective way to make conversions.
