Email Marketing Strategies for Financial Advisors

Digital marketing is reshaping the way advisors connect with prospective clients. Email marketing is one branch of that and it can be an effective way to communicate with clients while fostering trust. In short, email allows you to put your brand and messaging directly in front of your target audience. Finding success with email marketing for financial advisors hinges on developing an impactful strategy.

Why Email Marketing Matters for Financial Advisors

Cold calling and in-person networking are tried-and-true methods of marketing for financial advisors. While they work, they also have limitations. Email marketing can help advisors overcome them. For example, cold calling can be time-consuming. And you might have a great conversation with a prospect, only for them to forget most of it the moment they hang up. Email marketing, on the other hand, allows you to reiterate your message regularly and leave a lasting impression.

It’s possible to build trust through email if you’re consistently offering useful tips and advice or simply letting your audience know that you’re there for them should they need help. The goal of email marketing is to draw clients to you by underscoring your value, rather than simply trying to sell your services.

Implementing a Successful Email Marketing Strategy

Email marketing is more than just dashing off a few sentences or including a plug to your website and hitting send. There’s some fine-tuning that goes into creating a successful email marketing campaign that produces tangible results for your advisory business. Consider applying these tips as you approach email marketing for financial advisors.

1. Offer an Incentive to Opt-In

Prospective clients may not give out their email information freely when there’s no reason to do so. Offering an incentive that provides clear value can help you to get prospects onto your list. For example, you might offer a PDF file of a financial planning checklist or cheat sheet or a link to a webinar you recorded on a financial planning topic that’s relevant to them. Your incentive should be designed to pique a prospect’s curiosity, so they’re encouraged to learn more about you and your business.

2. Use a Strong Subject Line

Email inboxes can quickly get cluttered and if you want your messages to stand out, you’ll need a strong subject line. Otherwise, they can end up in the trash without being opened. A good subject line should have a personal element while including wording that entices prospects to click. Something that’s short, sweet and packs an emotional punch or speaks directly to the reader’s need may be all you need to convince them to open and read the message.

3. Focus on Value

People are busy and they don’t have time to read every email that lands in their inboxes. Your emails need to provide value that will make them want to read them from beginning to end. What kind of content should you be sending? It really depends on your audience and their needs, but you might find success with messages that include practical financial planning tips or updates about current events that might affect them financially.

4. Find Your Timing Sweet Spot

Sending a perfectly crafted marketing email won’t get you very far if you’re sending it at the wrong time. If you’re not sure when you should be sending emails to clients or prospects, you can try experimenting with different times to see when your open rates are the highest. You can then mold your email marketing strategy to fit that schedule.

For example, if you find open rates are highest when you send out emails at 10 a.m. on a Thursday, then you’d want to stick to that schedule consistently from week to week. Doing so conditions your clients and prospects to expect those emails and, if you’re writing great content, to open and click.

5. Segment Your List

If you’re using an email service provider to send out messages, you may have the ability to segment your list. That’s a helpful feature as it can allow you to target specific groups within your customer base with messaging that speaks to them.

For example, say you work primarily with married couples in their 30s and 40s. You might choose to segment your list based on which of your clients have children and which do not, as that can influence the type of financial advice they seek. Dividing your list this way can allow you to provide content that’s likely to be most valuable to each group.

6. Ask Clients What They Need

One of the easiest ways to leverage email marketing to your advantage is to ask your clients what they need. For example, you might send a survey asking what kind of email content they’d like to read. That can help you produce content that’s valuable and has a better chance of being read, so you’re not wasting your time drafting emails each week.

If you notice that a large number of your subscribers are not opening your emails, you could also send a survey asking them to share why. And if you get no response, you can then decide whether to cull them from your list altogether.

7. Follow Compliance Rules

The CAN-SPAM Act establishes guidelines for email marketing and it’s important to understand what you can and can’t do when contacting your list or collecting information from them. For example, you must include a valid address letting recipients know where the message is being sent from. You must also give them clear direction on how to opt out of your list should they choose to do so.

There are additional guidelines regulating the content of the emails themselves. For instance, subject lines cannot be deceptive and if you’re including affiliate links in your messaging, those must be disclosed to readers. Being aware of the rules can ensure that you’re not running afoul of any federal laws when using email marketing.

8. Don’t Overdo It

Emailing too frequently can put your email marketing efforts in jeopardy. No one wants to be bombarded by multiple emails per day and for some clients or prospects, more than one email per week may be too much.

Likewise, writing emails that are too lengthy could be a mistake as clients might skim the first few lines and lose interest in reading the rest. When in doubt, shorter is better and if there’s something you’d like to convey that requires more length you could write about it in a blog post, then share a link to it with your list.

Bottom Line

Email marketing for financial advisors isn’t that different from email marketing in other industries, in terms of what it’s designed to do. Finding a strategy that works for you can depend on what your goals are for growing and scaling and what your audience needs and expects from you. If you can communicate the right information to your clients and prospective clients then your connection can be that much stronger and you should be able to grow your business at a faster rate.

Tips for Financial Advisor Marketing

Consider email marketing alternatives. Don’t have time to focus on list-building? Using a service that allows you to connect you with prospects directly can save time, leaving you free to focus on other things. You can get leads that align with your ideal prospect profile delivered to your inbox.
Expand your reach. More people are increasingly turning to search engines to find financial advisors to work with. If you’re not leveraging the power of search yet, using an online lead generation service like SmartAsset can help you scale your business as you work on establishing your online presence.
If you’re looking for financial advisors to work with who may have different specialties than yourself, consider using our tool. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you with up to three vetted financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. If you’re ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.