Email marketing is an often-overlooked channel for growing your client base. While you may be focused on social media or content creation, email affords valuable opportunities to connect and communicate with prospective and current clients. If you’re ready to venture into RIA email marketing, it helps to know how to get started and what best practices you should be following.
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Importance of Email Marketing for RIAs
Email is an important marketing tool because it offers you a direct pathway to prospects and clients. Sending emails to subscribers who are already interested in the information you’re sharing can:
- Encourage engagement
- Build trust
- Establish your credibility and authority
- Increase conversions and sales
Email marketing platforms allow you to create targeted campaigns and segment your list based on where your subscribers are in their client journey. A typical email sales funnel looks something like this:
Awareness –> Consideration –> Conversion –> Retention
Prospective clients enter the funnel when they become aware of your firm’s brand, products or services, and share their email with you. Once they’re in the funnel, you can use your content to guide them toward the desired goal of becoming – and remaining – your client.
RIA Email Marketing Strategies
Email marketing for RIAs isn’t that different from email marketing for other industries. You first need to know who you want to target with your email newsletters and what type of messaging you want to send.
Create a High-Value Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is something you offer to your audience to encourage prospects to join your email list. They share their name and email and, in exchange, you send them the lead magnet.
Examples of lead magnets for RIAs might include:
- A one-page estate planning checklist
- An e-book outlining your top five secrets for retiring early
- An online seminar that covers Social Security benefits planning
- A yearly financial statement template or spreadsheet
The type of lead magnet you create will ultimately depend on your target audience and what they need help with most.
Once you’ve developed one or more lead magnets, you can use your email marketing service to create subscription forms for each one. That allows prospects to access only the lead magnets they’re most interested in, which can help you segment your list.
Tailor Your Content
Segmenting your email list means that instead of sending the same messaging to all your subscribers, you only send them emails they’re most likely to read and engage with. Email segmentation can reduce your unsubscribe rate, increase engagement and improve conversions.
For example, say you’re offering all of the above-mentioned examples of lead magnets. You could identify subscribers who sign up for each one by assigning tags:
- Estate planning
- Retirement
- Social Security
- Financial statement
You can then create multiple email newsletters that feature content relevant to each of those topics and send them to subscribers that have the relevant tag.
That’s just one option for segmentation. You can also segment your list by demographics, engagement rates or geographic area. If creating multiple email newsletters seems like too much work, try repurposing content.
For example, you might publish a blog post with 10 early retirement planning tips. You could pick out a handful of the best tips and share them in an email newsletter with the segment of your list that’s interested in retirement. And you can include a link to the full post to drive traffic back to your financial advisor website.
Be Helpful
This tip sounds so simple, but it can’t be stressed enough. Any emails you send should be helpful and add value. If it’s not, you’re just cluttering up a prospect or client’s inbox, and that’s a good way to have them unsubscribe from your list altogether.
If you’re unsure what format to use in your emails, here are some suggestions.
- Tell a story about yourself that your audience might find relatable
- Answer some of the most frequently asked questions you receive from clients
- Create a four-week email series that builds on the previous week’s information
- Include infographics, images, gifs or videos
- Share resources that are most likely to be helpful to your audience
It’s also important to strike the right tone. Be helpful, but also be human and personable. Be authoritative and knowledgeable, but don’t be a know-it-all. You want your subscribers to see you as an expert, but also as someone who’s approachable and ready to listen to their concerns.
RIA Email Marketing Best Practices
Adopting best practices for RIA email marketing can help you avoid legal missteps or compliance violations. Here’s a simple checklist of things to watch out for when planning your email marketing campaign:
Get Consent
The CAN-SPAM Act, a federal act that governs email marketing compliance for businesses, does not explicitly require you to ask permission to add someone to your email marketing list. However, some state privacy laws and email marketing regulations in other countries do mandate consent.
Your best bet is to ask for your subscribers’ consent before adding them to your email list. This is easy to do if you’re using an email marketing platform to draft and send your newsletters. You can create a form that allows someone to enter their name and email address and post it on your website or blog.
When someone shares their information, they’ll receive an email notification with instructions to click a link to give their consent to be added.
