A Guide to Email Marketing for Financial Advisors

• Email marketing remains a cost-effective way for financial advisors to attract clients and retain business.
• Financial advisors can build a loyal client base by sending regular email newsletters, thought leadership, and other useful content to their email list.
• Automation turns email into a scalable system, helping advisors convert leads and maintain client relationships without adding more work.

Every financial advisor wants to maximize their return on investment, but many aren’t sure where to start when it comes to finding new clients. One tried-and-true method? Email marketing. With an average of $36 earned for every $1 spent on email marketing, few other channels have the same power to engage clients and bring in new leads.

In this blog, we’ll uncover the basics of email marketing for financial advisors. By the end, you’ll be able to confidently design and send financial advisor email marketing campaigns that attract new clients and help retain the ones you already have.

Keep reading to learn:

• Why you should use email marketing
• How to bring in new leads
• Tips for converting leads to clients
• How to use email to maintain relationships with existing clients
• How to use email automation tools to save time and reduce busywork

Why email works for advisory firms

Social media sites come and go, but three billion people now have an email address. With so many people online and an average email open rate of up to 21.2%, you can reach more people through email than almost any other method.

Email marketing is all about building a relationship with your customers. Don’t just market your services; offer tips that keep them on the right track for financial success and show your appreciation for their business.

Building a compliant list

A good subscription list isn’t just a list of potential clients. It also has to be compliant with anti-spam laws and consumer protection regulations. This means collecting emails through legitimate means — so not buying a list of email addresses! — and allowing new contacts to easily opt in or out of receiving emails.

Most companies build their email list through forms on their website. The best way to entice website visitors to sign up is to offer something they want in return for an email submission. In marketing, this is called a lead magnet.

Some ideas you could use for a lead magnet as a financial advisor:

• Provide a downloadable guide on a financial topic you have expertise in
• Share a useful resource like a retirement readiness checklist
• Engage website visitors with an interactive quiz
• Offer a free 15 minute consultation

Crafting an effective email campaign

Financial advisor email marketing should focus on both prospects and existing clients.

A subscriber who hasn’t engaged your services yet is a prospect. If you segment your new subscribers using email segmentation, you can send them a welcome series of 1-2 emails to capitalize on the interest from your lead magnet and start building a relationship that will hopefully result in them becoming a client.

People are more likely to open welcome messages than regular emails. Data shows that 74% of people expect to get a welcome email after subscribing. In fact, subscribers open about 50% of welcome emails. That makes them 86% more effective than standard newsletters.

The content of the emails you send to your clients will look different. This is where you can follow a more traditional newsletter format, offering updates about what’s new with your services or company.

When you offer educational insights, you improve your client’s experience and make it more likely that you’ll retain business and even receive referrals.

Converting subscribers into clients

Email marketing campaigns act like your website. They build trust and credibility but do so over a longer time period. It takes persistence to convert someone on your email list to a customer. Eventually, if your campaign is effective, interested subscribers will contact you for more information.

There are many types of campaigns to choose from after your welcome series. Try:

• Circulating a financial advisor newsletter based on your clients’ needs.
• Occasionally offering prizes that require clients to contact you.
• Pushing any articles you publish on a blog or in a journal.

A successful financial advisor newsletter nudges readers to get in touch. They build the credibility and authority required to take the leap to a more direct meeting.

Never directly sell products in emails. Try not to inundate subscribers with emails either. Space the time between messages appropriately to avoid ending up in their spam folders.

Instead, aim for a weekly newsletter or offer a monthly raffle. This way, you make sure every email they get from you offers value.

Email marketing best practices for wealth managers dictate that email isn’t enough to keep new subscribers connected. Every point in the customer lifecycle, from onboarding to conversion, should come with relevant, useful email content.

Creating compelling financial content

Content is the most important part of any financial advisor email marketing campaign. Put yourself in your prospective clients’ shoes: if they’re in the market for a financial advisor like you, what type of information are they likely to find useful and engaging?

Content is also a great way to show the human side of your business, which is key for building trust — an essential building block of any financial advisor/client relationship.

Along with personal elements that tell your audience who you are as a person, your content should include useful financial tips, insights on relevant trends, and client success stories or testimonials. Perhaps you can share updated information on how to pay for college, or tips on how to balance an investment portfolio given the latest trends in the market. This kind of content will help you build credibility and convince people that your services will improve their lives.

Automating your email campaigns

You don’t have to be a marketing wizard to reach your clients and prospects with the right email messages at just the right time. Email automation software lets you create a series of emails with content based on clients’ interactions and responses.

Drip campaigns, which include pre-written sets of messages sent to recipients over time, benefit particularly well from automation. These typically include three components:

• Welcome: This is where you introduce your audience to your brand message and ethos, setting expectations and building trust from the very first impression.
• Nurture: These emails help you stay relevant within the inboxes and minds of your list, keeping you top of mind and moving relationships forward.
• Re-engagement: Emails that re-engage your audience enable you to reconnect with contacts before it’s too late and they drift away.

Having automations in place allows you to respond immediately once someone subscribes, which is crucial to capture them at the peak of their interest — and they’ll continue to work until that lead becomes a customer or unsubscribes.

Plus, once you launch your automated campaign, you can get back to focusing on the day-to-day needs of your business, knowing that the email part is handled.

Compliance basics

All financial advisors need to follow certain rules and regulations when it comes to email marketing. This means:

• Permission-first sending: Only email people who have opted in. Purchased lists not only hurt trust, but they also tend to produce poor results and may even be illegal.
• CAN-SPAM essentials: Use honest subject lines and always include your business address in every email. Also, every email must have a clear unsubscribe option.
• Regulatory compliance: Verify applicable rules around archiving, recordkeeping, and approvals with your compliance team.

Get started with Constant Contact

As a financial advisor, trust is your most important asset when it comes to attracting new clients and retaining the ones you’ve got. Since you can’t meet with all your clients or prospects face-to-face all the time, email marketing is the perfect way to build trust at scale. With the right content and campaign strategy, you can stay connected to the clients who rely on you while introducing your expertise to people who might be considering hiring you.

You don’t have to be a marketing expert to put email marketing to work for you. Constant Contact provides everything you need to grow your practice in one place, from professional email and social media templates to email automation tools to help you nurture client relationships. Start your free trial of Constant Contact today and start turning your insights into inbox-worthy content to grow your business.