Financial advisor newsletters are a commonly overlooked yet important component of inbound marketing for financial advisor firms. If your financial advisor firm does not have an email drip list and email newsletter, it is in your best interest to establish them sooner rather than later. Do not be intimidated by the prospect of creating an email newsletter that keeps your financial advisory firm’s current and prospective clients in the loop. Thoughtful newsletters have the potential to build the credibility of your firm and convert names on drip lists into active prospects.
What is our goal? Build credibility and trust with information that helps clients, prospects, and centers of influence make better financial decisions.
Let’s take a look at some best practices for creating an effective email newsletter strategy that is part of financial advisor marketing.
Where to Start
Finding the best financial advisor email marketing service provider is the launching point for your firm’s email newsletter. Such providers empower your firm to collect email addresses and generate mass emails to hundreds or thousands of email addresses in mere seconds.
If you run into any stumbling blocks launching your email newsletter after selecting an email marketing service agency, you can reach out to their customer service department for assistance. In fact, many of the providers have intuitive platforms with dashboards that empower you to more easily manage your email list and subscriber base. FYI, the agency can do all of the work for you.
Build a Quality Email List
Building a quality email list is a process that takes time. You can start sending emails to a small number of addresses while you continue adding to your email subscriber base each month, gradually expanding your email list with the addition of current clients as well as potential clients, centers of influence, and others that would benefit from the information in your drip emails.
Be sure to include an email list signup form on your financial advisory firm’s homepage and other pages of your online footprint to facilitate signups. If you find few people sign up for your email list, dangle some positive reinforcement to encourage a more positive response. For example, positive reinforcement could take the shape of a free eBook, a free whitepaper or some type of free incentive - for example, a plan or portfolio review.
Consider What You Would Like to Communicate to Your Audience
No one needs more financial information. Everyone needs tips that help them achieve financial goals and solve financial problems.
Advances in technology have made it surprisingly easy for financial advisors to connect with potential clients as well as current clients through email messaging. Creating an email newsletter is your opportunity to establish your financial advisory firm as a thought leader, a credible expert, and a trusted financial professional. Whether you would like to highlight your firm’s services, detail industry advancements, or provide financial tips, you can accomplish all of that with your email newsletter.
It should be a major concern to learn that 97.7% of visitors to your website (or any other financial advisor website) exit the site without contacting you - never to return. In all likelihood, they found another financial advisor website they liked better. However, if some of these visitors were to sign-up to receive your email newsletter, they could be nurtured over time until they are ready to talk, which is your opportunity to convert them into revenue-producing clients.
Keep in mind, some people do not use social media yet nearly everyone uses email. Choose your financial advisor email marketing newsletter subject matter carefully, connect with those who sign up for the newsletter at frequent intervals and you will make considerable headway in your quest to convert names into active prospects and prospects into clients.
Begin With a Welcome Email
The content of your first email messages is of the utmost importance. As noted above, it is in your best interest to invest some time brainstorming types of content for your email newsletter. Direct email agencies can also help you make these decisions. However, you don’t have to jump directly into emails that describe financial pain points and their solutions.
Instead, start with a warm, friendly welcome email. This is your opportunity to formally kick off your email newsletter, introduce yourself and your financial advisor firm, and give subscribers a sense of what the newsletter is all about.
Keep in mind, Welcome emails have a 50% plus open rate, a figure that is higher than other general email newsletters so be sure to knock it out of the park with this initial correspondence.
Don’t forget to express gratitude to your email newsletter subscribers, letting them know you appreciate their readership and also their financial situations. A little empathy goes a long way in your welcome. In addition, give your readers a general idea of how frequently you will email them and try to stick to that schedule as closely as possible.
Continue to Prompt Online Visitors to Sign up for Your Emails
It is not enough to add a single email newsletter signup form to your website. The “set it and forget it” strategy will only work to a limited extent in the context of email newsletters. Add several email newsletter signup forms throughout your website.
Furthermore, it even makes sense to add a second prompt that appears when online visitors scroll down your webpages. As long as this follow-up prompt is not overly aggressive, the user experience can still be positive and not intimidating. Continue to experiment with various creative prompts along with the positioning of email signup forms on your website until you achieve the perfect combination that maximizes your email newsletter signups.
Social Media Will Help Expand Your Email List
Your email list won’t reach its true potential unless you take full advantage of social media. It is not enough to merely promote your newsletter on your website. It is imperative that you also mention your financial advisory firm’s newsletter on your social media platforms and aggressively promote the newsletter on these platforms.
Those who follow your firm on social media or check out your page from time to time will prove more receptive to mentions for your newsletter. Many of these social media users are ripe for conversion so be sure to steer them toward your email newsletter at least once per month.
Consider Being a Specialist
Specialists have more credibility than generalists. They are supposed to know more on particular topics. For example, you are a retirement planning specialist. More people will listen to you because you have specialized knowledge that impacts them. Be sure to integrate this type of thinking into your newsletter.
Sweat the Small Stuff of the Landing Page
Social media users and others who visit various parts of your financial advisor firm’s online footprint will be redirected to your landing page when they want to learn more about your email newsletter. This is precisely why the subtleties of your financial advisor firm’s landing page are of the utmost importance.
The landing page should look polished, be intuitive and load in less than three seconds. Tout the merits of your financial advisor newsletter as well as your services on the landing page and you will find your signups and subsequent conversions increase at a faster rate as you build credibility and become a trusted source for financial information.