Review Content Before Sending
The CAN-SPAM Act establishes certain rules for what you can and can’t say in marketing emails. These rules apply to all businesses and require you to:
- Avoid using false or misleading header information
- Avoid using deceptive subject lines
- Disclose that your message is an advertisement
- Tell recipients where you’re located
- Monitor what others are doing on your behalf with email marketing
Most importantly, you must tell your subscribers they can opt out and include instructions on how to do so. For example, at the very end of your email newsletter, you might include something like this:
No longer interested in receiving these emails? Click here to unsubscribe.
RIAs must also follow the SEC’s marketing rule when sharing marketing information via email. The SEC marketing rule requires RIAs to:
- Avoid making untrue statements or including unproven facts in their marketing materials
- Avoid misleading implications and references, or intentionally vague statements
- Apply fair and balanced treatment of all material risks or limitations when sharing information about investments
- Present investment advice in a fair and balanced manner
- Avoid cherry-picking performance results or presenting a hypothetical performance that isn’t specifically relevant to the intended audience
If you’re including client testimonials in your email marketing (or across other marketing channels), you must disclose any compensation you’ve paid to the client. You must also make appropriate disclosures relating to the use of third-party ratings in advertisements.
Be Consistent
Consistency is essential in email marketing. Whether you send emails weekly, biweekly or monthly, it’s important to show up when subscribers are expecting you to. That – along with sharing relevant, readable information – is how you build a loyal audience and facilitate an ongoing conversation with clients.
Automation tools can help. If you’re using an email marketing service, you likely have built-in tools that you can use to draft and schedule emails days or even weeks in advance. All you need to do is create the content, choose a date and time that you want your messages to go out, and let the marketing service do the rest.
Track Results
Monitoring results can help you fine-tune your email marketing strategy so that you’re focusing only on those tactics that prove most effective. Some of the metrics you may want to monitor include:
- Open rate
- Click rate
- Unsubscribes
If you’re using multiple lead magnets to gain subscribers, you can also track which ones are most popular. You can also use tracking metrics to experiment with A/B testing.
For example, say you typically send emails on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. and you’re getting an open rate of about 20%. You might try resending the same message on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. to the subscribers who didn’t open the first email to see if the time of day or day of the week makes a difference. You can also try similar experiments with different email subject lines or headlines to see which ones pique subscribers’ interest the most.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Does Email Marketing Work for RIAs?
Email marketing can be a highly effective tool for RIAs who want to spread brand awareness, generate more leads and grow their client base. As an inbound marketing tool, email can help you drive traffic to your website and establish a rapport with prospective clients while encouraging loyalty and retention among your existing clients.
What Is a Good Open Rate for RIA Marketing Emails?
A good open rate for email marketing is typically between 15% and 30%. If you’re regularly sending out email newsletters to your subscribers. but your open rate is below the 15% threshold, you may need to revisit your strategy. Changing your headlines or sending emails at a different time are two simple ways to increase email open rates.
What Is the Best RIA Email Marketing Software?
There are many email marketing programs to choose from, some of which are tailored specifically to RIAs and others that are designed for any kind of business. The best software for your firm is ultimately the one that offers the features and functionality that you’re looking for at the optimal price. Integration may also be important to you if you want to be able to connect your email marketing service with your customer relationship management (CRM) software.
Bottom Line
Email marketing can open up new doors for reaching your target audience. If you’re ready to tackle RIA email marketing, but don’t have a lot of time to spend, creating a newsletter template and using automation tools can simplify the process.
Tips for Growing Your Advisory Business
- Email is just one element of a well-rounded marketing plan. If you’re looking for a way to complement your existing marketing strategies, you might consider partnering with a platform that’s focused on RIA growth. SmartAsset AMP helps you match with leads and gives you the tools you need to follow up. Schedule a demo to learn how you can leverage it to expand your client base.
- Direct mail marketing is another way to connect with clients. Similar to email marketing, you can segment your mailing list to create personalized messaging for your recipients. If you’re unsure how to get started with direct mail marketing, there are third-party companies that offer end-to-end service with creating and managing campaigns.
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