Email marketing is a powerful digital marketing tool for Financial Advisors. Why? Well, because it’s relatively free, doesn’t take much time, and has the best ROI of all the marketing tactics out there.
I regularly recommend that Financial Advisors use email marketing for prospecting, nurturing leads, and keeping their current clients happy and informed. Let’s look at some email marketing statistics so that you can understand why I’m such a big fan of this tool for Financial Advisors:
- Around 50% of consumers buy from marketing emails at least once per month.
- Email marketing has an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent.
- Smartphone users – which, let’s face it, is everyone – prefer to receive brand communications via email.
- Over 75% of marketers say that they have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months.
- A welcome email, which would be the start of your marketing emails to a prospective client, can have a conversion rate of up to 52%.
With over four billion daily email users, your audience is endless. And, while people will need to opt-in to receive your emails for GDPR compliance, you still have massive potential to reach a wide audience. So, if you’re not using email marketing for your firm, you’re truly missing out.
I’d love to share some of my top email marketing tips with you so that you can start off on the right foot – keep reading.
Choosing the right frequency
No, I’m not talking about radio frequencies here. I’m talking about finding the perfect balance between emailing your database too often or too little.
Prime real estate
When you publish a post on social media, there’s a high chance that people will simply scroll past it without paying an ounce of attention. However, email marketing allows Financial Advisors to speak directly to prospects via their inboxes.
The right balance
Just because you have permission to email somebody, doesn’t mean you should misuse this connection by sending them constant sales emails. On the other hand, you don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to engage your audience by only emailing them for a couple of months.
Think about it from your own perspective, how often would you want to hear from a brand if you were still on the fence about purchasing their services? I’ll bet your answer isn’t every day.
My advice is to start by spacing out your email sequence to one mail per week. You can then think about sending drop-off emails or drip campaigns twice a month.
Deciding on your email content
Before you design an email marketing template or start tinkering with automation, you actually need to have content to send out in your emails.
Again, ask yourself what you would want to receive via marketing emails. Would a constant hard sell get you to convert? Probably not. You’d be more pleased to receive useful, valuable, informative content that helps you in some way or another.
Content that your audience cares about
Constantly selling your services as a Financial Advisor to your email database will most likely get you a lot of unsubscribes, spam is for cans, not email. But, if you’re providing content that is actually valuable to your audience, the chances are that they’ll stick around and stay subscribed for more interesting information.
You’re already an expert in the field of financial advice and planning, use email campaigns to share your expertise and top tips as well as your opinion or analysis of current trends in the investment market that potential clients may be interested in. You don’t have to search for content to share – share what you know in your email marketing.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t sell your services using email marketing. You absolutely should. But much like frequency, the amount of selling versus sharing information needs to be a balanced approach.
Make it personal
Okay, here’s one more stat for you regarding email marketing for Financial Advisors: personalized emails deliver a transactional rate of over six times higher than generic emails. In fact, targeted and personalized emails generate 58% of all email marketing revenue with an ROI of 122%.
Personal connections
My message here is to personalize your marketing emails. Personalization is key to both how you treat your current clients and the connection you want to build with potential clients. You want to build that personal connection with subscribers as much as possible. If you don’t know who your ideal client is than how can you personalize your email marketing?
Automate to save time
But this doesn’t mean you have to spend hours creating personalized emails to each subscriber in your database. I would never recommend something that’s going to bog you down when you could be promoting your services.Email automation tools like Mailchimp or HubSpot, for example, can use the information associated with a subscriber to personalize your email to them. I’ve used both of these tools; Mailchimp was a bit too basic while HubSpot will most likely be way more than you need not to mention it can be quite expensive. I ended up using ActiveCampaign which I love; they have a great platform with tons of features, pretty easy to use/learn, great customer service & support, and really affordable.
Targeted emails
Email automation software will offer multiple factors that you can personalize, such as the subscriber’s first and last name, age, and location. Making your email more targeted using these specifics is the best way to make your message a little more personal.
Think about it, if you receive an email marketing message that just says “hi” at the start, you’ll likely feel like it’s quite a generic email. However, if the email starts out with “Hi Derek,” you’ve immediately got something that makes you feel more valued.
Start segmenting for success
Another top tip of mine regarding email marketing for Financial Advisors is to use segmentation to your advantage.
What is segmentation?
When it comes to email marketing, segmentation refers to dividing up your database of subscribers into groups based on where they are in your sales funnel or on their personal details.
Ideally, when your subscribers subscribe to your marketing emails, they’ll fill out a form that gives you some personal details. You can use this information to assign them to certain groups.
You don’t want to speak to every subscriber in the same way. The message that’s relevant to a new subscriber who is a potential client won’t be relevant to a current client whom you’re trying to retain.
Ways to segment
Depending on your email marketing tool, you can segment your audience according to when they joined your database, how often they engage with your emails, their age, and their financial circumstances.
Of course, you need to get this data from somewhere. So be sure to have fields available in the subscription form that allows subscribers to tell you more about them.
Ways to use email marketing
Although the list is almost endless in how you can leverage email marketing here is how I use it for both my clients as an RIA and to financial advisors I serve at Conneqtor:
- When someone downloads one of my eBooks, they automatically get added to my email list and pre-built email nurturing automations
- When someone attends one of my webinars
- When someone simply subscribes to my blog updates
- Scheduling review meetings with my clients
- Sending one-off updates about a variety of things
Lead with value, pre-build your email marketing campaigns, and then drive warm traffic into your sequences. The rest is pure math.
Wrapping up on email marketing for Financial Advisors
I sincerely hope these tips will help you get started with your own email marketing the right way. There’s a good chance that you’lll realize the treasure trove you’ve unlocked once you start using email marketing. This potent tool is key to any digital marketing strategy as a Financial Advisor.
Keep an eye on my blog, where I will share part 2 of my guidelines for Financial Advisors who are new to email marketing. I also regularly share marketing advice for Advisors on my blog, so stay tuned.
See you next week for part 2!
Cheers,
Derek Notman
