We’ve all received those monthly statements from our financial institutions that inform you of your current balance or new tax document. But how often do you receive information from financial advisors that builds relationships and trust through education and information? Probably not as often as we should.
Whether you work for a financial institution or have your own financial advising business, we’ll walk through why email marketing is important for financial advisors, share examples, and offer best practices to help you create an email program that builds engaged relationships with your contact base.
Ultimately, financial advisors are in the business of trust. Your clients need to trust that you’re going to advise and manage their money and assets to help their portfolio grow. And, with something as complex as finances, your clients need to know that you’re not only a good human being who has their best interest in mind but also an expert who is qualified to take on account management.
So why email marketing? Email allows you to directly communicate with your contact base, build relationships, share resources, and position yourself as an expert in the space. This channel gives you the opportunity to nurture contacts and answer questions without coming off as overly pushy or sales-y.
2. Personalized messaging: You can segment your email list based on demographics, interests, or behaviors to deliver highly targeted messages. Segmentation and hyper-personalization techniques allow you to create an even more engaging experience for your audience.
3. Relationship building: Consistent email communication helps you stay top-of-mind with your clients and potential clients. While sharing valuable insights, market updates, and personalized advice fosters trust and credibility.
4. Lead generation and conversion: When you build out an email program, you can nurture leads through a sales funnel, providing relevant information at each stage and encouraging conversions.
5. Measurable results: One of the major perks of email marketing is how easy it is to track performance. Metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates help you refine your strategy and optimize future campaigns.
You could go down a rabbit hole of all the email marketing tips and best practices out there, so here’s are five tips to focus on to get your email program started.
Before you can send marketing emails, you need a list of contacts who want to receive information from you. Consider creating an educational asset like, “The Ins and Outs of Your 401K” or “The Top Tips to Help You Wisely Invest” that users can enter their information to download. Check out this article for more ways to grow your email list from scratch.
As financial advisors, email design probably isn’t in your wheelhouse, so leverage free email marketing templates to help you easily design beautiful emails. When looking for templates, make sure they’re designed for both mobile and desktop as 46% of email opens occur on mobile.
Automated email marketing ensures the timely delivery of welcome emails, subscription confirmations, and lead-generation assets, allowing you set up emails ahead of time and send emails when certain triggers are met. This saves you time and keeps your customers happy through immediate notifications.
Avoid no-reply emails whenever possible. You’re building relationships, so give your contacts the opportunity to respond and ask questions. This allows you to further your relationship with those contacts and show you care about their financial questions and goals.
As a financial expert, you know the important of privacy and compliance when it comes to personal information and financial accounts. Extend the same courtesy to your email program. Set the bar high by meeting email authentication standards, which will also improve your email deliverability rates.
In this email from Vanguard, an investment advisor company, Vanguard speaks to one tangible problem–figuring out the right amount of cash to have on hand–and provides a framework to help you address the problem.
With this email, Vanguard provides expert advice and the resources to help you follow through and adjust your cash reserves.
Benefits provider, Wex, seamlessly blends information about a health savings account (HSA) with a promotional push. The email suggests reenrolling in a high-deductible health plan with an HSA and backs it up with data and resources for further reading.
Financial email newsletters
Money with Katie is not technically a financial advisor, but she shares her financial experiences, interviews with financial experts, and resources in her weekly newsletter. If you’re looking for a newsletter to emulate, this is the gold standard. With 200,000 subscribers, Money with Katie promotes financial literacy and shares insights on complex topics within the financial world.
If you take anything away from this article, it should be to prioritize building credibility through educational resources. By continuously sharing resources, personalizing content, and responding to emails, you show that you care about the people on the receiving end of the emails and shine a light on your expertise.
Getting started with email marketing doesn’t have to be complicated, especially when you have an email service provider like Twilio SendGrid in your toolset. Explore Twilio SendGrid today and sign up for free account.
