How Financial Advisors Can Use Email Marketing to Increase AUM

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As a financial advisor, you're always looking for ways to grow your business and increase your assets under management. While there are many marketing channels you can use to reach your target clients, email marketing is one of the most effective. Why? Because it allows you to send targeted, personalized messages directly to your clients and prospects.

With email marketing, you can:

Be a “trusted advisor” for clients and potential clients
Build connections with other professionals
Reach a large audience at a low cost
Stay top-of-mind with your clients and nurture them through the different stages of the buyer's journey

Despite those who claim that email is dead, marketing via email remains an effective tool for businesses that do it well. In fact, a 2020 study from HubSpot found that brands make an average of $42 for every dollar spent on email advertising!

Email Marketing Strategy for Financial Advisors

As a financial advisor, your ability to attract and retain clients is built on trust. Your reputation is paramount, and everything you do should reflect integrity and responsibility. Even with a goal of increasing AUM, your email marketing efforts should be focused on building relationships and providing value - not on selling.

Always remember this: Email is a unique marketing channel. Subscribers opt-in to receive your messages, but they also can opt-out easily if they aren’t interested in what you send.

With that, just like developing a solid financial plan, effective email marketing starts with a strategy:

1
What is your goal? Are you trying to nurture your relationship with existing clients or is the objective to acquire new clients?
2
Who is the target market for these marketing efforts? Understanding your audience is the vital first step that many advisors miss when embarking on an email marketing campaign.
3
What kind of content would be useful to your clients or potential clients? (And what kind of content can you actually produce?)
4
How frequently will you send emails? Creating content for emails takes time and effort, so set a realistic schedule for yourself. More importantly, consider how frequently your clients want to get emails from you. No one wants to feel pestered by constant emails, but sticking to a regular frequency can help make your efforts more successful.
5
Can you coordinate your email efforts with other marketing such as social media, search engines, and even offline marketing? Your clients are likely consuming information in different ways and through different channels, so synchronizing your email strategy with your other efforts is a good way of effectively making the total greater than the sum of the parts.
6
How will you assess the success of your efforts? It’s useful to develop a basic understanding of email metrics like open rates and click-through rates to evaluate if you are making progress in achieving your goal.

Once you have a good idea of your overall strategy, it’s time to get started with your email marketing.

Let's get started.

1. Create a Content Calendar to Plan your Email Marketing Campaigns

The first step in any email marketing campaign is to create a content calendar. This will help you map out the different types of email content you'll be sending and when you'll be sending them. Having a content calendar will also help you stay organized and on track with your email marketing goals.

2. Segment your List to Send more targeted Emails

One of the benefits of email marketing is that you can segment your list and send targeted emails. For example, if you have a list of clients and prospects, you can segment them into different groups based on their location, investment goals, or risk tolerance. This way, you can send emails that are more relevant to their needs and interests.

3. Choose an Email Marketing Tool

There are many options for creating and delivering emails, from full marketing automation systems to easy-to-use tools designed specifically for email marketing. Choose the one that meets your needs based on price, features, reliability, and options.

Tips for Successful Email Campaigns

Email can be a very effective tool for marketing - if it is done well. Here are a few tips for creating emails that work.

Subject lines. Weak subject lines are one of the main reasons that emails go unopened. Your subject line should be clear, descriptive, relatively short (less than 9-10 words), and have limited punctuation.
From address. Your recipients will be more likely to open your email if they recognize the “from” address. Because scams are prevalent online, people might simply delete your message if they’re not sure that it’s from you. Depending on how your practice is structured, the “from” address could be the name of the firm or your name.
Compelling content. There is a great deal of competition among financial advisors, yet there is surprisingly little differentiation among their email marketing efforts. This is an opportunity to stand out from the crowd by providing something unique in an authentic voice. Think about how you speak with clients, and try to make your content true to your brand. Unless your email marketing is a long-form newsletter, it’s best to keep it relatively short. If you want to provide more detailed information, consider linking to a blog or website.
Personalize your emails with dynamic content. Make your emails more relevant to your recipients by using dynamic content. Dynamic content is information that changes based on the recipient of the email. This could be something as simple as adding their first name to the subject line, displaying different images based on their location, or serving different content based on their market segment.
Make your emails visually appealing. People are visual creatures, so it's important to use engaging visuals in your emails. This could include adding graphs, images, infographics, charts, or even videos to convey information in the most accessible form. There are many free tools available that allow you to create interesting visuals, or you can hire someone with experience.
Include a call-to-action. Your emails should be focused on meeting your recipients’ needs, but they should also have a clear business purpose. One way to achieve this is by including strong calls to action in each email. A CTA is an actionable button or link that tells the recipient what they should do next (e.g., "Download our free guide"). Make sure your CTAs are clear, concise, and easy to spot so that people know what they need to do next.
Stay in compliance. Be sure that you understand compliance requirements. Rules for all business emails, such as including an address and making it possible to easily unsubscribe, must be followed. It’s also important to follow guidelines about general communications like email newsletters that apply specifically to financial professionals. Financial advice should only be given to individuals, so you should avoid promoting specific securities or even “adopting” opinions of articles you link to. Be careful about how you craft any calls to action in your emails.
Proofread and edit. Grammar mistakes and typos can damage readers’ perception of your brand, so it is important that your writing is error-free. If you are not comfortable with your writing skills, consider hiring a professional. Always use spell-check and a grammar tool, and have your writing fact-checked and proofread.
Responsive design. According to HubSpot, the majority (67%) of emails are now read on a phone. Your emails should be formatted so that they can easily be read on any device. Most email platforms and tools will do this automatically, but you should confirm for yourself before sending a message.
Test, test, test. Last but not least, don't forget to test your emails. Test out different subject lines, blast times, sender names, and CTA copy to see what gets the best results. Then, once you find what works best for your audience, stick with it!

Final Thoughts

Email marketing is a powerful tool that financial advisors can use to increase their AUM. By following the tips and strategies above—such as using a content calendar, segmenting their list, and personalizing their emails with dynamic content—financial advisors can create email campaigns that will engage and convert their target clients.

About the Author

Corey Philip

I have been in the 'online business' space since 2009 when I started an eCommerce business selling motorcycle parts (sold in 2012). Since then I have owned and operated several successful online business (and had a fair share of failures), along with owning offline home services businesses. Currently my focus is online businesses that are profitable with paid traffic. As a 'self employed individual' I do not use Linkedin, but you can connect with my on my personal instagram and youtube which largely revolve around my mountain biking passion!