The Ultimate Email Marketing Guide for Financial Advisors

The importance of email marketing in business continues to grow as the use of technology becomes increasingly popular. FMG is known for developing successful websites for financial advisors, but we always want to take it a step further. So, to help you tackle email marketing, we shared some of the knowledge and experience that we’ve gained in this area in a blog post series: Email Marketing 101. In this post, we recap each of the posts in the Email Marketing 101 series as a quick overview for you.

1. Write a Strong Subject Line

What’s the first thing that you notice when you receive a new email in your inbox?

For most people, it’s the email’s subject line. In fact, 35% of email recipients open an email based on the subject line alone. Subject lines determine a person’s initial reaction to a message and often decide if the subscriber opens the email at all.

For this reason, we recommend figuring out a great subject line first. After all, you can write the best message in your email ever, but it won’t be effective if your email never gets opened!

How to improve your subject line

• Personalization: A great place to start with your subject line is personalization! Email personalization helps customers engage with your businesses by relating to something that interests them. In fact, 74% of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement.
• Highlight Benefits: Like most marketing, you need to show why engaging your message is valuable to the reader. This can be difficult with a subject line, given such limited space. Start by distilling what makes your email valuable, and seeing if you can fit that into your subject. If you can’t, then try to find a way to hint at the value.
• Use Evocative language: Furthermore, you’ll want to use language that engages the reader and piques their interest. Emotionally charged and evocative language has a better effect than flat descriptions. This list of words for subject lines from CoSchedule can help:

 

2. Find an Effective Send Time

Choosing when to send your email messages may seem like an afterthought, but it is very important that the decision of when to send your campaigns is well-thought-out.

Start by using email campaign send time best practices to give yourself a starting point. From there, track the performance of your emails and test different send times. Over time, you will find a time that works best for your clients and prospects.

3. Use an Email Service Provider

Is your advisory firm utilizing an email service provider? If not, then you should be!

For example, FMG’s email service gives financial advisors an authentic and timely way to communicate with their clients. With this platform, users can launch robust, multi-touchpoint content campaigns from a streamlined, easy-to-use dashboard.  The content in the media library includes video, editorial, and infographic content, and it is completely editable and can be tailored to fit the needs and niche of each user.

Once you have pored through the content and figured out which you would like to send, put on your website, etc.,  the content can be scheduled to be sent out via email or social media with the use of branded landing pages. We know that compliance is a huge deal, especially in the financial industry, so all of your content and work are automatically archived to meet these standards.

If you are not ready to commit to a particular service yet, there are other email service providers available to choose to facilitate your company’s email campaigns, such as  AWeber, Constant Contact, and MailChimp.

4. Provide Valuable Content

When you are creating content, it is imperative that what you are producing is valuable to your subscribers. Doing this creates value for your company and helps build your brand. Since clients are exposed to thousands of messages every single day, you need to provide content that’s actually compelling.

We mentioned this in the subject line info above. But once you’ve captured your reader’s attention, you’ll want to provide them with content in the body that shows the value and makes them look forward to the next email.

Staying on top of the news is important in the modern media age. People want to receive the newest information so they can feel in control. That’s why it’s important to show off current events, market news, and timely topics.

As mentioned in the point above, when you are using FMG’s email service, you can choose from a robust library with tons of editable content to include in your next email or newsletter. Tailor it to your niche and watch your conversions soar.

5. Build and Segment a Subscriber Lists

Marketers report a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns. For this reason, it’s important to build and segment your subscriber lists.

Inbox clutter is on the rise and this has caused people to become increasingly more sensitive to unwanted communication. Because of this, you need to develop your subscriber lists with relevance and care. When you do send an email, make it worthwhile for your audience to read it!

6. Create a Newsletter That Subscribers and Prospects Will Want To Read

Maybe you have the basics in place with your ESP (email service provider) but now you just need help creating content your subscriber base will read. Look no further! In this post, we’re giving you all the details on how to make a newsletter your subscribers will actually read.

Editing note: This article was originally published on March 27th, 2020, and has been updated to ensure consistency.