How Financial Advisors Can Automate Marketing

In today’s fast-paced financial advisory landscape, automation is transforming how advisors operate, enhancing client engagement and maximizing growth. Integrating streamlined workflows into your practice to handle repetitive tasks can help you realize a considerable reduction in labor and time costs, as well as potential increases in lead generation and conversion rates. Automating marketing tasks can help you drive growth while leaving you more time to focus on serving clients.

Add new clients and AUM at your desired pace with SmartAsset’s Advisor Marketing Platform. Sign up for a free demo today.

Automating Advisor Marketing With Tech Tools

One of the most efficient ways to automate advisor marketing is through the use of tools. Marketing automation tools come in many forms, each offering different features. To run campaigns effectively, financial advisors may consider tools that offer specific features. If a marketing function can be delegated to a virtual assistant or handled automatically, there is likely a tool that can do it.

Here are some examples of the most popular uses for marketing automation tools.

1. Lead Generation

To build a sustainable business, you need a steady stream of new leads. Finding them, however, can be challenging, especially for newly independent advisors building a book of business from scratch.

Gaining leads through a provider can help you find a consistent flow of potential clients. SmartAsset’s Advisor Marketing Platform (AMP), for example, is an end-to-end marketing platform that can automatically deliver a stream of referrals based on your target asset tier and geographic location. The platform directly connects advisors with leads over the phone, while a SmartAsset concierge representative facilitates the introduction with prospects.

SmartAsset AMP also has tools designed to help minimize the amount of manual follow-up that’s often required to convert leads into clients, especially those who necessitate a longer sales process. For instance, AMP’s Next Call feature automatically tracks and logs every contact an advisor has with a referral, updating their call list in real time and helping them keep track of who to call and when.

2. Email Marketing

Email can be a powerful marketing tool for advisors who want to convert more leads to clients. Building an email newsletter and maintaining it, however, can be time-consuming. That’s where automated marketing can make a difference.

Drip campaigns and email blasts are two types of automated email sequences that can be sent to clients or prospects to build rapport and strengthen connections. Financial advisors can use these campaigns to educate clients about financial topics, share market updates or promote services. You can draft all the content for your sequences at one time, then use a scheduler to send them to your audience over a set time period.

A marketing automation tool like SmartAsset AMP features the ability to build automated and personalized email drip campaigns, as well as custom text campaigns. T.J. Tamura, a financial advisor at Capitol Planning Group in Sacramento, California, has developed his own system and cadence for leveraging AMP’s email and text messaging automation tools.

“What I haven’t done yet, but is a goal for next year, is to record some nice video as well, because I know you can embed video and some other media so that can get sent out with your initial outreach,” Tamura told SmartAsset. “And then I have set up texts – maybe four or five to go – over about a three-month period. And then I have an email chain that’s a drip campaign that starts from the beginning and is getting sent out to those leads over the course of about a year.”

3. Social Media Management

Social media can be an effective digital marketing strategy if you’re consistently connecting with your target audience and fostering engagement. If you need a simpler strategy for managing your firm’s social media presence, automated marketing tools that offer robust scheduling capabilities, social media activity monitoring and performance analysis across multiple platforms can help.

For example, scheduling tools like Hootsuite, Buffer or Sprout Social enable financial advisors to plan and automate social media posts across multiple platforms. By preparing posts in advance, advisors can maintain consistent visibility without having to log in daily.

Social media automation tools also assist in curating industry-relevant content. Platforms like Feedly or Pocket, for instance, integrate with scheduling tools to share timely articles, infographics, or news updates, ensuring advisors remain active on social channels.

4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Automation

Customer relationship management (CRM) automation tools should provide contact management functions, task automation and analytics that enable advisors to manage client relationships efficiently and gain insights into client behavior and preferences. Automated workflows can guide clients through tasks such as submitting necessary documents, scheduling initial meetings or completing risk assessments.

Advisors who are considering SmartAsset AMP may value the platform’s integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Redtail, SmartOffice, Pipedrive and Wealthbox. You can compare and contrast different platforms to determine which one best aligns with your firm’s needs.

Client Acquisition Simplified: For RIAs

Ideal for RIAs looking to scale.
Validated referrals to help build your pipeline efficiently.
Save time + optimize your close rate with high-touch, pre-built campaigns.

CFP®, CEO

Joe Anderson

Pure Financial Advisors

We have seen a remarkable return on investment and comparatively low client acquisition costs even as we’ve multiplied our spend over the years.

Pure Financial Advisors reports $1B in new AUM from SmartAsset investor referrals.

What Automated Marketing Can Do for Financial Advisors

A financial advisor explains to clients how automated marketing will allow him to serve them efficiently.

Automated marketing can help financial advisors leverage technology and software to streamline and execute different tasks. These can include client communication and relationship-building campaigns with minimal manual intervention.

Automation can also handle repetitive tasks like sending specific types of emails such as newsletters, reminders or follow-ups, and scheduling social media posts. In this sense, automation is akin to a tireless virtual assistant that can help take care of repetitive marketing tasks, track and analyze client data and tailor marketing content based on client behavior.

Both large and small firms use marketing automation to deliver personalized content to clients that is based on their investment behavior. And these tools can make it possible for smaller firms to compete with bigger ones at a reasonable price.

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Benefits of Marketing Automation

One of the key selling points of marketing automation is its efficiency and relationship-building potential. Taking care of routine tasks such as email communications can free up valuable time that advisors could invest in other strategic tasks, like strategy formulation and client relationship building.

Marketing automation can also help you deliver personalized content to clients that is based on the collection of specific data. This can allow you to tailor messaging for client financial goals and create other content based on individual preferences and behaviors.

Finally, marketing automation can help advisors track client behavior, measure campaign performance and collect insights that can help you develop effective marketing strategies. For example, email open rates and click-through rates, among other metrics, can guide you in taking a data-driven approach to client campaigns and thereby boost your effectiveness.

Bottom Line

Financial advisors discussing how they could automate marketing for their firm.

Marketing automation can help financial advisors streamline marketing activities, enhance client engagement, draw valuable insights and possibly increase revenue. With the right tools and strategies, marketing automation could help increase your reach and impact. You should carefully evaluate different tools, seek expert advice and gradually integrate automation into your marketing activities.

Tips for Building Your Advisory Firm

SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) is a holistic marketing service financial advisors can use for client lead generation and automated marketing. Sign up for a free demo to explore how SmartAsset AMP can help you expand your practice’s marketing operation. Get started today.
Another opportunity is to improve your flow of leads coming online. When developing your social media content and distribution strategy, it’s helpful to look at it through the lens of your ideal client. For instance, social media content or blog content that speaks to specific financial struggles, triggers emotion or sparks debate is typically more likely to grab a prospect’s attention.

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