Frequent communication is one of the most important ways you can establish trust with your clients. In fact, according to a recent McKinsey & Co. survey on global wealth and asset management, clients’ satisfaction with their financial advisor is directly correlated with the frequency of the advisor’s communications.
Yet only 33% of clients in the study said their advisor connects with them at least once a month. Sixty percent of clients hear from their advisor every three months or less.
Couple this with data found in a Financial Advisor survey asking clients why they fired an advisor. A whopping 72% named poor communications as a problem, and it was the No. 1 reason cited by almost 20%.
Now consider other problems: the current market and economic volatility. The communication challenges are bound to increase.
That means it’s critical that you establish a strong client communication strategy, one that consistently delivers timely and relevant content. It should show your clients you’re there for them and that you respond to events that might affect their financial plans. It may sound like a daunting task, but here are a few tips that may make it easier:
1. Write And Repurpose
You can easily burn out if you’re constantly writing emails and blogs for your clients. One way to avoid that is to have someone else do it: You can work with one of the many firms that create client content and that will customize it for your audience. Maybe you just need an outside firm to supplement what you’re already writing and sending out yourself.
But in fact there’s nothing better than something you’ve written yourself. Let’s say you have time to write just one blog per month. Ideally it would be some 2,000 words. If you have a blog that long, you can reuse it: You can take sections and repackage them in new ways.
Consider taking one or more sections and repurposing them for a timely client email, for example. You might need only some text from under one of the headers of your blog, something that works without additional context. Such information is perfect for an email because it’s short and sweet, and you can always link to the original blog to attract more readers. By separating your content this way, you can create multiple emails instead of one.
You can carve out content for social media the same way.
The result is an abundance of material. And since your more extensive blogs will often contain more research, you can rest assured that what you’re providing is valuable. All of this can be done without much more additional work. You’ll save both time and effort.
2. Overthink Your Subject Line
According to HubSpot, 35% of people receiving an email open it because of the subject line. It’s the first thing they see. And it’s critical to the open rate among your clients.
Strong subject lines appeal to a client’s emotion and imply that they will get a benefit out of reading it.
For example, one of the emails we recently sent our clients used the following subject line:
“Inverted Yield Curve + Inflation = Stay the Course.”
If that line has you looking for more information, that’s part of the idea. It builds curiosity. The email references a current concern and offers a solution. Of course, there are many ways to write the subject line, but keeping emotion and the benefits to the client at the top of your list can help improve results.