Best Email Marketing Strategies for Financial Advisors

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways financial advisors can reach potential clients and grow their firms.

After helping hundreds of financial advisors generate leads and get more conversions with email marketing strategies (see some of our client results), here are my top email marketing strategies for financial advisors.

What are the top financial advisor email marketing strategies?

Here are some of the best email marketing strategies for financial advisors:

1. Use a lead magnet

The best way to start building your email list as a financial advisor is to offer an incentive for people to opt-in and sign up for your email list.

You can do this by offering a valuable lead magnet.

A lead magnet is an incentive you offer in exchange for someone’s contact information. This could be a free report, eBook, or video. 

For financial advisors, I recommend using a VSL (Video Sales Letter) lead magnet because this typically converts the most leads into appointments and clients.

If people willingly give you their name and email to receive your lead magnet, you’ll get higher quality leads, and your email marketing results will be much more successful.

2. Grow your email list proactively

Once you have a lead magnet, it’s time to start growing your email list as a financial advisor. This is the next step to building a successful financial advisor email marketing strategy.

As a financial advisor, you can build your email list using free and paid digital marketing strategies.

Low-cost or free ways to grow your email list as a financial advisor:

• SEO lead generation
• YouTube lead generation
• LinkedIn outreach

Paid strategies to grow your email list as a financial advisor:

• Facebook ads
• TikTok ads
• Google ads
• YouTube ads

In my experience, the top two paid advertising channels for financial advisors are Facebook ads and TikTok ads.

Here is a list of the top lead generation strategies specifically for financial advisors.

3. Avoid fancy newsletter style emails

As a financial advisor, making your emails look personal is important to getting high email open rates and engagement.

Avoid using fancy newsletter-style email templates because:

The extra HTML and images needed for newsletter-style emails increase the chances your emails go to spam

These emails look less personal and are less likely to build a connection with prospects

Instead, it’s better to use simple text-based emails (with maybe one or two images) similar to how you would email a friend.

In our experience, sending simple text-based emails has a 25% better open rate and click-through rate than using newsletter-style company emails.

4. Make emails easy to read

A successful financial advisor email marketing campaign will use emails that are easy to read. You can make emails easy to read by using simple language, bullet points and images to break up the content.

As a financial advisor, it’s important to avoid using jargon that can be confusing or intimidating to potential clients. Instead, use a conversational tone that connects with your audience on a human level.

It also helps to personalize your emails using the recipient’s name.

By doing so, you’ll avoid e-mail spam traps, build trust and establish a deeper connection with your potential clients.

5. Send emails from a person

In addition to making your emails look personal, it’s important to send your emails from a person rather than a company generic email account. 

As a financial advisor, this adds a personal touch and makes it easier for your potential clients to connect with you. 

Use your name and email address as the sender, and include a personal signature at the end of your email.

This way, your potential clients will feel like they are receiving an email from a real person rather than a faceless corporation.

6. Provide value in your emails

To succeed in email marketing as a financial advisor, it’s crucial to provide value in your emails. 

Instead of constantly selling, share information and insights that your potential clients will find useful and relevant to their needs. 

By doing so, you build trust and establish yourself as an authority in your field. 

Consider sharing industry news, trends, and tips to help your potential clients make informed decisions.

7. Use a call-to-actions (CTAs)

For financial advisors, including a call to action (CTA) in your emails is crucial to drive conversions and move leads through your sales funnel. 

A well-crafted CTA should be included after providing valuable information to your readers.

It should be specific and guide them toward taking the desired action, such as scheduling a consultation.

Keep in mind that the language you use in your CTA is important. Make sure it is action-oriented, clear, and concise, and emphasizes the benefit for the potential client. 

For example, instead of “Contact us for more information,” try “Schedule a free consultation to discuss your financial goals.” 

A strong CTA can greatly increase the likelihood that your potential clients will take the desired action.

8. Email leads regularly

As a financial advisor, it’s important to be consistent with your email marketing efforts. 

Consistency helps keep your brand top of mind for your leads and clients. 

However, you also don’t want to overwhelm them with too many emails.

I recommend you start with one email per week and monitor how your audience responds. If you notice a high engagement rate, you can gradually increase the frequency of your emails. 

But if you notice a high unsubscribe rate or low engagement, it may be time to reduce your email frequency or adjust your content strategy. 

For our financial advisor clients, we typically send one or two emails per week and have found that works well for most advisors. It’s worth noting that many successful investment firms, like Fisher Investments, send out one weekly email every Friday.

As a good rule of thumb, test and monitor your email frequency to see what works best for your specific audience.

9. Be Patient

Converting advisor leads into clients with email marketing takes time, especially in the financial advisory industry, where trust is crucial. 

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see immediate results from your email marketing efforts. 

For our financial advisor clients, we’ve found that most leads convert after receiving 3 to 6 months worth of weekly follow-up emails.

Keep providing value to your readers and building trust with them, and they will eventually convert into clients. The longer you follow up with your financial leads, the more conversions you’ll get.

10. Automate your email marketing

Busy financial advisors don’t send follow-up emails to leads manually! To get the best email marketing results as a financial advisor, you must automate your follow-up emails.

You can automate your follow up emails by creating an automated email sequence instead of sending out one-off email broadcasts.

An automated email sequence is a pre-written set of emails that are sent out to potential clients on a predetermined schedule. 

This allows advisors to provide valuable information to their leads on a consistent basis without the need to send out emails all the time manually.

Watch my free Masterclass training for more info on automating your follow-up emails to convert more leads into appointments & clients.

11. Choose the right email software

It’s important to use email marketing software that is compliant and follows all the rules and regulations required by advisors.

As a financial advisor, you also need to choose an email service provider that is easy to use, has advanced automation features, and can integrate with other tools you may use, such as a CRM or landing page builder. 

Most of my advisor clients use Kartra, which is an all-in-one email marketing software for sending out automated emails.

Kartra is also an all-in-one funnel-building tool designed to automate your marketing and lead generation.

Tip: Before sending any emails, it’s important you stay compliant by submitting emails to your compliance department before any emails go live.

12. Segment your email list

Segmenting your email list is especially important for financial advisors, as it allows you to tailor your messaging and recommendations to each client’s specific needs and interests. 

By dividing your subscribers into different groups based on their investment goals, risk tolerance, and other criteria, you can send more targeted and personalized emails that are more likely to resonate with each group. 

For example, you might create separate segments for clients interested in long-term retirement planning and those looking for short-term investment opportunities. 

It also helps to filter contacts on your list by their stage in the buyer journey. For example, you may want to send more emails to leads but fewer to contacts who have converted into clients.

This will not only help you improve engagement and conversions but also build stronger relationships with your clients by demonstrating that you understand their unique needs and are committed to providing them with tailored advice.

13. Split test emails

Split testing and improving your financial advisor emails is an ongoing process that can help you get better results over time. 

Some elements you can test include your subject line, sender name, email content, CTAs, and email frequency. 

Most email marketing tools will allow you to split-test different emails by segmenting your list.

Use A/B testing to compare different versions of your emails and see which ones perform best. Then, based on your results, make changes and improvements.

14. Make it about them (not you)

It’s important to make all the emails you send out to leads about them; not you.

A big mistake I see from other advisors is using words like “We” or “I” instead of “You”.

For example, the following subject line, “How we help you avoid running out of money in retirement” uses the word “We”. It would be better to say, “How you can avoid running out of money in retirement”. This makes it about them.

Using simple copywriting techniques like this can help increase your email open rates and conversions.

So, in all your email subject lines, email text, and marketing content, ensure it’s about them and how they can achieve a specific desired result.

15. Use testimonials

A successful email marketing campaign will convert leads into clients. One of the best ways to get more conversions from your marketing emails is to use client testimonials.

Thankfully, the SEC has released new guidelines that allow financial advisors to use testimonials in their digital marketing.

In my experience, sending testimonial emails to prospective clients is one of the fastest ways to convert leads into clients.

For best results, I also recommend adding testimonials on your financial advisor website.

Of course, using testimonials is easier if you generate life insurance leads or annuity leads since insurance services are less regulated than wealth management.

Conclusion

Email marketing is a powerful tool for financial advisors to generate leads, build trust with their audience, and ultimately convert leads into clients. 

By following these email marketing tips, you can create effective email marketing campaigns that boost conversions and grow your business. 

Remember to be patient and consistent, and always provide value to your readers.

FAQs related to email marketing